Dennis Smith: Medicaid debate, by the numbers

With baseball spring training and all of the various basketball tournaments, March surely must be a sport statistician's favorite month. However, statistics also need context. A baseball player with a lifetime batting average of .330 is likely headed for the Hall of Fame. A basketball player with a free-throw percentage of .330 is headed for the bench. Numbers certainly cannot tell us everything we need to know about a subject, but they are useful in forming a common understanding. To reach the necessary decisions about critical programs like Medicaid, it is vital to understand how our funding requests fit into the state's budget. (JOURNAL SENTINEL, 3/16)