State budget panel to take up Scott Walker plan to drug test food stamp, certain Medicaid recipients

Wisconsin State Journal (Madison, WI)

May 25--The state Legislature's budget-writing panel is poised to largely embrace Gov. Scott Walker's proposals to require some food-stamp and Medicaid recipients to submit to drug tests and meet work requirements in exchange for benefits.

The proposals are set to go before the budget-writing Joint Finance Committee Thursday afternoon.

Walker's plan would make Wisconsin the first state in the nation to make drug tests mandatory for Medicaid recipients and would impose the requirement for able-bodied adults without dependent children seeking coverage through the state's BadgerCare program.

Walker's plan for the state's FoodShare, or food stamp, program would impose work requirements for parents with dependent children all of whom are school-age, or at least six years old. Such a requirement, which says recipients must work at least 80 hours a month to maintain benefits, now applies only to childless adults.

A proposal by Republicans on the budget panel set to be voted on Thursday would initially limit the new FoodShare requirements to certain regions of the state and delay its start date to 2019. The program later could be expanded statewide.

All the proposals require federal approval, which the Walker administration is requesting. The administration also is asking federal officials to charge monthly BadgerCare premiums to childless adults and charge more to people engaging in risky health behaviors.

The GOP lawmakers' plan also calls for the budget panel to sign off on the Medicaid changes, should they be approved by federal officials, before they take effect.

Rep. John Nygren, who co-chairs the finance committee, said Thursday that Walker's initiatives would help benefit recipients move "from dependence to independence."

Under the plans, people seeking benefits would have to undergo screening, with potential drug tests contingent on their responses.

Walker has proposed expanding drug-test and work requirements for a range of public programs. He and other supporters say the requirements prepare benefit recipients to enter the workforce.

Critics of the moves, which include Democrats and some advocacy groups, have said the drug tests, in particular, are meant to shame public-benefit recipients but won't deter drug use.

The other committee co-chairperson, Sen. Alberta Darling, R-River Hills, said the panel will support Walker's plan to increase Medicaid reimbursement rates for nursing homes and personal care providers. Both would receive 2 percent reimbursement hikes in each of the next two years under Walker's plan.

Personal care services are provided to people with disabilities and chronic health conditions to assist with tasks such as eating and meal preparation, dressing, light housework and shopping.

During Thursday's Medicaid debate, Democrats on the budget panel are likely to highlight what advocates describe as uncertainty with federal health care funding created by President Donald Trump's proposal for the next federal budget. Programs such as BadgerCare, EBD Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program, or CHIP, are funded with both state and federal dollars.

Trump's proposed cuts to the Children's Health Insurance Program would create more than $100 million in new costs in Wisconsin's next state budget, according to the Wisconsin Council on Children & Families.

Also Thursday, Walker said splitting transportation funding from the larger state budget, as some Republican lawmakers have suggested, could delay work on critical highway projects.

Walker spoke publicly Thursday at an event in Neenah, near the site of a project to expand U.S. Highway 10/State Highway 441.

"The only way we have troubles with major projects like this ... is if we don't have a transportation budget by July 1," Walker told reporters Thursday.

The 10/441 project is one of four major highway expansions that Walker has proposed to fund in his transportation budget proposal, keeping their construction on track for the next two years. Others include an expansion of U.S. Interstate 39/90 from the Madison Beltline to the Illinois state line, of Verona Road from Raymond Road to McKee Road and of State Highway 15 in Outagamie County.

For months, the transportation debate has centered on whether to increase gas taxes or vehicle fees to ease the state's growing backlog of road and bridge projects. Walker opposes the move, and proposed a budget that would hold the line on taxes and fees and increase funding for local roads while slashing funds for freeway projects in southeast Wisconsin.

The plan also relies on $500 million in borrowing. That's a key point of contention between Walker and some legislative Republicans wary of putting more on the state's credit card.

Legislative Democrats and some Republicans say tax and fee increases should be considered for the transportation budget.

Assembly Majority Leader Jim Steineke responded to Walker in a statement saying Assembly Republicans aren't halting progress on the transportation budget.

"I'm renewing my call on the Governor and the State Senate to come forward with a true, conservative plan that fixes our roads and pays for it without borrowing at the peril of our children," Steineke said.

The Assembly GOP earlier this month released a plan to apply the state sales tax to fuel, reduce the per-gallon fuel tax and trim the state's minimum markup requirement on fuel sales. Walker and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, quickly panned the proposal.

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