Tuesday, October 11, 2011

COMMENTARY BadgerCare or Obamacare: State Needs to Choose One

The state Department of Human Services wants young adults on their parents' insurance plans, but the state is challenging the law that makes that possible.
Young adults, including newly minted college graduates, are having a hard time finding jobs and that means they probably don't have health insurance.
Some applied for, and receive, insurance benefits through the state-funded BadgerCare plans. But now, the state Department of Human Services, as part of its move to save $550 million in Medicaid, wants these young adults to move to their parents' insurance plans.
It's not a bad idea except ... that can only happen if President Obama's Affordable Care Act remains in place.
When the President's sweeping healthcare reform was passed, part of it included coverage on parent insurance plans for young adults up to age 26 without the requirement of being a full time student. Previously, most insurance plans said kids could receive coverage if they were full time students or up to age 23, whichever came first.
Except Wisconsin is one of several states challenging the constitutionality of Obamacare. Governor Scott Walker and Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen say the law violates the 10th Amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited to it by the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Meaning, of course, that the federal govenment can't force Americans to purchase any goods or services.
Yet the state DHS wants to save money by moving young adults off BadgerCare and onto their parents' insurance plans.
Is it just me, or is it hypocritical to say on the one hand that young adults should move to their parents' insurance but then challenge the very law that would make that possible?

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