From WisPolitics.com/WisBusiness.com …
— Advocates in Wisconsin are ringing the alarm bell about proposed cuts to federal Medicaid funding, warning any reductions would have serious consequences in the state.
Lisa Davidson, president and CEO of long-term care network LeadingAge Wisconsin, today said “it’s really important that we find a way for that funding to be solvent for the future,” given the state’s aging population. She noted Medicaid is the only program that pays for long-term care services and supports.
“Having one of those funding streams being taken away, the downstream implications would be extremely significant across all sectors of Wisconsin,” she said.
Davidson was a featured guest today on WisconsinEye’s “Newsmakers” program, which also featured Tami Jackson, public policy analyst with the Wisconsin Board for People with Developmental Disabilities. Both speakers argued against proposals to cut federal dollars for Medicaid or impose new restrictions on the program.
Jackson noted many Medicaid-funded programs support children with disabilities through school-based services, while others help older adults live independently despite needing additional support.
“Medicaid is really a part of people with disabilities’ lives, because it provides care that they cannot get anywhere else, that they need to live their lives, through their whole lifespan,” she said.
Program host Lisa Pugh noted more than 1.32 million people in Wisconsin were enrolled in Medicaid programs as of December 2024, or about one fifth of the state’s population. Funding from the federal program goes to at least 28 different programs in the state. It covers four out of every seven nursing home residents, one in six Medicare beneficiaries and a third of all people with disabilities in Wisconsin.
Jackson referenced a half-dozen proposals that have been floated in recent months to alter the Medicaid program, though she said any of them would mean “dramatically less money” going to state programs.
“Some of them would be changes that would make very deep cuts initially, and then those cuts would continue and deepen over time,” she said. “And other proposals would really shift costs that states don’t cover now to states … the reality is, the outcome of all of them is very, very deep cuts to Medicaid.”
Watch the video.
— Proposed cuts to NIH medical research grants could mean tens of millions of dollars in lost funding for institutions in Wisconsin, according to a New York Times analysis.
Based on data from the NIH grant registry, the $550 million in funding top Wisconsin institutions received in fiscal year 2024 would have been reduced by $84 million under a proposal from the Trump administration to limit support for “indirect” medical research costs.
The largest portion of that lost funding, $62 million, would have been carved out of UW-Madison’s $395 million in funding for the year. The next largest, $15 million, would come from the Medical College of Wisconsin’s $105 million, while other cuts under the proposal would reduce funding by between $4 million and $120,000 per institution.
See more.
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