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Budget aims to improve health care in state

JEFF SCHORFHEIDE/Herald photo

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Also by Keegan Kyle:

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Down and dirty on campus sanitation (October 11, 2007)

by Keegan Kyle

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

According to Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle, 98 percent of Wisconsinites could have access to health care under his state budget announced Tuesday.

Doyle hopes to improve children's access to health care by expanding the BadgerCare program and adult access to Medicaid by creating a Health Care Trust Fund supplied by new sources of revenue totaling more than $700 million.

One provision proposes taxing hospitals more than $400 million to complete a federal assessment program. Doyle said it would generate $600 million new federal dollars, $400 million of which would be returned to pay back taxed hospitals.

Mark Grapentine, spokesperson for the Wisconsin Medical Society, said the strategy has shown mixed results and could hurt some taxpayers.

"Clearly those costs are going to be passed onto the patients," Grapentine said, who added that his organization is concerned about another proposed new source of revenue as well.

Doyle proposed transferring $175 million in fiscal year 2008 from a segregated state fund that contributes money to injured patients as a result of litigation. The fund is completely supported by fees from physicians, hospitals and other medical staff.

"When the governor has tried to tackle past deficits, he's looked at that fund," Grapentine said. "We believe taking money from that fund is not the right way to go."

Grapentine, however, did applaud Doyle's $1.25 cigarette tax increase, which is estimated to generate more than $270 million each year. He said the tax would help Wisconsin in two ways: first, it would prevent kids from smoking and therefore reduce health care costs; second, the revenue generated would reduce costs of the state-provided Medicaid.

"It just makes sense to use the money raised for the Medicaid program," Grapentine said. "We still have to look at the budget as it's proposed; … it's all in the details."

State Rep. Scott Suder, R-Abbotsford, said taxing people is not the way to improve health care.

"Assembly Republicans will fashion our budget in line with a family's ability to pay," Suder said after Doyle's budget address.

But while some lawmakers criticized the governor's health care proposals, almost every lawmaker, including Suder, applauded a provision that would exempt all health insurance premiums from taxes.

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