I'm State Senator Kelda Royce, and I'm running for governor to raise wages, lower costs,
have the best public schools in the nation, and to protect our rights and freedoms.
I'm here today to talk about my plan for health care in Wisconsin, my vision, to bring
us closer to universal affordable health care coverage for every single Wisconsin night.
As I travel around the state, I hear about a lot of different issues.
But one thing that comes up every single time is the way in which so many Wisconsin
nights do not have access to affordable health care.
Even if they do have insurance, it costs way too much, and the premiums are skyrocketing.
It doesn't cover what it should.
People and providers are spending time arguing with insurance companies, and we cannot continue
like this.
Our country spends more per capita than any other country on health care, and yet we
have some of the worst outcomes in the world, right, in terms of our longevity, our level
of illness, our infant and maternal mortality rates.
We're not getting what we're paying for.
My plan is very different than what my friends in this Democratic primary are offering, because
it takes something that is actually working well in health care in Wisconsin, and that's
the coverage that I receive as a state employee.
I have high quality, comprehensive insurance.
We have several non-profit provider-owned insurers that provide health coverage to
state employees, and there are also some private insurance companies as well.
But it is very predictable because we are part of a really large pool, and what that means
is I know that if my kid gets sick, I can take my kid to the doctor, and it's not going
to result in a huge bill.
I know that if I were to have a bad diagnosis or be in a car accident, that it's not going
to bankrupt my family.
And that kind of health security is something that every single Wisconsin, no matter who
you are, where you're from, or who you work for, absolutely deserves.
My plan, Kaldecare, will allow anyone in Wisconsin, an individual or an employer, to
buy in, at cost, to the very same coverage that state employees get.
Now, to be clear, this is not a taxpayer-funded plan, right?
You will have to pay the cost.
And if you're an employer, you're probably going to find that being a part of the state
plan is cheaper, provides better coverage, and takes away from that time tax of having
to constantly be looking for more affordable health insurance options.
I talked to Kyle, a teacher up in Superior, Wisconsin, who said that this year, their
insurance premiums for the school district, were going up 38%, 38%, so guess what, not
only is no teacher in Superior going to be getting a raise this year, they'll all functionally
be getting a pay cut.
I talked to an owner of a mid-size manufacturing company in Merrill, who said that it used to
be a matter of pride for her, that she was able to cover the health insurance costs,
you know, all the premium costs for her in place.
And over the past 20 years, that percentage that she's been able to cover has gone down
and down and down, and now she's looking at how can I even offer coverage, maybe everyone's
just going to have to go on an ACA.
This is a problem that we can solve with public policy by letting people buy in at cost.
And let me lay out some of the benefits to taxpayers for this.
Number one, when you have a larger pool, you can spread the administrative costs of that
program over a broader number of people, and that will bring down the cost for taxpayers.
Number two, a big reason that premiums keep going up and up and up in health insurance
is uncompensated and undercompensated care, because people don't have insurance or their
insurance isn't good enough to cover things.
And this is why I have a friend who is an emergency room doctor.
She tells me every single day there is somebody in the emergency room who says, do I really
need to be here, because I don't think I can afford it.
That cost, that care is being provided, but the cost is not being born by the uninsured
patient generally, because they don't have the money.
If they had money, they'd have insurance.
It is being born by the providers, the system, and all of us who have private insurance,
and so that's going in to increase our premiums.
When we expand access to coverage, we can reduce that compensated care and slow the growth
of premiums that we have experienced.
Perhaps most importantly, here we are in Milwaukee at a federally qualified health
center.
Throughout Wisconsin, we have a severe provider shortage.
We have rural hospitals and clinics closing their doors.
We have critical access hospitals in jeopardy of closing and leaving millions of Wisconsin
nights without access to care that they need.
In large part, because of uncompensated care.
My plan, because the state health insurance plans reimburse providers at a reasonable
rate, so not less than the cost of care, but the actual cost of providing the care, we
can help keep those critically provider doors open for Wisconsin nights in communities like
Milwaukee, up in Ashland where I was this weekend, throughout the state.
Now this is not the only piece of my health care plan.
I also have detailed plans for how we're going to invest in mental health and behavioral
health, how we're going to protect access to reproductive rights and reproductive freedom
so that politicians are never between you and your doctor, and how we can help lower
the cost of prescription drugs and increase the pipeline of providers here in Wisconsin.
But the ad that my campaign released today really focuses on the fact that we need affordable
access to high quality health insurance, and that's what I'm going to deliver with Kelda
Care as governor.
I would be happy to take any questions.
Senator, Republicans are going after your latest ad saying that escalates to the rhetoric
by saying that U of P insurance companies are trying to kill us.
What's your response to that?
Well I would just say look at the data.
You know, we're a state that should have expanded Badger Care and covered at least 80,000 more
Wisconsin nights over the last 15 years.
I wonder how many Wisconsinites in that time, who would have been eligible for the expanded
Badger Care coverage are dead because they did not have access to that care.
I think about the women who have died post-dobs because they were turned away and they had
to bleed out or go septic instead of receiving access to abortion care.
I think about the substandard care that we have been providing as a state to women of
color and babies of color pre and postpartum because Robin Voss was blocking the extended
coverage for postpartum care for low-income women.
There is a very, very real cost, not just financial, but human, when we deny people
access to health care.
And that is why throughout my political career I have been always dedicated to getting more
people access to high-quality health care and health insurance coverage every single
year.
But in the midst of political violence that we've seen in assassination attempts is saying
Republicans are trying to kill us appropriately, which during a campaign like this.
Well I think the line is, it's almost like they're trying to kill us.
And this is language that I have heard again and again from patients around the state and
from the doctors who are trying desperately to care for them and saying these patients
are not able to get the care.
They are dying because they don't have access to it.
Do you think health care is the area where you couldn't stand out in what's becoming
very jumbled in the private primary?
I think health care is absolutely top of mind for voters, both for this primary election
and for the general.
I think that there are many areas where I stand apart from my friends in this primary.
Health care is certainly one, but I also think public education is another one.
I am the candidate that has put a stake in the ground and has a plan to bring the private
voucher scheme that is diverting billions of dollars from our public schools into the
pockets of unaccountable privatizers to bring that program to a responsible end.
I'm also the candidate that has a more than two decades long track record of actually
passing laws in the toughest of political environments and really delivering progressive
change for people.
In line of the news regarding Sarah Rodriguez and her campaign finance issues, have you
been talking with Missy Hughes?
Have you been talking to David Crowley to try to get them to change their enforcement
to you?
I have heard from and of course have reached out to hundreds of folks around the state
and I'm proud to say that I have earned the support of many, many people who initially
were supporting other candidates including Missy and David and Sarah.
This is the work that all campaigns and candidates should be constantly doing.
It is ABC, always be campaigning and working to earn people's support and votes.
I do think that the dynamics have shifted markedly in this race.
We've always known that this is going to be a very late-breaking primary, that there
is really, we're not going to really know anything until August 11th because so many
people are still not paying attention and don't in fact even know that there's an election
going on and that because there are not huge resources that any candidate has, there has
been very little communication.
We announced four weeks ago that we were putting forth a statewide ad buy of half a
million dollars that's been up for four weeks.
We announced earlier this week now we've got another ad buy focused on the Milwaukee
media market up on broadcast.
So we are all in, we are making those investments because we believe that this is the moment
when people are going to start paying attention and I am the candidate that folks all across
the Democratic Party from folks on the left and young people who feel like politics has
failed them to moderate sort of normy Democrats to those disaffected Trump voters can find
in me a candidate who is responsible, who listens and who is focused on the issues that
matter most to Wisconsin.
So no direct conversations with Crowley or with Hughes?
Not no.
How would you describe the state of the race as we sit here at this moment?
I would describe it as completely wide open and up in the air.
I still think that Mandela Barnes has a significant advantage because of his name ID and that
makes sense because you know I think close to 70 million dollars was spent trying to
elect him to the United States Senate four years ago and so people do know his name.
But we also know from our polling that that support is very, very soft and that most Democrats
want somebody else to be able to carry the banner.
The job of governor is a very serious one and this is a once in a generation opportunity.
We need a candidate at the top of the ticket who will not only beat Tom Tiffany but help
us deliver a Democratic Assembly and Senate.
And most importantly we need somebody who is actually capable of doing the job of governing.
What's your July campaign finance report going to show?
I already released a report basically outlining the fact that I have raised 1.2 million dollars
in this campaign.
I have spent a good number of that on the early investment in media that I've already
outlined in press releases and that people have seen on their screens.
So I'm probably not going to have as high of cash on hand as some of the other candidates.
But I can assure you that the numbers that I put out in my campaign finance report and
file with the state will be accurate and that voters can trust the numbers that I put in there.
Is that a shot at Rodriguez?
Questions?
Are the errors in Rodriguez campaign finance reports disqualifying in your mind should
you drop out of the bid?
It's not for me to tell anybody else how to run their race.
I can tell you that when I looked at those finance reports in January it didn't take
me about five minutes to immediately say hey there's something wrong here.
There's so many duplicates what's going on.
And as a candidate for office I have run five campaigns.
I ran a statewide nonprofit organization for four years.
I have run a small business for 13 years through boom and bus times and I have served
on the Joint Finance Committee in the state senate.
I cannot imagine having no financial procedures in place where you could end up with such
a massive discrepancy and not be looking at the bank balance and reconciling that with
the numbers that you're getting.
It is simply unimaginable that you would have no idea that you were basically inflating
your fundraising numbers, almost doubling them in representations that were being made
to donors.
There is no way that that should be able to happen.
You know every day how much money you raise, how much money you spend, and you should be
reconciling those internal books with what's actually in your checking account.
You mentioned Mino Barnes earlier, do you think that Barnes or Francesco Hom could be
Tiffany in November?
I think that's up to us in Wisconsin.
I think that we cannot allow Tom Tiffany to be governor.
There is no question about that.
And I have in, you know, since I was in high school I've never sat on an election cycle
and I will not be sitting out this one regardless of whether I am the nominee.
I do think that I am the strongest candidate to beat Tom Tiffany.
I think I am the strongest candidate to help give us our best chance of flipping that
legislature democratic.
And I am by far the candidate with the experience to actually govern the state on day one.
And by the way, that is not just an opinion that I hold.
That is also borne out by the fact that I have by far the most endorsements of elected
and former elected officials from every corner of the state.
I actually have more endorsements from Milwaukee County than any of the other candidates.
I have the biggest endorsement in the race, which is we act our state teachers union and
the backing of former lieutenant governor Barbara Lawton.
So folks who are paying attention and who really know what's at stake here have already
made their choice.
And they've said that Calderon is our strongest choice.
Is that more much at the field to himself and run multiple as per train himself as
a friendly guy at the bar or neighbor next door?
Is that too big of a hill to overcome after this primary assault?
What kind of ads will have to be aired in order to contrast that with this record that you're
going to talk about?
Absolutely not.
I think it's really important that Wisconsinites know the truth about Tom Tiffany.
Listen, I like old fashions.
I've got four daughters and a son.
I like going to the nutcracker with them.
That is not what qualifies me to be governor.
What qualifies me to be governor is that unlike Tom Tiffany who is a rubber stamp for Donald
Trump, I am an independent thinker who has strong democratic values but has also worked
across the aisle year after year to get things done and actually deliver for people.
He wants a national abortion ban.
I believe that you and your body and your health, those decisions belong only to you
and not to your neighborhood politician.
Tom Tiffany is an election denier.
I believe in free and fair elections and fair maps.
Tom Tiffany supported Donald Trump's illegal tariffs that are bankrupting our farmers and
our small businesses and raising our prices at the grocery store.
I've taken action again and again to stand up to bullies and billionaires like Donald
Trump.
I will deliver for Wisconsinites.
Tom Tiffany only cares about doing whatever Donald Trump wants.
Thank you, I appreciate it.
Thank you so much.