Wisconsin Reaction on Supreme Court Ruling Divided by Party Lines

Wisconsin Republicans say that 5-4 ruling to upheld the federal Affordable Care Act will strengthen their resolve for to push for repeal, while Democrats praise the ruling.

In a highly anticipated ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court today upheld the Affordable Care Act, the health care reform law that President Barack Obama signed into law in 2010 and his top priority in the first two years of his administration. The high court, by a 5-4 vote, upheld the entire law. The controversial law — known as "Obamacare" to critics — expands health care coverage to millions of uninsured Americans. In Wisconsin, the reaction was divided along political lines. Republicans said the ruling would motivate them even more to push for the repeal of the law, while Democrats lauded the decision. Gov. Scott Walker, in a statement, said Wisconsin will not take any action to implement the provisions of the federal law. "I am hopeful that…

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Editor's notebook

COMMENTARY: We Need To Focus On Creating Healthier Communities

The cost of health insurance isn't our only problem, it's our poor health that is the problem.

My original headline for this commentary was “Stop Trying to Create Jobs And Focus On Creating Consumers,” but I decided against it. The reason, consumers are integral to the supply and demand paradigm, which is where we have decided to focus our resources. But our focus should be on creating healthier communities. Rising insurance costs are a dominant theme we hear about from federal, state, county and local governmental bodies.  But we don’t have an insurance cost problem. We have health problems, getting along with each other problems, and cost shifting problems. And we’re not really talking about those issues, and this is surprising to me since insurance costs, and fire and police services are a substantial part of our tax bill. So we …

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Heather in Caledonia

8:39 am on Monday, October 24, 2011

Oh, goodness. Well, this was my sister's OB and he's somewhere out near Lake Geneva. I'll ask her for his name. My doctor as a kid was independent and we were always able to get appointments when we needed. We even had his home phone number and were instructed to call on weekends if needed... as long as it wasn't during a Packer game. :) My dad goofed once and called during a game and was …   more ›

Democrats: Walker Mounts Attack on Women's Health

In weekly radio address, Democratic leader says governor and Republicans pushed through an "extreme agenda that has stripped away access to health care."

Editor's note: Assistant Minority Leader Donna Seidel (D-Wausau) last week offered the fourth Democratic Weekly Radio Address. The topic for this week’s address is Gov. Scott Walker's attack on women's health. You can view Seidel's address on YouTube or listen to a podcast of the speech. You can also find last week's radio address from Walker here. __________________________________________ Hello. I’m Donna Seidel. I represent the 85th District, the Wausau area and I am the assistant Democratic deader. Last session, I was proud of advances we made to help Wisconsin women access comprehensive, affordable health care. We made sure they could get birth control without discrimination and have insurance companies pay for it. We expanded …

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Robert Hansen

10:53 pm on Tuesday, January 8, 2013

He could have cut some of the corporate subsidies instead, but he went after family planning instead. He went after this program, so yes it was an attack on women, though in his mind he is playing to the christian right base. He never though about the cost to women, that would require thinking about people other than one's self.   more ›

Racine Unified Experiences $2 Million Spike in Insurance Usage

Employees Rush in Before Deductibles Climb

Want to see more on this topic? "Like" us on Facebook. If we get 10 or more likes, then we'll know to do a follow-up. Racine Unified School District employees rushed to their health care providers before their share of health costs increased on July 1. The RUSD School Board’s audit committee on Tuesday, July 5, was told that health insurance usage jumped by about $2 million during May and June. Because RUSD is self-insured, the higher-than-anticipated claims activity will affect the fiscal 2011 budget, which ended June 30. “It has an impact on our cash flow,” said David Hazen, RUSD’s chief financial officer. “But, we believe we’ll make that up in the coming year because almost all elective (medical procedure) claims will have taken place…

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Editor's notebook

Is Health Care a Right or a Privilege?

Republicans set to limit the scope of services provided to BadgerCare recipients to save money, but we need to understand the consequences.

Listening to the Republican rhetoric about BadgerCare is both personally and professionally concerning to me. It is no secret that the Republicans plan to change the scope of what services are covered under BadgerCare, which has seen a 170 percent increase in the number of people receiving the benefit in the past two years. Because of this, I feel compelled to ask the follow questions and offer my insight. I argue that the center of this debate is not spending versus savings, but rather is health care a right or a privilege? And if we believe it is a right, then how will we treat or not treat people? Who will pay for the care people will receive and how will we justify not treating people? And if health care is a privilege, are we as a …

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Denise Lockwood

9:39 am on Saturday, January 22, 2011

Karen, Fascinating read. Thanks for posting that. I find it interesting how the rhetoric of this debate centers around providing health insurance, but ignores the basic function of what health insurance does -- which is, it allows people to be cared for. We're stuck in the debate of why should we or why shouldn't we provide health care, but not talking about caring for people or not caring for …   more ›