Wisconsin Hospital Association critical of health care bill
The head of the Wisconsin Hospital Association is urging Gov. Scott Walker to parlay his influence with the White House and his role as head of the Republican Governors Association to make significant changes to the health care overhaul bill that stalled Thursday due to a lack of support.
Hospital Association President Eric Borgerding outlined more than a dozen points of concern in a letter marked as hand-delivered to Walker on Monday. Borgerding has been speaking publicly this week about the groups concerns and its estimate that 311,000 people in the state would lose insurance coverage by 2026 under the GOP plan.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, of Janesville, had planned to hold a vote on the bill Thursday but delayed it as he and President Donald Trump continued to try and reach a deal to secure its passage. Walker and Ryan are close political allies and grew up near one another in southern Wisconsin.
In his letter to Walker, Borgerding said Wisconsin is penalized under the bill for rejecting federal money to expand Medicaid while its paying $280 million for its own unique partial expansion. He also said that reductions in federal subsidies would hit Wisconsin particularly hard, since its model relied on those just above the poverty level having access to money that would go away under the current House GOP bill.
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