Wisconsin News and Sports
Wisconsin women and advocacy groups applaud a change of heart. While Nancy Brinker, head of the breast cancer charity, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, said the organization “would never bow to political pressure,” apparently after three days of controversy, Komen is listening to public pressure and reversing a decision to cut off funding for Planned Parenthood.
AUDIO: Robin Colbert reports (:48) [Read more...]
An audit of a big state program shows challenges ahead. Joint Audit Committee cochairman, state Senator Rob Cowles, says the audit of the state’s $7.5 billion Medicaid program highlights the need for good data for lawmakers charged with overseeing it. “For example, how much precisely we’re spending on Family Care. How much precisely we’re spending on Senior Care, and a number of other programs.” The Green Bay Republican say otherwise it’s going to be difficult for lawmakers to make intelligent decisions, absent the sort of extensive effort the Audit Bureau made this time. “This is the first time anybody is aware of, that there was a full blown audit of the Medicaid program,” he says. “This is second only to school aids, as far as overall expenditures.” [Read more...]
The American Lung Association says their efforts to reduce or prevent tobacco use is a constant battle. Dona Wininsky with the group’s Wisconsin chapter says for every success achieved, the tobacco industry is out there creating new products, and developing new ways to market those products. “In the adult population now we’re seeing this proliferation around the state of roll-your-own cigarette shops. The reason that people are attracted to those is that the price is lower.”
Wininsky says the roll-your-own shops use cigar tobacco, which is taxed lower than cigarette tobacco. The shops sell loose tobacco and cigarette papers to customers who assemble their own smokes on the spot. Wininsky says the end product cost less than already-made expensive name brands, so any accomplishments gained from the higher price of cigarettes as a result of a hefty tax, is undone by the roll-your-own operations.
Also, the percentage of youth smokers is down from previous years, but Wininsky says marketing efforts are hindering that success. “It was over 30 percent not too terribly long ago; it’s about 20 percent now. There’s all kinds of new flavored, candy-flavored, fruit-flavored products and kids who at one time might have been cigarette smokers are now smoking grape-flavored cigarillos, for example.”
Wininsky says the laws need to catch up with the new products available to the public.
A recent report by the American Lung Association said Wisconsin falls short when it comes to protecting residents from the harms of tobacco, giving the state two Fs, a B, and an A. (Tobacco Prevention and Control Funding, F; Smoke free Air, A; Cigarette Tax Rate, B; and Coverage of Cessation Treatments and Services, F.)
AUDIO: Jackie Johnson report 1:44
A group of Assembly Democrats unveil a “Reproductive Rights Resolution” — in the face of a Republican agenda that they say will chip away at those rights. “We hear again that they’re finally going to focus on jobs, and I think we all welcome that focus,” says Representative Kelda Roys of Madison. “But let’t not be fooled. We have over a half a dozen anti-choice measures pending, in addition to the devastating cuts that we’ve already seen.”
Governor Scott Walker’s stand on health care reform could set the stage for a confrontation with Washington. The Walker administration is choosing not to pursue the implementation of a health insurance exchange under President Obama’s health care reform law, turning down federal grant money. “We have a health insurance cost crisis in Wisconsin, we’ve had hyperinflation. much worse than the national average, and Governor Walker is turning away $38 million we could use to create a competitive health marketplace,” says Robert Kraig, executive director of Citizen Action of Wisconsin. He says Walker may be betting on a change of administration in Washington. “This may be part of a strategy to make it harder to implement the law, in order to try to get it repealed,” says Kraig, who attended last week’s Health Action 2012 conference in Washington.
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