insight, doctor Michael Sieber.
>> It's my pleasure. Thank you.
>> 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.
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 our
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 will 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 healthcare 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 costs to provisions of the bill add
for the state of Wisconsin now fashioning its own
budget? >> Yeah, 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 to make
changes to our system in order to verify and collect
that work requirement information. We estimate it
will cost us about five and a half million dollars each
year to implement these changes. In Wisconsin.
>> On Foodshare, the House bill would mean about 90,000
people would lose that assistance. According to
your office. How does the bill result in those people
losing those benefits? >> Yeah, they're already
work requirements in Foodshare today, but the
bill drastically changes. Who is required to meet the
food 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 18 and 65 and
includes adults with children if their children
are not under age seven. So you've really increased 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 foodshare 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
Medicare or Food share eligibility. It's complex.
And occasionally there are mistakes. If you think about
doing your taxes and occasionally there is a
mistake, there's a lot that changes in people's lives.
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 in getting it to the dollar. Accurate. We already
have one of the lowest error rates in the country. In
fact error rate went down last year were 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 5050 with the state going
forward, they would only cover 25% of the cost. 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 in the food share program.
>> Well, we appreciate your information. Bill Hanna.