Emotional statements at the Capitol, in support of BadgerCare. At a press conference Tuesday, Brenda Nemec of Madison talks about life with a complication due to synthetic estrogen which her late mother took during pregnancy. “According to insurance companies, DES is considered a high risk category, so my insurance premiums would be $1,500 per month, or $18,000 a year, and that’s with a $10,000 deductible,” she says. Alicia Treadwell is a Milwaukee health care worker who says she couldn’t have had surgery on her knee without BadgerCare. “I’m good enough to render quality care, but I wasn’t good enough to receive care,” she says. “What’s wrong with the picture?” Shyquetta McElroy of Milwaukee is the mother of a two year-old boy who recently required care. “I can’t believe Scott Walker wanted to take BadgerCare away from him and thousands of children like him just to line the pockets of big corporations,” she says. “I pay my taxes. So why should my family and children like him, the rest of the 99 percent, go without healthcare just so corporations can be richer.”
AUDIO: Bob Hague reports (:60)
The BadgerCare program is in line for changes in cost and eligibility by the Walker administration and Department of Health Services Secretary Dennis Smith. “Governor Walker and Dennis Smith don’t even begin to understand what it’s like” says state Senator Jon Erpenbach. “They’re part of the public sector that has access to health care.” Erpenbach and Representative Jon Richards of Milwaukee propose a BadgerCare Protection Act – to be funded by rescinding corporate tax breaks included in the governor’s budget. “If corporations are going to come and play in Wisconsin . . . they need to start paying for it,” Erpenbach says. “This is the ultimate double dipping: corporations come in, they get the tax breaks, and put their employees on BadgerCare.”