Walker takes Insurance Industry campaign money for Medicaid Rejection? If it looks like a bribe...

WKOW's Greg Neumann looked into Citizen Actions allegation that Scott Walker rejected Medicaid expansion as a gift to the insurance industry in exchange for campaign cash totaling $1.27 million!!!

It's no secret business is getting what it wants from their political dupe Scott Walker, and that's why the appearance of pay to play in the following case is so important.

According to the campaign finance watchdog group the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, members of the health insurance industry donated over $1.27 million to Gov. Walker from 2009 through 2013.  Wisconsin Democracy Campaign President Mike McCabe tells 27 News that is close to seven times more than the $183,196 Gov. Jim Doyle got from the same industry from 2005 to 2010 ... Citizen Action of Wisconsin claims there is a direct correlation between those donations and the Governor's rejection of the federal Medicaid expansion.

Think about it; dumping 72,000 people into the private sector paying higher private sector fees is a big money maker for insurers. Why wouldn't Walker take the money, he's done it before with mining?  

Citizen Action ... believes there's no doubt Gov. Walker's made his decision to benefit the insurance companies who donated to his campaign.  When asked about that specific allegation Monday afternoon, Gov. Walker seemed to be at a rare loss for words.

Here's a clip showing Walker fumbling around for an answer that, as you're trying to follow it, makes not sense at all. That's because he got caught, with no prepared memorized comeback:

Walker: "Actually if you think about it, its just the opposite," said Gov. Walker.  "It means fewer people would be on insurance actually, if...in the end...if there were...more people there they'd be under Medicaid.  It's not a, for us, it has no decision one way or the other."

Neumann gave our unrehearsed governor another chance:

To clear up that answer, 27 News specifically asked the Governor if he was saying insurance companies did not benefit at all from his Medicaid decision, even though it meant more customers for them.

"In the end, I'm saying you had people before that were on a wait list.  Those weren't folks that were affected one way or another by insurance out there. The fact is they weren't, to my knowledge, they haven't lobbied me personally or anybody in my administration on this," said Gov. Walker.

Yikes, absolute nonsense. With more people in the marketplace, and fewer people on Medicaid (with its lower fee structure), yea, the insurance industry made out like bandits. Our incidental governor isn't so disengaged after all, and much richer for it.