The following program is a PBS Wisconsin original production.
>> The Union busting act ten gets upended. What happens next?
And our Medicare Advantage plan, as advantageous as the name
suggests. I'm Frederica Freyberg. Tonight
on "Here& Now", Congressman Mark Pocan on his bill to rename
these so-called advantage plans. What's next for the
controversial law that broke Wisconsin unions? Is affordable
housing feasible under Trump policies and the immutable and
emerging needs of foster care? It's "Here& Now" for December
six. >> Funding for "Here& Now" is
provided by the Focus Fund for Journalism and Friends of PBS
Wisconsin. >> The airwaves are flooded
right now with ads from insurance brokers wanting to
sell health care plans, because open enrollment for Medicare
closes tomorrow, December 7th. Many of the ads are for plans
through private insurers called Medicare Advantage. 56% of
Wisconsinites are in Medicare Advantage plans, which have
grown in popularity because of marketing and because many plans
charge no premiums and offer benefits not offered in
traditional Medicare like dental, vision and hearing
coverage. For no additional cost. It's easy to see why such
plans are attractive to seniors, but there's a bill in Congress
called the Save Medicare Act, designed to make clear the
advantage. Plans are not what they say they are. Wisconsin
District two Congressman Mark Pocan is sponsor of the bill.
And thanks very much for being here.
Fredricka. clear? The advantage plans are
does it do that? >> It's largely educational at
this point to make sure people understand that only Medicare is
Medicare. Some very smart lobbyists a few decades ago got
a bill that allowed these plans to be called Medicare Advantage.
We don't allow you to call yourselves the United States
Postal Service and pizza delivery. We don't allow you to
use any other federal program in a private company's product. But
that's exactly what Medicare Advantage plans are, is a
private alternative to Medicare. And they are in some cases for
people, you know, advantageous, right? They think that they can
get dental vision or hearing, which we should cover in
Medicare, and we don't. And they can get that through that plan.
membership or something else that gives them a little extra.
The problem is then there's the rest of the story, and a lot of
the complaints that we get in my office are from people who have
Medicare Advantage programs, who for example, need health care.
Suddenly they may not maybe in their 60s when they signed up,
but by their 70s or 80s they do. And you have to get prior
authorization. Now, you don't do that with Medicare, but often it
gets denied millions of cases a year due. And the odd part is
when they get appealed, over 85% of those are overturned. So
really it's just nickel and diming trying to save some money
by the insurance companies. But it's delayed health access for
people who have those plans. Also, if you are out of network,
you're traveling and there's no one in network you have to pay
out of pocket. There's a lot of little fine print, and we just
want people to think about it and understand only Medicare.
That you've paid for all your life is Medicare. There are
alternative programs. Sometimes they work well for people, but
often by the complaints we get in the office, they don't.
>> How confusing is this for people looking to sign up?
>> Intentionally. Very confusing, right? You know, just
the fact that the loan in the name is Medicare Advantage. And
when I asked people in town halls how many people are on
Medicare, how many on Medicare Advantage, people really don't
know if Medicare is in the name, and they assume that's what they
have. And yet it is a private insurance alternative. And agai,
for some people, especially the younger folks in their 60s, it
might be just fine. But it's also hard once you're on that to
then suddenly go back to Medicare. That's not easy
either, because it's made complicated by, again, some
pretty smart and I'm guessing wealthy lobbyists back when this
law became in place. So again, a lot of this is education. We
just want people to realize, look very closely, look at your
health situation. Do you travel? Then maybe those plans aren't as
as good. Do you have a health concern or a future, something
genetically in your family that it maybe you don't want to wait
for prior authorization, or they make you do something other than
what your doctor and you have decided is your best care. They
might make you stage up to that and lost time is lost health. So
I just want people to be well aware of what decision they're
making. It's and the other thing don't forget is Medicare doesn't
advertise like these. Medicare Advantage plans. So the only
thing you see are private plans, advertising and the federal
a business. So we don't do the same thing. And sometimes people
don't get a chance to really know what Medicare is and
understand that difference. >> Do these plans end up, in the
end, being more expensive, notwithstanding some of the
perks like zero premiums and coverage for these other things?
>> It's generally more expensive in terms of your health, right?
If you can't get the care you need right away, like you would
with Medicare, that could cost you. If you have to wait 3 to 6
months longer because they're making you do other treatments
first or they denied it, and you have to appeal it 3 to 6 months
on, some types of health care could literally be, if not your
life, at least your the quality of your life. And that's the
complaints we get all too often. And then some people, you know,
signed up in their 60s, it was worked out fine. And now in
their upper 70s, they need health care. It's really hard to
go back to Medicare. And that's also part of the problem. So
there's a whole lot we're working on this. A lot of us in
Congress are working on this right now, trying to make it
work better. And my hope is that that will happen at some point
down the road. But for now, just having the right information
allows you to make the best choice for you and your loved
ones. >> Now, traditional Medicare has
so many parts to it at at extra cost. What about a way to
simplify and streamline that? >> Trust me, there's I would
love to do some changes to Medicare. I'd like to include
dental, vision and hearing because clearly that is health
care. And there's some other things that we'd like to do as
well. But, you know, Congress isn't exactly a fast moving
body. There's a reason why we're moving so slow. Right?
That's just part of the reality. So until we get to those things,
that's why these Medicare Advantage programs can look
better. But again, looks can be deceiving. If you have to get
prior authorization. And if you get turned down like millions of
people do a year and you've lost that ability to get quick care,
is that really in your best interest? If you're traveling in
California and you're out of network and now everything is
completely out of pocket, is that in your best interest? And
there's so many other examples like this that we get calls into
our office every single week. >> All right. Congressman Mark
Pocan, thanks very much. >> Sure. Thank you.
>> The Madison Teachers Union is demanding to bargain with the
district after a Dane County judge this week restored
collective bargaining rights for most Wisconsin public employees
that were effectively eliminated under former Governor Scott
Walker's act ten. But how long will that window of bargaining
opportunity last before a higher court stays? The Dane County
order as it moves along the appeals process? We turn to
Bryna Godar, a staff attorney at the State Democracy Research
Initiative at the UW Law School. Thanks very much for being here.
>> Thanks for having me. >> So as to that question, the
Republican legislature already appealed this Dane County order.
How long might this window last for unions hoping to exercise
their bargaining rights under the Dane County order?
>> So it could be pretty short. The legislature is almost
certainly going to ask the Court of Appeals for a stay of the
lower court's decision, meaning it would be on pause and
wouldn't go into effect yet. And then if that happens, it could
be months before we actually get a final resolution in the case
or before that stay is lifted. And that would likely require
the Wisconsin Supreme Court to weigh in eventually.
in a in a moment. But does the legislature have a good basis
for appeal in your mind? >> So I think it's a tough case.
I think it raises some complicated legal issues. And so
there are strong arguments on either side. So they certainly
have a basis to appeal the decision.
County ruling focused on the separate treatment of public
safety employees under act ten. What was the legal argument
supporting overturning the law on the basis of this separate
treatment? in on how public safety
employees were defined. And the court said that it was fine for
the legislature to distinguish between public safety employees
and general employees, so could distinguish between police
officers and firefighters and the like and other employees.
But the way that it had drawn those lines was not rational or
reasonable. And so what it really looked at was things like
that group included municipal firefighters, municipal police
officers, state motor vehicle inspectors, state traffic
certain groups like UW police, Capitol Police or conservation
wardens who you might expect to be in that group. And so what
the court really looked at was, was there a way that you could
sort of define that public safety group in a way that was
Rafter rational or reasonable, and it didn't find a clear
reason on which to draw those lines.
>> Well, even from the outset of the signing of this law, it
always seemed a little like, why them but not them?
>> Yeah. And that's that's what this case came down to. And
because he determined that you couldn't draw that line in a
rational way, he decided you needed to strike down that
distinction. And the result of that was that the general
employees category now has the same collective bargaining
rights as those who were previously carved out under the
public safety category. >> So how likely is it that
other unions, like the Madison Teachers Union, would scramble
to reinstate collective bargaining following the ruling?
>> So I think it depends sort of on how long the stay lasts on
sort of strategically, how much it makes sense to mobilize those
resources. But I do think it's worth noting that unions have
still. Excuse me, been able to exist and do some limited
collective bargaining. And so they can still do organizing
preemptively, even if this decision is stayed to sort of
prepare for those upcoming negotiations. If this decision
is ultimately upheld. >> So as we've discussed, the
likely path for this is that it lands in the Wisconsin Supreme
Court. The balance of that court right now is a liberal majority.
We know we are coming into a spring election. How dicey is
that for both sides in this case?
>> I think the biggest thing is that it just is going to mean
that act ten is a really salient issue in the upcoming election.
So it's highly unlikely that the state Supreme Court will decide
the issue before the April election. But they very well
could decide it before August, which is when that next justice
would be taking their seat on the court.
>> So do you think it becomes a salient issue to the extent that
it kind of turns into a referendum on act ten,
potentially. >> I think act ten has really
been off the radar for a lot of people for quite a while now,
and so I think it might become more of a referendum on it. This
time around. I think in addition to some of the other issues that
we already saw in the prior election, like abortion as a as
a matter of law, how surprising was it that this lawsuit
actually stuck when so many against Act ten failed? Yeah. So
I think it definitely is something that people kind of
weren't paying attention to anymore and didn't necessarily
expect to see this time around. The legislature was making those
arguments that essentially the it was too late to bring these
claims and that they should have been brought in prior lawsuits.
But the court rejected those arguments, and it really looked
at the fact that this case did bring distinct legal claims from
those prior cases, and that they weren't the same plaintiffs as
those prior cases. all will be watching this Bryna
Godar, thanks very much. Thank you. The housing crunch,
especially for affordable housing, is at crisis levels,
according to experts. How might the incoming Trump
administration help or hurt the need? We turn to UW-Madison
professor of urban planning Kurt Paulsen. Thanks for being here.
>> Thanks for having me. >> So what is the scope of the
crisis in the housing system here in Wisconsin? And
nationally? the national trends, which is
that home sales are down year over year since the pandemic
started. That means there's just a lot less inventory for people
to buy, and prices are going up. When you combine prices going up
with higher interest rates, it means that for your starter
home, your first time home buyer, millennials, Gen Z,
younger workers or seniors who want to move down to some
something smaller, there's just no product available and
anything that's available is really expensive. And so we see
it in the trends in Wisconsin, which is that we have really low
home ownership rates for our workers under the age of 30. On
the rental side, of course, rents have gone up significantly
20 to 30% over the last couple of years. Add to that the crisis
is that the cost of building anything new has gone up 40%
since the pandemic, so it really is a perfect storm where you
have rising prices, rising rents and not rising incomes at the
same level so that middle class families can't afford to buy a
home. First time homebuyers can't afford to buy a home, and
most lower wage workers can't afford any decent rental housing
anywhere near where they want to live.
>> That is a crisis. Yeah. So the incoming Trump
administration has argued that mass deportations will result in
more housing and drive down costs. How accurate is that
assessment? research from Harvard and other
universities that show that the rise in housing prices really
preceded the rise in immigration. So the immigrants
driving up house prices is not true. On the other side, we have
to recognize that the construction workforce is 20 to
30% immigrants. And in particularly high cost states
like Texas or California, but also here in Wisconsin, you have
a significant shortage of workers in construction and a
substantial portion of the workforce is immigrants. So mass
deportation, if it's actually carried out, would lead to a
significant worsening of the labor shortage in housing. And
construction, which would also tend to drive up house prices.
And of course, the big issue turns out to be whether tariffs
are inflationary and that might lead the Federal Reserve to have
to raise interest rates to try to reduce inflation, which makes
housing less affordable. >> Tariffs also play into the
supply of building materials. Yes. How so?
>> So one way to think about it for your listeners is about 50
to 60% of the cost of any house is the materials and the labor
that go into it. So that's everything from gypsum board,
drywall, lumber, steel, electrical appliances,
electrical transformers and then across the board tariff would
also raise housing prices because those are significant
inputs into housing construction. Now, we did see in
the first Trump administration tariffs on Canadian lumber,
which the Biden administration maintained and the estimates are
that that adds 15 to 20,000 to the cost of a home. But across
the board, tariffs that would also affect cement and steel and
all the components that go in, could also drive up housing
prices. >> Wouldn't the tariffs that
have been talked about under the Trump administration be at an
even higher rate than the existing ones?
estimates are that he would put 10 to 25% across the board
tariffs, depending on whether it's Mexico or China. And the
truth is about 15 to 20% of the inputs into construction are
imported materials. >> What what federal programs
targeting affordable housing >> So it's somewhat difficult to
predict based on what they've said in project 2025 and their
plans. So it's important to understand there's two big kind
of buckets of affordable housing programs. The first is on the
production side and that's the housing tax credit. And we think
that one's safe because that has strong bipartisan support. In
fact, we would love to see that strengthened and increased. But
of course, that's expensive. And it's going to compete with other
priorities in the budget. On the helping people to afford their
home. The main demand side program is the section eight
program for rental assistance, and that covers the needs of
about 1 in 5 of our lowest income households. And in the
project 2025 documents they have talked about adding work
requirements and time limits to these programs. And for many of
our working families at 30 or $40,000 of income and below
this, housing assistance is a vital lifeline. And so if there
are these significant cuts to HUD assisted housing, you can
expect to see homelessness and housing insecurity really
increase. cutting regulations or taxes
help home builders and offset the kind of need for housing
stock? carefully about what are the
regulations that we want to reduce. Now, the truth is that
local government land use regulations that kind of require
you to build a large house on a large lot, that's a significant
contributor to house prices going up. So if we could find
some way to incentivize local governments to approve more
housing, that would really help us on the supply side and on the
price side. administration kind of listen
and understand the voice of the experts, like yourself and
others around all of these issues?
differently, which is that even Red state governors and red
state mayors recognize that they have a housing affordability
crisis. They have tremendous portions of their budget that
come from the federal governmen, whether it's housing assistance
or community development block grants and so I think we can ask
red state mayors to be part of the voice, to explain to say
that listen, housing affordability, the housing
crisis affects rural areas, urban areas, red states, blue
states. And so we're kind of hoping that there's that
bipartisan consensus that says we have to do something and we
can't just cut our way to housing affordability.
>> All right. Kurt Paulson, thanks very much.
>> Thanks for having me. >> Some 7000 children in
Wisconsin are in need of foster care families who provide them
out of home care when their immediate families cannot. Of
critical need. Families who provide treatment foster care.
This can be for physical, developmental or emotional needs
of the child as part of Children's Wisconsin, a health
care system and child welfare agency. Foster children and
their families can get wraparound services here to
discuss is Amy Basting, a foster home recruiter and the treatment
respite foster care lead at children's. And thanks very much
for being here. >> Hi, Frederica. Nice to have
time to spend with you today. >> So we understand again that
there is a dire need for treatment. Foster families
across Wisconsin. What does that need look like? How many
children are waiting? >> Well, in across the state of
Wisconsin, there are like you mentioned, are about 7000
children in need in in foster homes. Really in terms of
children waiting? None. We need to get them into homes ASAP. So
there are children placed into foster homes, but sometimes it
takes a little bit longer and they have to wait in. Maybe
group care where they would just do better in a treatment foster
home. >> Is it is it difficult to get
licensed as a treatment? Foster parent? And then what about the
commitment? Is that difficult physically, emotionally or
financially for these foster families?
treatment foster parents are a little bit higher, but it's
nothing outside the nothing really difficult. You know, you
might have to you have to maybe have some experience parenting
five years experience parenting a lot of people can knock that
right off. So the qualifications are pretty easy to meet. The
toll it takes as far as on your emotions or your health. There
is so much support that Children's Wisconsin treatment,
foster parent treatment, foster care Program offers that we hope
we are supporting our treatment. Foster parents at the level that
they need so that they can take breaks using respite care when
they need to take care of themselves. You know, if there's
health needs that they need to take care of, need to take care
of themselves, we're going to make sure they take care of
themselves. those wraparound services in a
moment, but what does it mean to be a treatment? Foster parent
treatment? of foster care. So if you
compare it to its counterpart, general foster care, that would
be to capture the needs of kids with lower to low to moderate
level needs and then moving up the scale treatment. Foster care
is there to capture the needs and care for children with
moderate to high level needs. So we are looking at caring for
that population that is beyond the scope of general foster car.
>> What are the rewards for the foster parents?
>> Well, they tell me that it's very it fills their heart. They
feel so rewarded when they see the children meet. Some
treatment barriers and exceed and grow and change and get
healthier. And they know they were a part of that. So the
rewards are great in terms of just feeling personally
successful as a parent. >> Well, what does children's
offer families and foster children in its wraparound
program? >> So in treatment, foster care,
we wrap our foster parents with more support beyond, like I
mentioned, the general foster care program. So in addition to
support meaning visits from visits and contact from a social
worker, our treatment foster care program gets additional
staff that come to the home and support and advocate for both
the foster parents and children. We reward our treatment. Foster
parents with respite, and it's kind of like how you earn rest
or vacation time, or paid personal leave at work. Our
foster parents are getting some paid time off to take care of
themselves. Our treatment foster care program also offers
clinical consultation, a mentoring program we have in
teen Incentive program built into our treatment foster care
program for those homes that are willing to care for our older
youth, which is greatly needed. >> So what are the end goals for
children in foster care? >> The end goals would be
hopefully, reunification with would be that the children meet
some of their treatment goals, whether they are health related,
mental health related, behavioral. So we really want to
see children gain a sense of well-being and thrive in our
treatment. Foster care programs. >> All right. Well, we leave it
there. Amy Basting, thank you so much.
>> Thank you. >> And finally, tonight we
remember former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David
Prosser. Justice Prosser began his career as an attorney in the
U.S. Department of Justice and as a district attorney before
turning to politics, serving nearly two decades in the state
Assembly as a Republican representative, rising to
speaker, he was first appointed to the Wisconsin Supreme Court
by former Governor Tommy Thompson in 1998, and reelected
in 2001 and 2011. Prosser made headlines during the days of the
historic act ten protests in Madison, when he clashed with
liberal justices on the court and in one case, a physical
altercation. He retired in 2016, serving 18 years on the High
Court. David Prosser passed away Sunday evening following a
battle with cancer. He was 81. For more on this and other
issues facing Wisconsin, visit our website at PBS Wisconsin.
Org and then click on the news tab. That's our program for
tonight I'm Frederica Freyberg. Have a good weekend.
>> Funding for "Here& Now" is provided by the focus Fund for
Journalism and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.