Wisconsin News and Sports
The Green Bay Packers are already without running back Vernand Morency after he was injured on the first day of training camp. Now they may have lost P.J. Pope for awhile after he hurt a knee in Saturday's Family Night scrimmage.
More details on Pope's injury should be made available later today, but the Packers have indicated Pope could be out for more than just a couple of days.
Nearly half the births in Wisconsin during 2005 were paid by taxpayers through Medicaid. Forty-four percent up from thirty-five and a half percent in 2000. A twenty-six per cent jump.
Jason Helgerson at Health and Family Services says between 2000 and 2005 more women enrolled in Medicaid. In fact, Helgerson says there was an alarming increase in the number of women of child-bearing age who were two times below the federally established poverty line.
Helgerson says HFS believes that's because people were still feeling the affects of a recession in 2002-2003.
The Doyle administration is proposing an expansion of family planning services to help reduce the number of Medicaid funded births. That expansion would include services for men as well. Helgerson says reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies is good for everyone including the taxpayer.
That proposal is part of the legislative budget debate now going on in a conference committee.
A Wisconsin transportation advocacy group says the state's bridges, roads and highways need work.
Craig Thompson, Executive Director of the Wisconsin Transportation Development Association, doesn't believe any Wisconsin bridges will collapse anytime soon but he does say if the state doesn't invest properly there could be problems down the road.
Thompson says the state is behind and as roads, highways and bridges get older more things will start falling apart. He says transportation funding now being debated in the state budget is only a start.
Even if the transportation funding proposed by the governor and senate democrats should be approved, it only accounts for half of what the TDA feels is needed. But Thompson, realizing it won't all happen in one year, says it's a start.
At least, Thompson says, democrats and republicans agree to return transportation funding that was diverted to other areas. And while both sides agree revenue needs to be increased they disagree on how much.
Thompson says the state needs to look at things like user fees, registration fees and gas tax revenue to be properly invested in the state's infrastructure and make sure none of it gets diverted to other parts of the budget.
A state lawmaker is encouraged by news that Americans are turning to fuel-efficient cars. That's after a national report shows hybrid car sales are up 35 percent in the US this year. Still, State Representative Joe Parisi (D-Madison) says people need more incentives to buy fuel-efficient vehicles.
Parisi is the author of a bill that would give a $1,000 income tax credit to those who purchase a hybrid. He says it would show people who care about the environment by purchasing a hybrid car should get a break.
Parisi's bill has the unanimous approval of an Assembly committee, but is awaiting further legislative action.
The budget conference committee remains split right now on Healthy Wisconsin, a universal health care package the Senate included in it's version of the state budget. Members debated the plan for nearly three hours last week, without reaching a resolution on whether to include the plan in the final version of the budget.
Governor Jim Doyle is not taking sides on the issue either. He says leadership in the Assembly and Senate are going to go through their own negotiations and go where they want to go with the plan.
However, the Governor says his BadgerCare Plus proposal is what's needed right now. He says the entire system doesn't need to be redone. Doyle says his goals for health care in the budget have been pretty straightforward with BadgerCare Plus, which would make sure children have health insurance and provide coverage for low-income residents statewide. The Governor says that's something all lawmakers should be willing to agree on.
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