Test Drive Wisconsin's Prototype Health Insurance Exchange

The Wisconsin Office of Health Care Reform has developed a prototype website for a health insurance exchange. The exchange is an online marketplace where individuals and small businesses can easily compare health plans and purchase health insurance, beginning in 2014. 

This online prototype is simply a starting point for the individual insurance marketplace that will evolve based on future input from consumers and policy guidance at the state and federal levels. State officials are inviting people to try out the prototype and provide feedback.

$23 Million Federal Bonus Rewards Wisconsin for Cutting Red Tape to Cover Uninsured Kids

Wisconsin received a $23 million “performance bonus” today from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for the state’s success in improving access to health insurance for low-income children by simplifying BadgerCare enrollment and renewal procedures.

The bonus payment for Wisconsin is the second largest among all the states, with Alabama getting the largest amount (almost $55 million). An additional 14 states are receiving performance bonus funding this year for progress in cutting through red tape and administrative hurdles to enroll significantly more uninsured children in their Medicaid programs.

Marshfield Wins Approval for Training Rural Dentists, Despite Marquette’s Opposition

There was a heated debate last Thursday at a meeting of the State Building Commission regarding the need for more dentists and possibly also a new dental school in Wisconsin. The commission was considering a $10 million grant to Marshfield Clinic to set up a center to train rural dentists.

The current plan is not for a new dental school, but Marquette University, which now has the state’s only dental school, opposed the grant last week. Although they initially supported the legislation setting aside the funding, Marquette officials said they changed their mind after learning about Marshfield’s desire to eventually turn the program into a dental school. Despite the oppostion of Marquette and the Wisconsin Dental Association, the Commission voted 6 to 2 to approve the grant, which matches $10 million in private funds raised by Marshfield.

Evidence Based Programs – Is That All There Is?

All too often, the gap between what research tells us what works with youthful offenders and what actual practice is seems too hard to close.  Evidence based programs, while useful, are often viewed as too costly or too limited to significantly alter the course of a jurisdiction’s practice.  And evidence-based practices, less rigorously studied, often face the kind of difficult hurdles that any systemic change encounters – time, cost, and tradition.  The Georgetown Public Policy Institute’s Center for Juvenile Justice Reform has recently released a good summary paper, Improving the Effectiveness of Juvenile Justice Programs: A New Perspective on Evidence-Based Practice, which takes the concepts of evidence-based practice/programs and integrates them with some of these system-change challenges.  Going further, the paper takes us back to the framework of the Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, and Chronic Offenders as a way to remind us that it can’t be all about implementing that limited number of programs that have climbed the “evidence-based mountain”.  Using research to tell us what works makes sense, but change is a process that requires a larger vision and framework. This conceptualization is a step in the right direction – it’s unfortunate, however, that there is really no reference to the Balanced and Restorative Justice (BARJ) model that so effectively translates delinquency-speak into readily supported goals of accountability, community protection, and competency development.  Maybe that’s next.

A Record of Progress During a Time of Change: The Governor’s Juvenile Justice Commission Report for 2003-2010

The Governor’s Juvenile Justice Commission has recently released its final report for its work under the administration of Governor Doyle and leadership of Dave Steingraber at the Office of Justice Assistance.  The report highlights substantial achievements in the areas of disproportionate minority contact (DMC), reducing the number of status offenders held in secure confinement, working with Wisconsin’s tribal leaders, and investing in systemic change through promoting evidence based practices in juvenile justice.  As the amount of juvenile justice funds coming to Wisconsin from the federal government declined over the years, the Commission made a series of strategic decisions to invest these more-limited dollars in areas of high need and focusing on what works.  More recently, the Commission also took positions to return 17-year-olds to juvenile court and to support the closure of one of the two boy’s juvenile correctional institutions.  More work lies ahead – but it was a productive commission and perhaps sets a standard for the next commission to be appointed by incoming Governor Scott Walker.

WI Leads Nation in Ratio of Manufacturing Jobs to Government Jobs

The Wisconsin Budget Project has released an analysis on the subject of the number of manufacturing and public sector jobs in Wisconsin. It examines how our state compares to others in the percentage of jobs in manufacturing, the portion of the state population in the public sector, and the change in the ratio of manufacturing and government jobs here and elsewhere.

For part of 2009 and 2010, there were more government jobs than manufacturing jobs in Wisconsin, and some groups have been using that factoid out of context to make the argument that public sector jobs have been crowding out private sector jobs in Wisconsin. The analysis takes a broader look at the data for all 50 states, which shows that Wisconsin still has the nation’s highest ratio of manufacturing jobs to government jobs. (Our state is virtually tied with Indiana in that regard.)

Wisconsin’s ratio is nearly double that of the nation as a whole. In addition, only 12 other states have a leaner public sector – measured in terms of state and local employees relative to the size of the state population.

The Wisconsin Budget Project analysis can be found here.

Child Care Rating System and Other Items on Tuesday Finance Committee Agenda

The Joint Finance Committee meets on Tuesday, December 14, and will vote on whether to approve the Department of Children and Families’ five-year sustainability plan for the child care quality rating and improvement system (QRIS) called YoungStar. Click here for the summary of the request by the Legislative Fiscal Bureau.

The meeting is supposed to begin at 10:00 a.m. in Room 412 East in the Capitol.  Click here for the full agenda and links to the LFB summaries of each item on the agenda.

What’s in the Proposed Tax Cut Deal for Low-Income Families?

Although the deal President Obama has brokered with Congressional Republicans is disappointing in many respects, the President won some significant concessions for low-income households. In addition to reviving the extended federal unemployment benefits, the proposed deal includes a two-year continuation of Recovery Act improvements to three important tax credits for low-income families, and a one-year payroll tax cut for all workers.

An analysis released late this afternoon by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that extension of the tax credit improvements, coupled with the temporary payroll tax cut, would keep 2.4 million Americans above the official poverty line, and would lessen the severity of poverty for 18.4 million poor Americans, including 6.9 million children, who would be lifted nearer the poverty line. 

Read more about the tax credit changes in a new Wisconsin Budget Project blog post.

Vicky Gunderson from La Crosse Carries Kirk’s Voice to Washington

Youth advocates gathered in Washington D.C. on December 5^th to rally for more investments in delinquency prevention and treating youth appropriately in the justice system.  Vicky’s simple message on behalf of her son Kirk is that children should not be treated as adults – subject to confinement as adults, subject to the lifelong negative labeling that results from an adult conviction, and subject to the lack of developmentally appropriate services that are provided by the juvenile system.  Vicky continues to honor her son, Kirk, and be a strong voice for fair treatment of youthful offenders – treatment that is not only better for the youth but also benefits the community. 

Will Walker Raise Taxes for the Working Poor?

Ronald Reagan called the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) "the best anti-poverty, the best pro-family, the best job creation measure to come out of Congress."  Wisconsin's EITC, like the federal credit, has enjoyed broad bipartisan support, and it was signed into law by Governor Thompson.  Nevertheless, a columnist speculates in the Sunday Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that Governor-elect Walker may propose cutting this popular tax credit for the working poor. 

A new Wisconsin Budget Project blog post examines the issue and lays out our arguments for preserving the state EITC.  Read that blog post here. 

Disproportionate Contact & Sanctions for Nonheterosexual Youth

A recent study by the American Academy of Pediatrics, titled Criminal Justice and School Sanctions Against Nonheterosexual Youth:  A National Longitudinal Study, found that nonheterosexual youth were disproportionately represented in police contacts, school expulsions, juvenile arrests and convictions, and adult conviction.  The research noted that these differences were most noticeable for nonheterosexual girls.  Further, these differences are noted despite no greater engagement in illegal or transgressive behaviors exhibited by nonheterosexual youth. As with other DMC related research, while not always being able to explain what causes this disparate treatment, this research does suggest that we need to pay attention to preventing involvement in the system and to the various decision points along the path of involvement. 

Virginia Has Taken a Big Step – Why Can’t Wisconsin?

Effective July 1, 2010 a youth under age 18 whose case has been filed in/waived into adult court and is ordered to be held in secure custody must be held in a juvenile detention or shelter facilities rather than an adult jail until such time as they are convicted as an adult. There are provisions that permit the court to order the youth placed in an adult facility if they present a danger to the health and safety of other juveniles, but even in those situations there are restrictions on how they may be housed in that adult facility.
Whether 17-year-olds are returned to juvenile court jurisdiction or not in Wisconsin, we can at least move forward and ensure that youth under 18 are not held in adult facilities until they are clearly adjudicated and sentenced as an adult!

Where has all the money gone? The OJJDP 2010 FY Awards are posted online.

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention recently posted a list of the 2010 awards, covering the formula grants, discretionary grants, and earmarks.  Some of you may recall the controversy surrounding grant awards during the last administration, and this public posting is a welcome step toward increasing the transparency of how federal juvenile justice funds are distributed.  The list includes the earmarks that came to Wisconsin – and we’ll see what the incoming congress does with the budget overall and earmarks in particular.

Child Nutrition Bill Passes!

The “Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act” (S. 3307) passed today in the U.S. House of Representatives. The bill provides an additional $4.5 billion over 10 years to federal child nutrition programs and will be a significant first step in reducing childhood hunger and obesity. It will increase the reimbursement rates for school lunches, set nutritional standards for all food offered in public schools, and expand after-school meals.

There's much more to the bill than I can describe here, but the Food Research and Action Center has prepared a comprehensive summary.    

The bill had already been approved by the Senate, so it now goes to the President for his signature. Today’s vote in the House was 264-157, with 17 House Republicans and all but 4 Democrats voting for it.  (The Wisconsin delegation split along party lines.) 

More Support for Raising the Age – and other JJ Policy Improvements

The Federal Advisory Committee on Juvenile Justice just released its 2010 Annual Report that includes a number of recommendations consistent with the goals of reauthorizing JJDPA – and go even further to include that financial incentives should be provided to states to ensure that the age of adult court jurisdiction be set at age 18 in all states.  The FACJJ includes representatives from the State Advisory Groups (SAGs) from around the country and is charged with providing input to OJJDP and the administration about juvenile justice policy.  Not only providing recommendations, this report goes further and provides a good summary on each of the issues as well as some references that you can use to find some of the original rationale behind the recommendation.  It’s worth reading!!

New Analysis Shows Impact of Recession on Wisconsin

For many residents of Wisconsin, the recession has dealt a double blow. They have lost both their jobs and their health insurance.

A new analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data by the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families (WCCF)examines the impacts of the recession on families across the state, based on measures such as unemployment, income, poverty and access to health insurance. The analysis includes data for each of 23 Wisconsin counties, as well as for the state as a whole.

The Council’s analysis found that the recession has adversely affected Wisconsin residents in a number of ways, including:

• Unemployment rose from 5.1 percent in 2008 to 8.2 percent in 2009, as shown in the chart.
• The poverty rate rose from 10.4 percent to 12.4 percent.
• Median household income fell by $1,949, or by 3.8 percent.

The sharp increase in unemployment and poverty during the recession makes it important for federal lawmakers to extend some of the relief for low-income families initiated in 2009. In particular, it’s important to continue unemployment insurance benefits for the longer-term unemployed, which have lapsed.

Although there has been a gradual erosion of employer-sponsored health insurance since at least 2000, that trend accelerated during the recession. The WCCF analysis found that from 2008 to 2009, an estimated 141,300 Wisconsinites lost their private insurance coverage.

The Census Bureau data show that even though the portion of the Wisconsin population with private health insurance fell by 2.9 percentage points last year, the state’s BadgerCare Plus program picked up most of the slack. It grew by 109,400 people from 2008 to 2009, holding the increase in the uninsured to 0.6 percentage points.

The Census Bureau’s American Community Survey provides detailed data for 23 of Wisconsin’s 72 counties. WCCF has prepared charts and fact sheets analyzing the data for each of those counties. They can be found on the Council’s website at: http://wccf.org/kidcount_recession.php.

Federal Unemployment Program Expires

As of today, it’s official: The program that provides federal benefits to long-term unemployed workers has expired. There’s hope for the program to be revived, but until then, long-term unemployed workers are getting no further help making ends meet.


Read more about what this means for out-of-work Wisconsinites at the Wisconsin Budget Project's newest blog post.