GOP lawmakers restore SeniorCare benefits
Joint Finance Committee also removes Scott Walker from jobs agency
By Jason Stein and Patrick Marley of the Journal Sentinel May 21, 2015
Madison — Lawmakers on the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee on Thursday reversed Gov. Scott Walker's cuts to Wisconsin's popular SeniorCare prescription drug benefit for retirees.
GOP legislators voted along with Walker to remove him as chairman of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. but chose to keep their legislative representatives on the board of the embattled jobs agency.
WEDC has been plagued by lax oversight, including the disclosure this week that in September 2011 it gave an unsecured $500,000 loan to Building Committee Inc. of Milwaukee. The company's owner, William Minahan, had been taken to court on Nov. 1, 2010, for $15,700 in delinquent taxes — the same day that Minahan gave Walker's campaign a $10,000 donation, according to campaign finance records.
On SeniorCare, Walker had proposed forcing tens of thousands of participants in the state program to enroll in private plans through the federal Medicare Part D benefit. He made a similar proposal in 2011 only to have it shot down by bipartisan opposition.
"We really think it's important to offer choice for our seniors," said Joint Finance co-chair and Sen. Alberta Darling (R-River Hills).
Republicans passed the SeniorCare proposal 12-4 on a party-line vote, with the budget panel's four Democrats opposing it because they had also wanted the state to accept hundreds of millions of federal tax dollars to expand state health programs.
Walker's proposal would have boosted prescription drug costs for most of the 87,000 people in the SeniorCare program, though the exact amount would differ from one recipient to another, according to the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau.
In one common scenario, recipients would have had to begin paying additional premiums of about $188 a year, the fiscal bureau found.
SeniorCare recipients pay $30 per year. There are income thresholds for the program, and some participants have annual deductibles from $500 to $850. They must make co-payments of $5 for generic drugs and $15 for brand-name drugs. Those figures will remain the same.
Keeping SeniorCare in place will cost $15.6 million more in state tax dollars than what Walker had proposed.
Republicans on the finance panel also approved Walker's proposal to seek federal approval to charge premiums to about 157,000 needy adults without children for their Medicaid health coverage, also known as BadgerCare Plus. The governor also wants to ask President Barack Obama's administration to put higher premiums on risk-takers such as smokers.
If state lawmakers and then federal officials agree, the state could charge the lowest-income BadgerCare Plus recipients basic premiums as well as higher charges for undisclosed risky behaviors that might include smoking or obesity.
The GOP-controlled finance committee began its work at 4 p.m., six hours late, and debated until almost 10 p.m. It is planning to wrap up its work next week so the Legislature can vote on the budget in June, just as Walker prepares to launch a likely presidential bid.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/joint-finance-to-deal-today-with-troubled-wedc-cuts-to-seniorcare-b99504512z1-304551231.html
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