Man Gets Fined for Using Snowmobile Like Jet-Ski  |   Home  |   I Can Write This Post Without The Word "Karma"

BadgerCare $78 Million in the red - So Far

Yippee. 

As of May, the Medicaid health program BadgerCare Plus has already tripled the number of new patients that state officials expected to sign up for the coverage by June 2009. In its first five months, the health plan for families added more enrollees than the state has done in any similar period in at least a decade, officials said. That influx is adding more stress to a Medicaid budget that state officials acknowledge is already in the red by $78 million.

[...]

But the state’s $3.98 billion Medicaid budget is already projected to be about $78 million, or about 2 percent short for the two-year period ending in June 2009, Helgerson said. That shortfall, which doesn’t include any extra BadgerCare Plus costs, is due in large part to $60 million in transfers from the overall Medicaid fund being used to help balance the state’s strained budget, he said.

“Obviously it’s still a challenge but we see it as a manageable challenge,” said Helgerson, who didn’t expect state taxpayers would need to kick in more money to make up the difference.

Rep. Kitty Rhoades, R-Hudson, co-chairwoman of the Legislature’s budget committee, said any transfers from the fund would have originated with the Doyle administration, not lawmakers. She said that it was the administration that had said this round of the BadgerCare Plus expansion wouldn’t cost any more money.

Posted by Owen at 1352 hrs
Politics + Politics - Wisconsin

Commenting is not available in this weblog entry.