In hopes of providing affordable health care to every child in the state, Wisconsin?s new health care program BadgerCare Plus launched Friday.
The Department of Health and Family Services worked together with 32 agencies to promote BadgerCare Plus and enroll the first people in it.
BadgerCare Plus streamlines Medicare, BadgerCare and Healthy Start and creates an inexpensive, state-sponsored health care program at no additional cost to taxpayers.
Agencies statewide are set on providing information about the program to Wisconsinites. Empowered with $447,112 in grants, the agencies hope to work with DHFS to reach the state?s goal of 26,000 people enrolled in BadgerCare Plus over the next 18 months, DFHS spokesperson Claire Smith said.
Jon Peacock, research director for the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families in Madison, said his group is using the grant money in a number of ways.
?We?re going to be looking to the private sector to try and find some businesses that would be willing to help promote BadgerCare Plus,? Peacock said. ?Like including promotional material in a fast food restaurant tray line.?
DHFS will also be working with some of the state?s health care centers. Sarah Valencia, a health benefits coordinator at Access Community Health Centers in Madison, said her clinic is working to provide information to its uninsured patients through staffers like her.
Valencia said the clinic had signed up around a half dozen people for BadgerCare Plus Friday, a number she expects to steadily rise over the coming weeks and months.
Over the next 18 months, the state estimates that BadgerCare Plus will cost $50 million. Around 60 percent of that amount will be covered by the federal government and the remainder by premiums and co-payments.
Co-payments of $5 per prescription and $100 per hospital visit will be required in order to offset costs and avoid raising taxes. Co-payments will be considerably less for lower income families, ranging from 50 cents to $3.
Depending on income level, premiums range from nothing to $90.74 a month. It is available to every child, adults with children and pregnant women.
In 2005, around 38,000 Wisconsin children were uninsured for all or part of the year. BadgerCare Plus will provide easy access to health care for all those children, a huge step forward in the health care crisis, Smith said.
?Kids really need to have preventive care from day one,? Smith said. ?And children that are healthy can easily go on to lead a long, prosperous life without having to worry about high medical costs.?
In January 2009, BadgerCare Plus will be further expanded to allow childless adults from ages 18 to 64 to register for the insurance.
?So it could be a 62-year-old who doesn?t have children in the house anymore, or it could be a University of Wisconsin student without access to health care,? Smith said.
