Expanding BadgerCare is not only unnecessary, it is immoral.
Expansion is unnecessary because there is no uninsured gap in Wisconsin. The Kaiser Family Foundation said back in January that there is a gap in some states but not here.
Wisconsin currently costs people enrolled $8 dollars per-month in premiums, while costing the state nearly $11 billion according to a MacIver analysis. Gov. Evers is promising to bring back $1.6 billion with an expansion, but in reality he would be tying Wisconsin to the whims of Congress and increasing Medicaid spending to over $13 billion, according to MacIver.
There is also the reality that nothing the federal government does, or promises has ever come in on (or under) budget.
Outside of the numbers, expanding BadgerCare is immoral.
Our social service safety net is supposed to be for the truly needy. That is single moms, sick grandmas, and people with profound disabilities. Most of the people who became eligible under the Obamacare expansions of a few years ago were single, able bodied, young men who could be working. It would be the same with a BadgerCare expansion.
Gov. Evers is trying to send single moms, sick grandmas, and people with profound disabilities to the back of the line with this expansion. Adding newly eligible people comes with a sweetener from the federal government. Those patients are worth more, therefore they will be treated more (and likely more often).
Every state that expanded Medicaid under Obamacare saw this happen. They also saw a large increase in the number of people in this country illegally enroll in a program that is only supposed to be for U.S. citizens.
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