Wisconsin – Governor Jim Doyle’s Healthcare Reform Proposal
The following summary was derived from information released by the office of Governor Doyle:
Dolye's plan will ensure that at least 98 percent of residents would have access to healthcare coverage. To do it, Doyle would:
- Merge three Medicaid programs for poor families into one - BadgerCare Plus - by January 2008. Doyle said the plan would be simpler and more efficient for both patients and state bureaucrats and would use administrative savings plus savings from greater use of HMO-style care to fund a coverage expansion to nearly 115,000 more parents, children, and pregnant mothers. The plan will offer health coverage to every child in Wisconsin. Low-income families would simply enroll their children into BadgerCare Plus, while families at higher incomes would be able to buy into the program, starting at about $10 a month.
- Expand Medicaid by January 2009 to offer coverage to 71,000 uninsured workers without children at a yearly cost of $40 million in state money and $60 million in federal matching funds. Workers making up to $20,000 a year and pregnant mothers making up to $30,600 a year would be eligible, with adults at the higher income levels paying premiums for their coverage on a sliding scale.
- Creating a purchasing pool to help businesses – particularly small businesses – afford catastrophic health coverage for employees.
- Investing $30 million to help doctors and hospitals use health information technology to eliminate costly medical errors.
To learn more, please visit http://www.wisgov.state.wi.us/journal_media_detail.asp?locid=19&prid=2510
This page was last updated on 4/17/2007
