By the Numbers: A Closer Look at the BadgerCare Cuts Approved Friday

As you have probably heard by now, federal officials notified the Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) late on Friday that the state will be allowed to make significant cost-cutting changes to BadgerCare. We’ve been gathering information about the human and fiscal consequences of the cuts, which will start taking effect on July 1, and here’s a compilation of some of the key numbers from the preliminary estimates:

• $28 million – State General Fund spending reduction resulting from the approved changes;
• $42 million – Loss of federal Medicaid matching funds because of the cuts to BadgerCare;
• $0 – Amount of federal match the state gets if hospitals experience a jump in spending for uncompensated care;
• 17,000 – Approximate number of adults expected to lose their BadgerCare coverage;
• 64,748 – DHS estimate of number of people who would have lost their BadgerCare coverage if the original DHS plan had been approved;
• 48,000 – The latest DHS estimate of number of BadgerCare recipients who will pay higher premiums because of the changes;
• 29,000 – Number of children who could lose BadgerCare coverage if the "maintenance of effort" (MOE) requirements in the health care reform law are repealed or struck down by the Supreme Court;
• 305,000 – WCCF estimate of number of people who could have much higher co-pays and narrower BadgerCare benefits if the Alternative benchmark plan is approved.

Report Finds that Recovery Act Effectively Combated Poverty

IRP Research Shows Antipoverty Programs Reduced Unofficial Poverty Rate in Wisconsin in 2010 

A report released Wednesday by the Institute for Research on Poverty (IRP) at UW Madison examines the effects of the antipoverty programs on the poverty rate in Wisconsin.  Not surprisingly, the official measure of poverty shows an increase in Wisconsin between 2009 and 2010.   However, the IRP’s alternative gauge of poverty (the “Wisconsin Poverty Measure” or WPM) showed a decrease in the poverty from 11.1% to 10.3%.

Whereas the official poverty measure is based just on pre-tax cash income, the WPM uses a broader lens that also examines taxes, tax credits, and “near cash” income such as food stamps. Last year the IRP concluded that from 2008 to 2009 the alternative poverty measure was flat in Wisconsin, because the drop in families’ income was offset by tax credits and food assistance benefits, which were enhanced that year by the federal Recovery Act. During the following year, the WPM reveals that those enhanced federal benefits more than offset the loss of wages for low-income families – yielding “an unexpected drop in the number of individuals and families living in poverty in 2010.”

Will Wisconsin's Health Coverage for Childless Adults Wither Away?

Letter to HHS Argues that State Must Lift the Current Freeze

I’ve been very surprised that so little attention has been paid to the plunging participation in Wisconsin’s BadgerCare Plus Core Plan, which provides modest health care coverage for adults who don’t have dependent children. As the following chart shows, enrollment in the Core Plan peaked at more than 65,000 in January 2010, and it has declined rapidly since then, to about 26,800 last month – a drop of 59 percent. In the last 12 months alone, BadgerCare Core participation has fallen by more than 13,000.

The decline is caused by the combination of monthly attrition and a freeze on new Core Plan enrollment, which was imposed in the fall of 2009 when then unexpected number of applications was pushing participation well beyond the budgeted level. The Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) initiated a waiting list at that time, and that list has now grown to more than 128,000!