Newsmakers: Impact of Medicaid Cuts
Public health advocates said in a Newsmakers show taped on Oct. 7 that the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee should ask for changes in a Medicaid coverage waiver that Gov. Scott Walker’s administration will soon file with the federal government. If the waiver is not approved — and Newsmakers panelists said they doubt that it will be approved — more than 53,000 adults now on Medicaid will be dropped from the program. The Walker administration wants the waiver approved to slow the soaring cost of Medicaid by $554 million by mid-2013. The panelists were Sara Finger, executive director of the Wisconsin Alliance for Women’s Health; Dr. Timothy Bartholow, chief medical officer for the Wisconsin Medical Society, and Jon Peacock, research director for the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families.
