Earlier this week, Wisconsin lawmakers on the state’s budget-writing Joint Finance Committee took action to incorporate a permanent reauthorization of Medicaid Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) funding. This top WHA priority for the 2021-2023 budget bill reauthorizes more than $104 million in additional support to nearly 90 hospitals in Wisconsin. The Committee’s action also makes this additional funding permanent rather than one-time funding, as provided in the last budget.
“In this proposal, we invest in high-quality health care for all Wisconsin residents,” said Assembly Co-Chair Mark Born (R-Beaver Dam). “We make an ongoing $40 million [state] investment in our hospitals. These hospitals and clinics are key leaders in our high-quality health care system here in Wisconsin; they were significantly challenged in helping us with the COVID pandemic, and we invest in that leadership tonight.”
“Hospitals are the very core of our state’s high-quality health care system. They are always there, always on the front line, for their communities. When patients have nowhere else to go, they go to a hospital. Not just during a global pandemic, but every minute of every day, thousands of people in Wisconsin depend on hospitals to take care of them,” said WHA President and CEO Eric Borgerding in a statement following the Joint Finance Committee’s action.
Borgerding continued, “That is why WHA applauds the Joint Finance Committee’s action yesterday on the Medicaid Disproportionate Share Hospital program by providing an ongoing investment in our health care delivery system that will improve and sustain access to care for patients in all corners of the state at all times.”
Committee members discussed their experiences with our Wisconsin’s hospitals throughout the last year as hospitals, providers and staff served on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I can’t say enough for our hospitals,” said Joint Finance Committee member Rep. Tony Kurtz (R-Wonewoc). “If it wasn’t for those hospitals and their preparedness, the loss [of life] would have been much more. This motion is an opportunity to tell our hospitals that we appreciate what they did.”
“A year ago at this time, our hospitals were essentially empty—not because they wanted to be, but because they were told to shut down,” said Senate Co-Chair Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green). “It was a rough year for our hospitals as well, so I’m happy we can continue to fund our hospitals with DSH payments.”
As 108 WHA member leaders told the Committee in an open letter in April, DSH funding was important pre-pandemic and will remain important following the pandemic, as Wisconsin’s Medicaid reimbursement rates remain among the lowest in the country and create a $1.2 billion cost shift onto other payers of hospital care each year. Since 2013, the state Legislature has used the Medicaid DSH program to invest more state support in Wisconsin hospitals to improve access to care and reduce the Medicaid cost shift burden onto Wisconsin families and businesses.
“I want the hospitals that serve my community—whether it is Beloit, Janesville or Elkhorn…they are all DSH hospitals—I want them to be financially healthy enough to continue to operate in my community so that my neighbors and I can have quality access to quality care and choices,” said Assembly Vice-Chair Amy Loudenbeck (R-Clinton) as she described the impact of poor Medicaid reimbursement rates on hospitals and patients.
The proposed budget bill is expecting to be wrapped up in committee on June 17, with action slated in each chamber of the Legislature by the end of the month. Following passage of the budget, Gov. Evers can sign in-whole, veto in-part or veto in-whole the budget bill presented to him by the Legislature.