Scott Walker's Sabotage of Healthcare in Wisconsin

Sowing fear and confusion 

You would think intentionally obstructing healthcare for families would be some sort of a crime.

It's not, it's Scott Walker's policy, and it is the position of the Republican Party.

Robert Kraig and Kevin Kane of Wisconsin Citizen Action have the scoop on the results of Scott Walker blocking healthcare, a report that has received far too little publicity.

Walker has blocked information about healthcare rates; blocked $100s millions in Medicaid with the assurance that most Wisconsin media will go along with the Walker charade that he just cares so much about the Wisconsin people that he needs to block their families' access to healthcare.

Walker and his family have been living on tax-payer-financed healthcare since Walker was 24-years-old and hungry for a public position. Walker moved to the Milwaukee suburb of Wauwatosa so he could run for an open GOP-leaning district in 1993. That's 20 years of tax-payer-supported healthcare for Scott Walker.

Shouldn't Governor Walker and his family abide by the same rules for healthcare that he is proposing for everyone else?  Shouldn't all public officials?

Now, Walker spends his time raising money from fat-cats and living on the public dime, while ranting against and blocking anything providing for the common good of the Wisconsin people -- like easy access to healthcare for other peoples' families. Walker says God tells him what to do.

Consumer activists and the Obama administration remain busy trying to put out information, such as Helping Consumers Understand their Coverage Options, from Coast to Coast.

For those looking for specific rate information who live in states such as Wisconsin with a healthcare-hostile governor, where do you go now?

You can try your local county healthcare site, until the federal web site is more reliable.

You have to wait for the national site to function because private contractors built the HealthCare.gov site, as healthcare industry whistleblower Wendall Potter points out.

 I would have liked to have single payer healthcare for everyone, but that is too much to ask in this dysfunctional Congress.

Scott Walker meanwhile is raising even more money; still living on publicly-funded healthcare for his family, and now a John Doe probe is looking into how Walker and his party raised all that money in the 2012 Recall election.

Scott Walker Blocks Federal Money for Healthcare in 'Crazy' Move

Scott Walker: "I care too much about the people of this state
not to empower them to control their own destiny."
(Stein. Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Feb. 13, 2013) 

Update: Walker's Rubik Health Care Solution Cruel Update

'Major step backwards for working parents in Wisconsin seeking healthcare' as Ayn Rand devotee, Scott Walker, echoes Mitt Romney's "47 percent" crack

What do we expect from Scott Walker who blocked Wisconsin from receiving $810 million for funding for a labor-intensive [lots of jobs] project to improve and expand its rail road system?

We expect, in the words of Citizen Actions of Wisconsin's Robert Kraig: the same governor to block "billions of ObamaCare dollars that would have extended BadgerCare to over 170,000 additional Wisconsinites, created over 10,000 jobs, and saved the state millions."

Ideological opponents to Medicaid like Walker are counting on the corporate media to muddy the waters and pretend Walker really just loves health care, as Walker pretends to offer another health care plan in an announcement this week that he says allows people to 'choose.'

Walker made his announcement to the rightwing Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce group this week.

Even industry analysts critical of ObamaCare are shaking their heads at Walker.

Writes Scott Bauer in an AP piece picked up around the state, but buried inside local papers:

Gov. Scott Walker's plan to move more people off state Medicaid plans and onto private insurance through a federal marketplace won't result in cutting the number of uninsured Wisconsin residents in half as promised, an independent analyst said Thursday.

Walker's numbers are inflated because poor people near the poverty line won't be able to afford private health insurance that requires individuals to pay for annual deductibles and other cost-sharing expenses, Bob Laszewski, a Washington-based insurance industry consultant, told the Associated Press after reviewing the Republican governor's plan.

"To me this is crazy policy," said Laszewski, president of Health Policy and Strategy Associates and a frequent critic of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.

"These exchange plans were never designed for Medicaid-eligible people. They're designed for middle-class people who can afford deductibles and co-pays," he said.

Walker is adopting the rightwing think tank High Deductible-Health Savings Accounts positions hatched in the late 1990s, and designed to phase out Medicaid and Medicare by ideologues opposed to the popular opinion that health care is a right.

Joe Tarr at Isthmus quotes advocates who work at getting healthcare for families, and are skeptical and often hostile to the motives of health insurance companies:

Jon Peacock, research director with the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families, said that many of those plans will have very high deductibles and copays that will make it difficult for poor people to afford.

"Congress didn't intend for the exchanges to be servicing families just above the poverty level," Peacock said. "Even with the subsidies, the exchanges aren't affordable for many low-income families. And not all families will be eligible for the exchanges."

For instance, if people can get insurance through their employers -- even if they can't afford it -- they won't be eligible for the exchange. ...

Bobby Peterson, executive director of ABC for Health, said it looks like Walker is making a political calculation to set himself apart from other Republicans who might have hopes of higher office. "He's trying to distinguish himself from the Republican crowd," Peterson said.

Peterson joined numerous health care advocates and Democrats in condemning Walker's proposal.

"We think it's a major step backwards for coverage of low-income working parents in Wisconsin," Peacock said

Citizen Action's Kraig explains why Scott Walker's rejection of $12 billion in federal Medicaid money is crazy below:

Rep. Mark Pocan's open letter to Wisconsin GOP Leaders

March 12, 2011 - Madison

By Representative Mark Pocan (78th Assembly district - Madison)

The State Legislature over the past few months has been transformed into a vindictive and malicious institution ...

[Recovering] is going to take hard work and long hours of reaching across the aisle. It may even mean standing up to your own governor the next time he illegally threatens to kick kids off BadgerCare or issue layoff notices to state workers as a pawn in his political game of Chess.

The Legislative Fiscal Bureau hasn’t even released their summary of the Governor’s budget bill, yet the few details the public has already gleaned from the bill make it wildly unpopular from the start.

Read the complete letter at Dane 101.