Month: March 2013

Common Ground Healthcare Cooperative, a nonprofit Milwaukee-area health-insurance cooperative, said Tuesday it received its certificate of authority from the state of Wisconsin. (MILWAUKEE BUSINESS JOURNAL, 3/13)

Sen. Ron Johnson on Monday ripped into Obamacare, trying to back up House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan's decision to seek the law's repeal in his proposed budget. "I think the cost estimate of Obamacare is grossly understated," Johnson said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "I think far more Americans are going to lose their employer-sponsored care because there are incentives for employers to drop their coverage and make their employees eligible for huge subsidies and exchanges. I think this is going to explode our deficit, I think this is going to lead to rationing. It will lead to rationing, lower quality of care." (POLITICO, 3/12)

The state would spend $76.5 million and hire 89 workers over the next two years to implement federal legislation such as the health care law, under Gov. Scott Walker's budget bill. That spending request shows just a part of the massive task - encompassing everything from computer projects to consumer outreach - that must be completed to expand coverage for the uninsured under the federal Affordable Care Act, sometimes called Obamacare. How well this implementation goes will have substantial effects on both the uninsured and state and federal taxpayers. (JOURNAL SENTINEL, 3/11)