From WisPolitics.com/WisBusiness.com …
— Dem lawmakers are calling for an option for everyone in Wisconsin to get coverage through BadgerCare, including the ability for small businesses to buy coverage for their workers.
Backers didn’t have a price tag for the proposal, citing federal rules being written following passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act as well as how the state would implement it.
They also insisted there was still time to take up the plan even though the Assembly has adjourned for the session.
“We don’t need to go home yet,” Rep. Supreme Moore Omokunde, D-Milwaukee, said yesterday.
Dem gubernatorial candidates Sara Rodriguez, the lieutenant governor, and Kelda Roys, a state senator, have called for a public option as part of their campaigns.
BadgerCare now covers children from low-income households and their parents or caregivers, while BadgerCare Plus covers childless adults making 100% of the federal poverty limit, which is $1,330 a month for a single adult.
The bill would create three options by:
- Allowing those under 200% of the federal poverty limit to obtain coverage through the proposed BadgerCare Public Option.
- Creating a state-based health care exchange that would include the ability to enroll in the purchase option for BadgerCare. Participants could get a plan with commercial insurance through that option rather than going through the exchanges offered under the Affordable Care Act.
- Allowing an option for businesses with 50 or fewer employees to provide coverage to their workers through BadgerCare rather than commercial insurance.
The offices of Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, and Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, didn’t immediately return messages seeking comment.
— AG Josh Kaul has joined 24 other attorneys general in opposition to a new federal rule capping student loans for graduate students in nursing and other health fields.
The governors of Kentucky and Kansas also cosigned the letter to U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon, arguing that a provision in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act limiting federal loans for most postgraduate students is “unlawful, unnecessarily restrictive and harmful to States.”
That law restricted the amount of federal student loans available to graduate students to $20,500 per year and $100,000 total, beginning in July.
Students pursuing “professional degrees” can borrow up to $50,000 per year and $200,000 total, but a proposed rule published by the Education Department in January sharply limits the number of qualifying degrees.
State officials are arguing for the department’s definition to be expanded to include nursing, physician assistance, physical therapy, and other health professions, “as well as similarly-situated degrees that fall within the statutory definition.”
“This rule would needlessly undermine the health-care workforce,” Kaul said in a statement. “The Trump administration should drop this narrow definition of ‘professional degree’ and instead adopt a definition that reflects congressional intent and the modern workforce.”
Kaul last week also joined a multi-state lawsuit challenging a January “Decision Memo” from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that removed seven childhood vaccines from the agency’s list of universally recommended immunizations.
Those vaccinations are rotavirus, meningococcal disease, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, influenza, COVID-19, and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV.
See more in the Department of Justice release below.
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