Walker makes Wisconsin Taxpayers Pay More for Health Care, Blame Poor for Freeloading off Badgercare.

Scott Walker just piled on the working poor when he blamed them for freeloading off Medicare, because you know what those people in poverty love working for small paychecks or enjoy being unemployed.

  

Walker wants private insurers to make money off the poor, by pushing them into the health care marketplaces. They need some skin in the game. As Walker put it; 

I want to provide a hand up, not a permanent hand out!

Tough love from our Republican authoritarian father figure. From WKOW and WISC:

jsoline: The state would turn down a full expansion of the BadgerCare program under the federal health care law but 224,600 more state residents would still gain coverage as the law takes effect … his proposal would reduce the role of government in people's lives and make them more independent.

Reducing the role of government means the private sector gets to make money off the poor when they normally wouldn't have. This is a scheme, a con game. A complicated mess most people will fall through the cracks trying to figure out. But at least insurers will make money. Does “controlling their own destiny” seeking out cancer, diabetes, or mental health treatment Walker’s idea of a joke? Do people need to scramble maniacally to stop the pain or get help?

"Some people will portray this as not caring about people. I think it's just the opposite. I care too much about the people of this state not to empower them to control their own destiny," Walker told the audience.

Pay your last penny to the insurance man folks. Hospitals and doctors will go uncompensated as before.

Jon Peacock, research director of the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families, said the governor's proposal would push tens of thousands of Medicaid recipients into the private insurance marketplaces.

Here’s how it works for the poor, who will:

pay a maximum premium of $230 a year - or $19 a month - for the coverage through the exchanges. A family of four with income just above the poverty level - $24,000 - would pay a premium of up to $480.

Oh good, less discretionary money to spend making our economy roar by REDUCING DEMAND.

So what will it cost Wisconsin over ten years? $72 million a year. The Federal share, $13.6 billion. From Daily Kos:

Wisconsin change in Medicaid costs, Medicaid expansion vs. no expansion
    1. In 2016- Taking Medicaid expansion saves $116 million
   2013-2022- Taking Medicaid expansion saves a total of $248 million
   Wisconsin reduction in uninsured
   2. By 2022- Taking Medicaid expansion reduces uninsured by 123,000.