Browsing: Health Insurance

Direct primary care bills being considered in Madison provide a solution that could make Wisconsin healthcare cheaper and more accessible.

In Wisconsin, health care costs are too high, public health outcomes have plummeted, and our governor has hit the snooze button.

After a year-long disenrollment, there are still 163,221 more people on Medicaid in Wisconsin than there were before the start of the pandemic, at a cost to taxpayers of at least $50 million a year.

Healthcare spending continues to grow. Fortunately, a bill being considered in the Wisconsin Legislature, SB905, provides a solution that could make it both cheaper and more accessible via direct primary care. 

Healthcare innovators are our best chance for better healthcare, as long as well-intended but stifling government regulations or laws, or an increasingly anti-competitive marketplace, don’t get in their way. The current reimbursement-driven system both creates roadblocks for innovators and simultaneously drives up costs. Direct pay removes these roadblocks.

A state Department of Health Services decision to take a year to remove ineligible people from Wisconsin’s Medicaid rolls — much slower than many other states — will cost federal and state taxpayers an estimated $745 million.

Healthcare remains the only sector of the economy where patients must pay for services without first knowing the cost. Patients aren’t empowered with the information needed to make smart financial decisions, taking into account both price and quality of care. “The Know Your Healthcare Costs Act” would work to change that.

As the Wisconsin Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee begins budget deliberations, Gov. Tony Evers is pushing for a $31.6 billion budget for Medicaid over the next two years, a $4.2 billion biennial increase. The $27.4 billion being spent on Medicaid in the current two-year cycle already represents nearly 30% of all state spending.

Dental therapists are mid-level providers — similar to physician assistants or nurse practitioners — who perform preventive, restorative and intermediate restorative procedures such as fluoride applications, cavity repairs and extractions of diseased teeth. These licensed professionals work under the general supervision of dentists and often practice in locations with underserved populations.

The surest way to improve the healthcare that Wisconsinites receive is to enable people to get the greatest satisfaction at the most favorable price via a free and transparent market.

They’re working and should be made permanent

Conservative Democrat Bob Ziegelbauer scores a breakthrough on health care, but finds few allies. By Sunny Schubert Most days…

At some point, the liability must be paid or benefits must be scaled back.

This study points out that Healthy Wisconsin is not so much a solution to the problem as it is the creator of even bigger problems that will dwarf the current crisis we have in health care.

Well-informed consumers hold the potential to revolutionize the health care market.

Wisconsin’s health care plan is in drastic need of improvement

A Wisconsin Primer

The case for competitive bidding

A survey of public opinion

It is no wonder that the national debate in the early 1990s over universal health insurance was so acrimonious and…