From WisPolitics.com/WisBusiness.com …
— Wisconsin Medicaid Director Bill Hanna expects about 63,000 out of the 1.3 million Wisconsin Medicaid recipients will potentially lose their coverage under the GOP House’s reconciliation bill.
“This is a disruption to the health care ecosystem, not only in Wisconsin, but across the country,” Hanna told the WisPolitics “Capitol Chats” podcast, adding this would cost the state $8 million in the first year of implementation.
Hanna said the current bill from Congress would require eligibility checks every six months, up from once a year. He said this will essentially double the workload — not only for the Department of Health Services, but also individual counties that do this work.
Another impact Hanna named was adding back the work requirement. He said other states that have done this have not seen a real change in employment numbers.
”The federal regulations are really just more red tape and make it harder for people to maintain their coverage,” Hanna said.
Hanna said this will also cost health care providers, who may need to foot the bill for those who lose coverage and cannot pay. He said providers will then have to raise costs, which will be passed to others seeking care.
Listen to the interview here and see more from the WisPolitics DC Wrap.
— Wisconsin Republicans today announced a bill to increase requirements for price transparency for hospitals.
The Wisconsin Hospitals Association preceded the announcement with a release citing a report indicating Wisconsin has the best price transparency ranking in the nation.
Bill co-author and Senate President Mary Felzkowski, R-Tomahawk, said at a Capitol news conference it is currently very difficult to find health care costs, and no one should have to pay for something before knowing the cost.
“It’s not erroneous, it’s not a burden, it’s just a refusal to do so,” Felzkowski said regarding hospitals sharing prices in an accessible manner.
The bill would enforce a 2019 President Donald Trump executive order requiring all prices in a machine-readable format and a listing of the 300 most shoppable services on the front page of the website. Shoppable services include non-emergency room services like a colonoscopy or mammogram that patients schedule in advance.
Felzkowski claimed only 30% of hospitals in Wisconsin currently comply with the order and that Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is not enforcing the order, so the state should take it into its own hands.
Under the bill, the Department of Health Services would monitor if hospitals are complying with the bill and to take corrective action including a written notice, requesting an action plan or imposing a penalty if the hospital is not complying.
Ahead of today’s press conference, WHA announced a recent report saying Wisconsin hospitals rank best in the nation for price transparency.
“Despite constantly changing federal regulations and moving goal posts by CMS, Wisconsin hospitals are leading the country in transparency, not just meeting federal standards but exceeding them,” WHA Senior Vice President of Government Relations Kyle O’Brien said in the release.
According to the WHA release, Turquoise Health found Wisconsin outperformed other states in adherence to updated federal technical specifications and accessibility of machine-readable files.
Sen. Julian Bradley, R-New Berlin, the co-author on the bill, said this isn’t enough. He said the bill importantly clarifies where the information should be housed.
“We’re not all the way there,” Bradley said. “We want all hospitals to have their prices up.”
Felzkowski’s office also emphasized the Turquoise Health report does not indicate overall compliance with hospital price transparency rules, which the report says at the top. The spokesperson told WisPolitics in an email following the news conference other reports indicate CMS is not enforcing price transparency in Wisconsin and other states, and many hospitals aren’t complying. The spokesperson also pointed WisPolitics to another Turquoise data list saying Wisconsin does not have current legislation to enforce compliance.
Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce shared support for the bill in a release today, arguing Wisconsin patients are at a “disadvantage” with no ability to compare prices.
“This lack of transparency has contributed to Wisconsin having the fourth-highest hospital prices in the country,” WMC Associate Vice President of Government Relations Rachel Ver Velde said in the release. “This legislation is a critical step in making health care more affordable, addressing the urgent need for transparency in healthcare costs.”
WHA slammed the proposal in a memo to legislators, citing similar legislation that failed last session.
“This legislation died last session because it was based on an inaccurate premise that Wisconsin hospitals were intentionally defying federal regulations, claims still being made today. These claims are inaccurate and do not justify creating more state-level price transparency onto Wisconsin hospitals,” the memo said.
Correction: An item in yesterday’s Health Care Report should have said the Office of Children’s Mental Health is separate from the state Department of Health Services.
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