Protecting your healthcare was the topic of a roundtable discussion that brought U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin to Door County Medical Center on Friday. Baldwin has attacked the recently passed budget reconciliation bill, saying it could cut 270,000 Wisconsinites off from their healthcare and jeopardize the financial stability of rural hospitals. Waukesha’s Julie Burish shared her story of how Medicaid-funded programs like BadgerCare, IRIS, and Katie Beckett have allowed her disabled child to live independently. She fears what cuts could mean for families like hers.
Door County Medical Center CEO Brian Stephens and doctors Dorene Dempster and Beth Gaida described how they would limit the services they would provide in the community. Gaida and Dempster feel that the federal funding cuts could be devastating at a time when other rural healthcare providers are dropping their OB/GYN services due to cost concerns.
Baldwin says the stories she heard are the ones she needs to bring to Washington, D.C., to see what can still be saved.
In Wisconsin, Medicaid provides care for more than 1.2 million people, including four in seven nursing home residents, one in three children, and one in three adults with disabilities. Republicans like Rep. Tony Wied and Senator Ron Johnson have disagreed with Baldwin’s stance, saying that addressing potential fraud in the program that they are strengthening it in the long term. Baldwin’s “Fighting for Wisconsin Families Tour” took her to six counties, including Brown County on Thursday.
