Wisconsin's Medicaid Programs: Urgent Action Needed

You may already know that Dennis Smith is a former Senior Fellow of the right-wing Heritage Foundation who led the Medicare and Medicaid programs under George W. Bush.  Smith has written extensively on his desire to destroy Medicaid and oppose Obama's Health Care bill which was passed in 2010.  A list of his writings at the Heritage Foundation can be found here.

Now, Smith (current Secretary of Wisconsin Department of Health Services) and his deputy, Kitty Rhoades (a former Republican Assembly member), have announced two town hall meetings to take place Wednesday, October 19th, at the Goodman Community Center on Madison's East Side and on October 21st at the Wisconsin State Fair Park in West Allis, to take feedback to proposals they made public only three weeks ago, on September 26th.  Even more outrageous, the town halls were made public with only a few days notice (on Friday, October 14th), leaving community health advocates little time to prepare, let alone even know that the town halls were taking place.

Smith's plan to cut $500 million by tightening eligibility requirements and thus dropping tens of thousands of people from Medicaid coverage is in addition to proposals to increase co-payments of low-income people and to put a cap on Family Care enrollment.  

Needless to say health, disability, and family advocates are outraged at many of the proposed changes.  Please see the Wisconsin Council on Children and Family's website here, the Save BadgerCare Coalition's website here and here, and the Survival Coalition of Wisconsin Disability Organizations' statement on Medicaid policy changes.

Please consider coming to one of the town halls to protest the attempt of conservatives to continue their attacks on Wisconsin's most vulnerable citizens.  More information on the Milwaukee town hall can be found here, as well as about the one in Madison, here.  If you cannot attend, please contact your state legislators right away and let them know how you feel about Smith and his proposed changes (legislator lookup).

A complete list of reforms is provided at the DHS website.

I've created a Facebook event page for the Madison town hall tomorrow.  Please check it out and share with others!  https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=305599539455156