As we discussed earlier, cuts and
changes to social safety net
programs figure prominently
in political discourse right now.
In Wisconsin, by the numbers,
nearly 1.3 million children
and adults are enrolled in Medicaid
and 700,000
receive food share.
For a closer look at how
congressional changes to these
programs could look in Wisconsin,
we turn to Bill Hanna, Medicaid
Director at the Wisconsin Department
of Health Services.
And thanks for being here.
Thank you, happy to be here.
Well, we know what the House did
on Medicaid and nutritional
assistance. Cuts could go deeper
under the Senate provisions.
As it stands, before Senate
action, some analyzes show nearly
230,000 people in Wisconsin
could lose Affordable Care
Act and Medicaid coverage.
Is that what your analysis is
showing?
We're focused on analysis on
Medicaid. That's where we have the
specific data.
Wisconsin's part of the national ACA
plan and really we rely on
national experts on the ACA data.
But for Medicaid specifically,
we estimate that 63,000
adults without children under
the age of 18 would be at risk
of losing their Medicaid coverage.
I think it's important to note that
the coverage won't just impact
those individuals.
It really impacts all
of us because those
individuals still need to see their
doctors or go to the hospital.
They'll just be uninsured and
those additional costs get passed on
to all health care consumers.
What is it in the bill
that prompts people to lose
that coverage?
Yeah, the House bill creates a lot
of additional red tape for this
population to maintain their
eligibility first
It requires them to
complete their medicaid application
or renewals every six months instead
of once a year as it is today
And it requires them,
to submit documentation
to prove that they are meeting work
requirements
So what cost do provisions
of the bill add for the state of
Wisconsin now fashioning its own
budget?
Yeah, we we take eligibility
enrollment very seriously here in
Wisconsin. We run a very efficient
program. We have one of the lowest
eligibility error rates in
the in the country.
But this will require
additional costs.
We are really doubling the amount
of work in a year to do eligibility
for the 195,000
adults that this would subject to,
meaning the state and county
eligibility workers will
need to hire more workers and
we will need make changes to our
system in order to
verify and collect that work
requirement information.
We estimate it'll cost us about
five and a half million dollars each
year to implement these changes
in Wisconsin.
On food share, the House bill would
mean about 90,000 people would
lose their assistance, according to
your office.
How does the bill result in those
people losing those benefits?
Yeah, there are already work
requirements in food share today,
but the bill drastically changes
who's required to meet the
food share requirements.
Today, it's adults between
18 and 54 who
do not have dependent children.
What the bill does is
expands that to adults
between
and includes adults with
children if their children are not
under age seven.
So you really increase the number
of adults that need to meet
work requirements in order to
maintain their food share benefits.
And we estimate that about 90,000
individuals would likely lose
their food share benefits because of
this expanded requirement.
So the bill would also start
penalizing the state for
snap error rates,
costing Wisconsin $207
million annually.
What are those errors?
Yeah, errors are just that, they're
errors, right?
It's not fraud.
Determining medic or food share
eligibility, it's complex.
And occasionally there are mistakes.
If you think about doing your taxes
and occasionally there's a
mistake, there's
lot that changes in people's lives.
You think about this population,
they're often doing gig work,
meaning their income can change.
There's a lot of deductions that go
into calculating it.
So, it's complex
and getting it
to the dollar accurate.
We already have one of the lowest
error rates in the country.
In fact, the error rate went down
last year. We're well below the
national average.
The national average is 11.7.
Wisconsin is at 4.4.
But the bill
continues to
sort of narrow that
tolerance for any even
$1 error in calculating
payments.
It also is an incredible cost
shift, not just for the
error rate, because what it does for
the first time is requires states
to contribute towards food share
benefits, which at a minimum will
cost us $69 million a
year in Wisconsin.
It also changes the amount
of the administrative costs that
the federal government will pay.
Today, they pay 50% of those costs,
split 50-50 with the state.
Going forward, they would only cover
25% of the costs.
So that's an additional $51 million
for us to just run the program
that we run today, that is a
well-run program.
And the bill gives us no additional
tools to control costs
or any other flexibilities to
try to...
Really control costs in
the food share problem.
Well, we appreciate your
information, Bill Hanna.
Thanks very much.
Thank you.
Yeah, that whole food share
thing is
a lot.
And I mean, I didn't want to
go down this road,
but state budget writers right now
are having to look
at this and say, OK, where's this
coming from?
We are having those conversations
right with both obviously the
governor and the legislature are
going to have to figure this out
and it is a cost that again
we don't have a lot of control over
how we do
the food share program.
Well, thank you for your
information, and we'll be watching
that.
Do you know when those
provisions come up before joint
finance?
Or how that's working?
Oh, so there's...
So they're still talking about
this because there's still so much
uncertainty at the federal level,
right? Which is really hard for us
to budget. We want the state budget
done by the end of
June and
the Senate's talking about not
having this federal bill done until
July if they get it done.
So a little tricky right now,
I think, with all the uncertainty at
the Federal level.
Indeed.
All around.
All right, thank you.
Thank you so much.