Layoffs at federal agencies continue unabated under the Trump administration, and at the same time Republicans in Congress are shaping a federal budget to include $4.5 trillion in tax cuts — Democratic U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin and Republican U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil shared their perspectives over whether there will be cuts to Medicaid. Bird flu is spreading, representing a continuing threat to poultry flocks and dairy cattle, and University of Minnesota epidemiologist Michael Osterholm said the clock is ticking on whether and when the virus sets off a pandemic in humans. Wisconsin’s aging population brings with it a rising incidence of dementia, and a new “dementia village” in Sheboygan is being built to provide residents a more home-like setting — Mary Pitsch of Dementia Innovations described the concept.

U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin
(D) Wisconsin

• Democrats in Congress are sounding the alarm over potential cuts to Medicaid, what with Republicans looking to enact a federal budget that sustains $4.5 trillion in tax cuts. Baldwin and other Democrats point to $880 billion in cuts being directed to the committee that handles health care spending.
• Baldwin: “These cuts, primarily targeting Medicaid, are draconian. And I can tell you that my phones have been ringing off the hook with people very concerned about the impact it would have. Nationwide, over 72 million people rely on Medicaid in some fashion. People who are in long-term care. Our seniors oftentimes have Medicaid as the primary payer for their care. A third of all children are on Medicaid. Many pregnancies and deliveries are funded through Medicaid and people with disabilities.”

U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil
(R) 1st Congressional District

• The Trump administration is slashing federal agencies by way of “reduction in force” employee layoffs, with litigation ensuing. At the same time, Congressional Republicans are fashioning budget blueprints that envision spending cuts to offset tax cuts. Steil rejected the idea that those spending offsets would come from Medicaid, the federal health care program that supports low-income people.
• Steil: “This is our opportunity to get spending under control in Washington. Frustratingly, there’s a lot of misinformation out there. The budget resolution that passed last night actually has the word Medicaid in it zero times. But this is really an opportunity to get broader spending under control and make sure that we’re being good stewards of taxpayer dollars. In addition, we have an opportunity to make sure that we’re extending the tax cuts that really grew the economy in particular as we came into the COVID pandemic. So this is about rightsizing Washington, D.C.”

Michael Osterholm
Director, University of Minnesota Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy

• The price of eggs has gone way up with the culling of commercial poultry flocks infected with avian influenza, and are projected to continue rising. Bird flu has infected large flocks in multiple Wisconsin counties and it’s been confirmed in wild bird populations across the state over the winter of 2024-25. Osterholm says a real danger for Wisconsin is when avian flu jumps to dairy livestock.
• Osterholm: “Wisconsin has every reason to be concerned about the issue of dairy cattle. We saw a little over a year ago the spillover of this virus from birds to dairy cattle, and the fact that the virus now can replicate very well in the udder of the cow, something we did not know until this past year. And so we’ve seen large outbreaks throughout the country, primarily in the West — western states — California being the really major location where we continue to see transmission between cattle, dairy cattle after once they became infected with that bird spillover.”

Mary Pitsch
President, Dementia Innovations

• Nearly 7 million people in the U.S. are living with dementia. In Wisconsin, about 130,000 people are afflicted with Alzheimer’s. As the population ages, those numbers are on the rise. Most people with dementia live out their days in nursing homes, but a new alternative care model is taking hold in Sheboygan. In a first of its kind in the U.S., 79 acres will be the site of Livasu, a community of more than 100 homes, a grocery store, restaurant and theater slated to open in the spring of 2026. Pitsch said this kind of village setting removes people from sterile nursing homes and an identity of simply being dementia patients.
• Pitsch: “As we age, and especially as we age with dementia, we kind of lose the person besides their dementia, and allowing them to be able to live in an environment that has positive risk acceptance — we know there’s going to be some risk, we know they can live as usual — allows them to not lose their personhood, not become only defined by their dementia, but really about still being a person even as they age with dementia.”

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