Browsing: Medicaid

After spiking sharply during the COVID-19 pandemic, the share of Wisconsin’s population enrolled in Medicaid has declined substantially and has nearly returned to its pre-pandemic baseline.

Overall spending by the federal and state governments on Medicaid has never once been reduced since Congress approved the program in 1965.

At a time when Medicaid fraud is making national news, Wisconsin ought to impose greater discipline on a program that now costs taxpayers $36.4 billion over the 2025-27 budget cycle.

Very few people know it, but Wisconsin’s Medicaid program is in the housing business.

Not construction or real estate, but assistance in finding a home for any Medicaid recipient with a qualifying health or mental health issue and a qualifying risk of homelessness.

States with higher shares of Medicaid enrollment tend to have longer overall visits to emergency rooms, analysis by the Badger Institute found.

Even if one isn’t moved by rising dependency, bigger government or the appalling waste of human potential, that immunity to fiscal disaster is enough to make Wisconsinites think: Thank God Wisconsin’s Republicans had a spine on Medicaid.

The U.S. Senate has an opportunity to slow the growth of Medicaid, something that hasn’t been seriously tried for decades, Sen. Ron Johnson says.

After a year-long disenrollment, there are still 163,221 more people on Medicaid in Wisconsin than there were before the start of the pandemic, at a cost to taxpayers of at least $50 million a year.

A state Department of Health Services decision to take a year to remove ineligible people from Wisconsin’s Medicaid rolls — much slower than many other states — will cost federal and state taxpayers an estimated $745 million.

As the Wisconsin Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee begins budget deliberations, Gov. Tony Evers is pushing for a $31.6 billion budget for Medicaid over the next two years, a $4.2 billion biennial increase. The $27.4 billion being spent on Medicaid in the current two-year cycle already represents nearly 30% of all state spending.

Turns out, as it always does when you look at where federal tax dollars end up in this country, Wisconsin is bringing up the tail end in the scramble for COVID cash.
January 13, 2022

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