Here & Now

Democratic Priorities for the 2021 Budget

Frederica Freyberg:

On the Democratic side of the aisle and in the voting minority on the Joint Finance Committee, we are joined by Milwaukee Senator LaTonya Johnson. And, senator, thanks very much for being here.

LaTonya Johnson:

Thank you so much for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

So how do you regard the actions of the Finance Committee, which is controlled 12-4 by majority Republicans?

LaTonya Johnson:

It was really so just frustrating to see so many of the governor’s budget items being pulled out, especially those items that were extremely popular among the public. We heard about those items from our listening sessions. So that was just really disheartening.

Frederica Freyberg:

Well, you told a personal story before the panel of why expansion of BadgerCare would help people, describing how you were uninsured before you were elected to the Legislature and only then discovered a large tumor for which you underwent surgery. Why is your story a cautionary tale on the expansion of Medicaid?

LaTonya Johnson:

Because people who can’t afford insurance, they’re just going to go without. And when you go without health insurance, you’re going to end up with complications that’s going to be much more costly to the state. In my case, I had to have major surgery, and it doesn’t just end there. I still have and will continue to have life-long complications from that. And so many of our Wisconsinites suffer those same fates every day. And it’s just so much easier and cheaper to provide adequate health care like something as simple as a checkup on an ongoing basis than to deal with those problems that are extremely costly to taxpayers in the end.

Frederica Freyberg:

Republican committee members asked why people who are of low income can’t simply now sign up for ObamaCare or plans on the marketplace. Why can’t they?

LaTonya Johnson:

They can sign up, but for individuals who are struggling to make ends meet, the money’s just not going to be there. And what we saw when the Republicans chose to kick 90,000 people off of Medicaid, a lot of those individuals were parents. And so doctors and, you know, third-party billing such as Molina talked about how children who were receiving regular checkups because their parents and themselves were covered were now missing those checkups because their parents were no longer covered. So it wasn’t as convenient to take a day off work and take everybody to the doctor versus just having the kid seen. And so we want to make sure that Wisconsinites are as healthy as possible. And we’re leaving $1.6 billion on the table to cover less people. And that’s the concerning part.

Frederica Freyberg:

As to that kind of loss of $1.6 billion of federal money by not expanding Medicaid, what about the argument that expanding it just fosters the growth of welfare programs?

LaTonya Johnson:

That makes absolutely no sense because these are human beings. These are individuals who just can’t afford health care. And we’re leaving $1.6 billion on the table when this state has so many needs, such as community investment programs, health equity grants. That could help both the inner city and as well as the rural areas to staff themselves with doctors. The expansion of a welfare program holds no water because these are individuals that need coverage. And I think that comes from a place of privilege. For so many of those elected officials, they see things that way because we ourselves are being covered medically by the state so why shouldn’t we expect our constituents who can’t afford healthcare to be able to do the same.

Frederica Freyberg:

One of the other 390 items removed from the executive budget by Republican vote this week, 190 of them were deemed policy items by the Fiscal Bureau and those are regularly stripped out. But of them, were there priority items in there for you and your constituents?

LaTonya Johnson:

There were. One of those priority items for me was Bucky’s Promise, being able to allow students to go to any of the UW System schools for free if their parents earned under $60,000 a year. We have a shortage crisis in this state of teachers, nurses, social workers, psychiatrists and psychologists. And giving those students the opportunity to be able to pursue a college education is pivotal to being able to change things in this state. And for so many of those students, the parent [?] portion is the most difficult piece to come up with. And to just be denied that type of educational opportunity because your parents can’t afford it, I don’t understand when the state has such a great need.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. We leave it there. Senator LaTonya Johnson, thanks very much for joining us.

LaTonya Johnson:

Thank you.