DHS hosts heated hearing on WI's Medicaid plan

By Alyssa Hertig and Ryan Ekvall | Wisconsin Reporter

MILWAUKEE – Brett Davis, Medicaid director at the state Department of Health Services, tried to assuage a crowd of 90 people at a public hearing in Milwaukee on Thursday that the transition to Gov. Scott Walker’s BadgerCare reform plan would go smoothly.

That was a difficult task facing the sometimes testy audience, largely in favor of accepting the $4 billion-plus in federal money to expand the Medicaid program.

“I’ve never heard so much propaganda thrown at me in many years” said Michael Ryan, during the public comment period. Ryan voiced his outrage at Walker’s plan to roll back the state’s Medicaid coverage to individuals earning up to 100 percent of the federal poverty level.

Ryan said low-income earners could not even afford to pay $5 a week for subsidized medical coverage under the federal exchange in the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare.

“You guys don’t reside in the hood,” Sanderal McKinney, a resident of Milwaukee said.  “I trust BadgerCare, I don’t trust this. I don’t know this.”

Read more at WisconsinReporter.com

http://bit.ly/1af7FhZ