Activists claim the insurance industry was the biggest beneficiary of Governor Scott Walker’s decision to reject federal money for BadgerCare expansion. Citizen Action of Wisconsin and Wisconsin Democracy Campaign called into question the relationship between large campaign donations and the rejection of federal funds for BadgerCare.
“Look, there is actually a direct campaign incentive here to not take the money,” Robert Kraig with Citizen Action of Wisconsin said during a media call on Monday. Data collected by the Democracy Campaign indicates that the insurance industry gave over $1.25 million dollars to Governor Scott Walker between 2009 and 2013.
Walker was asked about that. “That’s not something we were lobbied on one way or another to my knowledge, at least not me personally,” the governor said.
The report found the money was over three times the amount Governor Jim Doyle received from the insurance industry from 2000-2012, and that state legislators also received close to a million dollars. Kraig said the industry reaped a large cash windfall because Walker’s decision not to take the federal money pushed an estimated 87-thousand people into private insurance plans.