Attack on State Workers hides Gov. Walker’s Power grab to Slash Medicaid with no Public Input.

Bypassing the legislature, Gov. Walker wants to give the Dept. of Health Services unaccountable power to decide for itself who gets Medicaid coverage and who doesn’t. No debate, no public airing.

jsonline: Gov. Scott Walker's budget repair bill would give his administration sweeping powers to reshape state health programs covering more than 1 million state residents … The proposal would allow Walker's Department of Health Services to write rules to change state laws dealing with medical care for children, parents and childless adults; prescription drug plans for seniors; nursing home care for the elderly; and long-term care for the elderly and disabled outside of nursing homes. The programs that could see changes under the proposal would include the BadgerCare Plus and BadgerCare Core plans, FamilyCare and SeniorCare. 

"It's a shockingly broad delegation of legislative authority to the Department of Health Services," said Jon Peacock, research director for the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families. "This is the authority to do almost anything to substantially reduce eligibility for children, parents and childless adults, to increase premiums, to change renewal processes, to reduce services and to change rates (to providers). It covers everything."

What happened to the lengthy debate process and public disclosure the Republicans and tea party protesters were so angry about just a year ago? Not letting the economic disaster go unexploited, Scott Walker is taking advantage of what has been called Disaster Capitalism. Even conservative voters are shocked today by their parties actions.