In an ever-changing world, it’s nice to know that some things stay the same – my annual health insurance premium increase just came through for the 20th year in a row! For 2026, my company’s small-group policy will rise roughly 10%. And believe it or not, in the world of American health care, that’s considered a modest increase.
For my own family — myself, my wife, and our four kids — our health insurance plan costs about $1,800 per month with a $12,000 annual deductible. That is about $34,000 per year.
If your household earns around $110,000 a year, you’re actually doing extremely well: that puts you in the top 15% of earners in states like Wisconsin.
But even at that income, a $34,000 annual healthcare bill eats up 40% of your post-tax income.
Let’s put that in perspective:
That $34,000 is almost six times what that same family pays in Medicare taxes — taxes that help cover the oldest, sickest people in the country.
That $34,000 is more than my family spends on food, mortgage, property taxes, and utilities combined.
And the gap between what we pay and what we use has become downright comical: I’m at Hy-Vee four times a week, but I haven’t been to a doctor in over three years.
But here’s the bigger problem: When premiums go up 7% per year — again, considered “moderate” — the magic of compound interest turns that into a doubling of price in just a decade.
At only 7% increases, by 2037, a family earning $110,000 will be paying a $45,000 annual premium for a small-group plan. Add a $15,000 deductible, and private insurance would consume 80% of their after-tax take-home pay.
No household, no matter how responsible or hard-working, can withstand that.
We’ve been promised reform for nearly a decade. Donald Trump began talking about fixing healthcare back in 2016. By 2024, the country still had nothing more than “concepts of a plan.” And temporary patches — tweaked subsidies, tinkering with tax credits, or tossing out $2,000 checks — are not even in the neighborhood of a real solution.
At the very least, Congress should make sure those price spikes don’t devastate families on Jan. 1, but the fact that those tax credits are needed speaks to out of control costs within the health care system.
We are out of time for small fixes. The system doesn’t need polishing — it needs structural change.
What we need is bold leadership and big ideas. And in my view, the fastest, most practical path forward is a public option — Medicare-for-all-who-want-it. Let individuals and small businesses buy into Medicare. If my family could get coverage for anything less than $34,000 a year, that’s an immediate savings! And we’re far from alone. That’s why I’m advocating with other small business owners, including those at the Main Street Alliance, to get it done.
You can’t solve an economic problem with partisan politics. That’s why Rep. Derrick Van Orden must come to the table to negotiate on health care. He said he would protect rural health care earlier this year, then turned his back on folks on Western Wisconsin and voted for the ‘Big Ugly Law’. The system is broken and we need serious people to address health care in a serious way. The math has already made the case. Now we need you to have the courage to follow it.
Health insurance claim form. (krisanapong detraphiphat/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — Two leading Democrats on a U.S. House panel called on the head of an agency within the U.S. Department of Labor responsible for protecting workers’ benefits to take action to address improper health insurance claim denials, in a Tuesday letter provided exclusively to States Newsroom.
Reps. Bobby Scott of Virginia and Mark DeSaulnier of California — the respective ranking members of the House Committee on Education and Workforce and its Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions — offered three recommendations to Daniel Aronowitz. He is the assistant secretary of the DOL’s Employee Benefits Security Administration, or EBSA.
“Improper claim denials impose substantial health and financial hardships on individuals, leading to delays in necessary treatments, worsened health outcomes, and high out-of-pocket costs,” Scott and DeSaulnier wrote.
“In far too many tragic cases, denials lead to the unnecessary deaths of people who have earned benefits through their plan, but are nonetheless denied the care that could have saved their lives,” they added.
Improvements called for in collecting data on denials
As head of EBSA, Aronowitz is responsible for administering, regulating and enforcing Title I of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, or ERISA, which is intended to protect participants’ and their beneficiaries’ interests when it comes to benefit plans under their employers.
DOL estimated roughly 136 million participants and beneficiaries were covered by approximately 2.6 million ERISA-covered group health plans in 2022.
As part of their recommendations, Scott and DeSaulnier called on Aronowitz to “implement long-delayed transparency requirements to collect data on health claim denials by insurance companies and group health plans.”
The two suggested building upon Form 5500, ERISA’s annual reporting requirement, to “improve data collection from group health plans.”
Staffing at agency, Trump budget cuts cited
Scott and DeSaulnier also urged Aronowitz to “commit to fully enforcing the law and to ensuring that EBSA is adequately staffed to fulfill its mission,” pointing to a decline in more than a fifth of the agency’s staff under President Donald Trump’s administration.
Trump’s fiscal 2026 budget request for DOL also called for $181 million in funding for EBSA, a $10 million proposed cut from the prior fiscal year.
The Senate Appropriations Committee passed its annual bill to fund DOL, including EBSA, back in July and maintained funding for the program in fiscal 2026 at $191 million.
The corresponding panel in the House also approved its bill to fund DOL in September, aligning with the administration’s request of cutting funding for EBSA by $10 million in fiscal 2026.
The Democrats also recommended Aronowitz take steps to “improve consumers’ ability to appeal wrongfully denied health benefits.”
They encouraged the assistant secretary to consult the Advisory Council on Employee Welfare and Pension Benefit Plans and to “reverse” DOL’s current posture regarding the council.
Scott and DeSaulnier noted that DOL took several steps to “undermine” the council, including “delaying public release of its report, purging documents such as testimonies from consumer advocates from the Department’s website, and, to date, failing to convene the Council for any of the four statutorily-mandated meetings.”
The department did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
Sky Roberts, left, brother of Virginia Giuffre, who was abused by Jeffrey Epstein, and his wife Amanda Roberts hold up a photo of Giuffre during a news conference on the Epstein Files Transparency Act outside the U.S. Capitol on Nov. 18, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
This story contains mention of sexual abuse and suicide. If you or a loved one are in crisis, help is available 24 hours a day by dialing 988 or visiting 988hotline.org.
WASHINGTON — A bill is heading to President Donald Trump’s desk compelling the release of unclassified investigative files from the case against convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a friend to the rich and powerful who died in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019 awaiting federal trial on sex trafficking charges.
Senate Republicans on Tuesday night did not object to a unanimous consent request from Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to accept and pass the legislation, as is, after the U.S. House overwhelmingly approved the measure earlier in the day.
The Senate did not receive the bill from the House before adjourning Tuesday night.
A senior administration official told States Newsroom the president will sign the bill “whenever it gets to the White House.”
The lawmakers in the lower chamber voted 427-1 to compel the Department of Justice to release materials related to the government’s investigation of the financier who harmed over 1,000 victims, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., was the lone “no” vote.
Survivors and their supporters watched the vote from the chamber’s gallery seats. Among them was Sky Roberts, the brother of the late Virginia Giuffre, who sued Epstein’s co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell and the British royal family’s Andrew Windsor, who recently was stripped of his title of prince. Giuffre died by suicide in April.
“I’m very happy with the outcome, but this is just the beginning, and we have a lot of work ahead of us, a lot more to do,” Haley Robson told States Newsroom in an interview after the vote. Robson is prominent among those who have shared their stories of abuse by Epstein.
The bill now goes to Trump, who said Monday he will sign it.
‘Courage and advocacy’ of survivors cited
Schumer, a New York Democrat, wrote on social media earlier the vote would “not have been possible without the courage and advocacy of Jeffrey Epstein’s survivors. They made this vote possible. They risked their safety coming out of the darkness to share their stories and to tell the truth.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said earlier Tuesday he expected the bill to move through the Senate “fairly quickly” and likely without changes, according to reporting by CNN.
The legislation compels the Justice Department to publicly disclose “all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials in its possession that relate to Epstein or Maxwell.” They include records related to Epstein’s detention and death; flight logs from Epstein’s planes; names of those connected with Epstein’s alleged crimes; records of civil settlements, and sealed and unsealed immunity deals and plea bargains; records pertaining to entities with ties to Epstein’s trafficking or financial networks; and internal DOJ communications “concerning decisions to investigate or charge Epstein or his associates.”
The bill carves out exceptions for records containing victims’ identities, images of death or physical abuse, and information that could jeopardize a federal investigation.
The bill also notes that the “DOJ may not withhold or redact records on the basis of embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity.”
Trump, Johnson opposition
Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson opposed the House effort to release the files until this week.
Johnson said Tuesday morning that he will vote for the measure that has been forced to the floor after Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Ro Khanna, D-Calif., gathered enough signatures on a discharge petition to override leadership.
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., speaks during a press conference on Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025. Also pictured, from left, are House Republican Conference Chair Lisa McClain of Michigan, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana and House Republican Whip Tom Emmer of Minnesota. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)
The Louisiana Republican told reporters at his regular House leadership press conference that the “forcing mechanism here prevents the very deliberate, professional, careful manner in which Congress is supposed to do this.”
“But having now forced the vote, none of us want to go on record and in any way be accused of not being for maximum transparency,” Johnson said.
The vote comes less than a week after lawmakers on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released some 20,000 pages of emails from Epstein’s estate that repeatedly mentioned Trump’s name.
In one email from Epstein to Maxwell, the financier and sex offender claimed Trump “knew about the girls.”
Trump denies any involvement with Epstein’s alleged crimes, and has said that he kicked Epstein out of his private Florida club, Mar-a-Lago, because he alleged the financier had poached young female staffers from the club. Epstein was convicted in Florida of soliciting minors for sex in 2008.
During a press conference in the Oval Office Tuesday alongside the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Trump told reporters, “As far as the Epstein files, I have nothing to do with Jeffery Epstein. I threw him out of my club many years ago because I thought he was a sick pervert.”
Trump added, as he has repeatedly said before, that the files are a “Democratic hoax.”
Plaskett text messages
The thousands of documents released by Epstein’s estate revealed the sex offender’s correspondence with academics, journalists, lawmakers and at least one spiritual leader.
Among the revelations were text messages between Epstein and U.S. Democratic Delegate Stacey Plaskett, who represents the U.S. Virgin Islands, where Epstein owned a residence.
An effort by Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., is underway to formally reprimand Plaskett for texting with Epstein during a 2019 congressional hearing that featured testimony from Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen. News of the text exchange was originally published by the Washington Post.
The official censure would remove Plaskett from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. A vote was expected Tuesday night.
Plaskett defended herself on the House floor Tuesday afternoon, saying, “We all know that Jeffrey Epstein’s actions were absolutely reprehensible as a constituent, as an individual who gave donations to me. When I learned of the extent of his actions after his investigation, I gave that money to women’s organizations in my community.”
Stories of abuse
Women who told stories of being abused by Epstein as teens rallied outside the U.S. Capitol Tuesday morning, alongside Massie, Khanna and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., whom Trump attacked online this weekend, nicknaming her a “traitor.”
Robson told the crowd that as a Republican herself, the advocacy from Massie and Greene is “unbelievable to watch, and we are so grateful.”
“And to the president of the United States of America, who is not here today, I want to send a clear message to you: While I do understand that your position has changed on the Epstein files, and I’m grateful that you have pledged to sign this bill, I can’t help to be skeptical of what the agenda is,” Robson said.
U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., stood and spoke alongside women who shared stories of sexual abuse by the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, on Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025, ahead of a U.S. House vote to compel release of the government’s Epstein case files. (Screenshot courtesy of C-SPAN)
In a Sunday night post on his own social media platform, Trump told Republicans to vote in favor of the bipartisan legislation Tuesday, which lawmakers have named the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
Greene, who also spoke at the press conference, said the administration’s refusal to release what are collectively referred to as the Epstein files “has ripped MAGA apart.”
“The only thing that will speak to the powerful, courageous women behind me is when action is actually taken to release these files, and the American people won’t tolerate any other b- – – -t,” Greene said.
GOP Reps. Nancy Mace of South Carolina and Lauren Boebert of Colorado were the other Republicans to join Massie, Greene and all Democrats to sign the petition.
Grijalva signature
In a second press conference outside the Capitol later Tuesday morning, the House’s newest Democratic member, Arizona’s Adelita Grijalva, spoke alongside sexual abuse prevention advocates.
“The momentum behind this did not come from politicians. It came from survivors and the public who demanded answers. This is why the discharge petition crossed 218 signatures, despite Speaker Johnson doing everything in his power to prevent this from happening, including calling an early summer release, and delaying myself my swearing in for seven weeks,” Grijalva said.
U.S. Rep. Adelita Grijalva, D-Ariz., who became the 218th signature on the discharge petition to force a vote on disclosing the Epstein files, spoke outside the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
Grijalva became the petition’s 218th signature on Wednesday, immediately after her swearing-in ceremony.
Johnson refused to swear in Grijalva, who won her seat on Sept. 23, during the government shutdown despite precedent of other representatives swearing an oath while the House is out of session.
U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., also spoke at the press conference, warning that Senate leadership should not “delay this any further.”
“They need to schedule a vote on this so this can get passed into law,” Kelly said.
Trump told NBC News Monday he would sign the legislation.
Robin Galbraith, 61, of Maryland, and Donna Powell, 67, of Washington, D.C., held signs outside the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025, ahead of a U.S. House vote on releasing the Epstein files. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
Roughly a dozen public protesters stood outside the police barricade surrounding the press conference, holding signs demanding the release of the Epstein files.
Robin Galbraith, 61, of Maryland, held a sign protesting Johnson’s refusal to allow an earlier floor vote to disclose the files.
“These survivors deserve justice. And you know, all women and girls deserve justice,” Galbraith told States Newsroom in an interview. “Like when you have the richest people in the world trafficking girls, I mean, as somebody who has daughters and sons, we all want to see that children are not victims like this anymore.”
FBI memo
In July, the FBI issued a memo stating the department would not publicly release any further information on the Epstein case.
The sudden reversal, after Trump and his supporters campaigned on releasing the files, sparked upheaval among the president’s base and trained a magnifying glass on Trump’s well-documented friendship with Epstein.
Trump denies any wrongdoing.
The president sued The Wall Street Journal for reporting on a 50th birthday card Trump allegedly gave to Epstein. The card featured a cryptic message and a doodle of a naked woman with Trump’s apparent signature mimicking pubic hair. Trump denies that he created and signed the birthday doodle.
The Journal also reported that Attorney General Pam Bondi briefed the president in May that his name appeared in the Epstein case files. The context in which his name appeared is unclear.
A series in the Miami Herald in 2018 by journalist Julie K. Brown drew wide attention to Epstein’s crimes and Trump’s appointment in 2017 of former Miami federal prosecutor Alex Acosta, who cut a deal in 2008 to end a federal investigation into Epstein, as the secretary of Labor.
The Lyndon Baines Johnson Department of Education Building in Washington, D.C., pictured on Nov. 25, 2024. (Photo by Shauneen Miranda/States Newsroom)
This report has been updated.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s administration took major steps Tuesday in trying to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, announcing six interagency agreements signed with other departments that will transfer several of its responsibilities to those agencies.
The announcement was immediately met with intense backlash from Democratic members of Congress, who questioned its legality, and labor unions.
The agreements — with the departments of Labor, Interior, Health and Human Services and State — come as Trump has sought to take an axe to the 46-year-old department in his quest to return education “back to the states.”
The move further fulfills a pledge Trump heavily campaigned on and later tapped Education Secretary Linda McMahon to carry out.
“The announcement really follows the plan that President Trump has had since Day One, and that is returning education to the states — he fully believes, as do I, the best education is that that’s closest to the child and not run from a bureaucracy in Washington, D.C.,” McMahon told Fox News on Tuesday following the announcement.
The secretary likened the initiative to a “test run” and said her department wants to see “if what we think to be true is that they will function much more in a streamlined fashion and much more efficiently if we relocate those programs into other agencies.”
McMahon added that the agency would “move it,” “see how it works” and deliver the “outcomes” to Congress.
She said her department hopes Congress would then vote to codify the permanent move of those programs to those agencies.
But any effort would face a difficult path in the Senate, which requires at least 60 senators to advance most legislation. Republicans hold just 53 Senate seats.
The announcement also came as the U.S. Supreme Court in July allowed the Trump administration to temporarily proceed with mass layoffs and a plan to dramatically downsize the Education Department ordered earlier this year.
That plan — outlined in a March executive order Trump signed — called on McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure” of her own department.
How Education agreements will work
The Education Department clarified in fact sheets it would “maintain all statutory responsibilities and will continue its oversight of these programs” regarding all six interagency agreements.
A senior department official could not yet say how many Education Department employees would be transitioning to these other agencies, and noted that there will be “a bit of a lag” between the signing and when the agreements are fully executed.
The official said the department is “still exploring the best plan” for the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, Office for Civil Rights and Federal Student Aid.
The Department of Labor will take on a “growing role” in administering elementary and secondary education programs currently managed under the Education Department’s Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, per a fact sheet.
The Education Department said that “with proper oversight by ED, DOL will manage competitions, provide technical assistance, and integrate ED’s programs with the suite of employment and training programs DOL already administers.”
In another agreement, the Labor Department will also take on a greater role in managing the Education Department’s higher education grant programs, such as TRIO and the Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs, or GEAR UP.
This also includes the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund, the Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need program and the Strengthening Historically Black Graduate Institutions program, among others.
The Interior Department will also take on a “growing role” in administering the Education Department’s Indian Education programs, per a fact sheet.
Under an agreement with HHS, that agency will oversee the National Committee on Foreign Medical Education and Accreditation’s work.
HHS will also “manage existing competitions, provide technical assistance, and integrate” the Education Department’s Child Care Access Means Parents in School Program, the department said.
That program, according to the Education Department, “supports the participation of low-income parents in postsecondary education through the provision of campus-based child care services.”
The Education Department’s agreement with the State Department will let that agency “oversee all foreign education programs,” per a fact sheet.
‘Outright illegal effort’
Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, blasted the move as an “outright illegal effort to continue dismantling the Department of Education.”
Murray said “it is students and families who will suffer the consequences as key programs that help students learn to read or that strengthen ties between schools and families are spun off to agencies with little to no relevant expertise and are gravely weakened — or even completely broken — in the process.”
Rep. Rosa DeLauro, ranking member of the House Appropriations panel, said “any attempt to unilaterally remove programs from the Department of Education will fundamentally alter their purpose,” in a Tuesday statement.
“This is not about efficiency — it is about creating so many needless bureaucratic hurdles that the Department of Education is rendered useless — a death by a thousand cuts. Imposing massive, chaotic, and abrupt changes on a whim will waste millions of dollars in duplicative administrative costs and impose wasteful burdens on the American education system,” the Connecticut Democrat said.
Rep. Bobby Scott, ranking member of the House Committee on Education and Workforce, decried the move in a Tuesday statement and called on congressional Republicans to “work with Democrats to stop this assault.”
The Virginia Democrat said “the mass transfer of these programs is not only extremely inefficient and wasteful, but it will result in inconsistent enforcement of federal education policy.”
He added that “instead of protecting the civil rights of students of color, students with disabilities, English as a Second Language (ESL) students, and low-income students, and closing achievement gaps, the Secretary of Education has spent her tenure dismantling ED.”
Unions slam move
Rachel Gittleman, president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 252, which represents Education Department workers, said “this latest ploy by the Trump Administration to dismantle the Congressionally created U.S. Department of Education is not only unlawful — it’s an insult to the tens of millions of students who rely on the agency to protect their access to a quality education.”
She added that “students, educators and families depend on the Department’s comprehensive support for schools, from early learning through graduate programs” and “that national mission is weakened when its core functions are scattered across other federal or state agencies that are not equipped or positioned to provide the same support and services as ED staff.”
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, one of the largest teachers unions in the country, said “spreading services across multiple departments will create more confusion, more mistakes and more barriers for people who are just trying to access the support they need.”
Weingarten added that “it’s a deliberate diversion of funding streams that have helped generations of kids achieve their American dream” and “will undermine public schools as places where diverse voices come together and where pluralism, the bedrock of our democracy, is strengthened.”
“We are now watching the federal government shirk its responsibility to all kids. That is unacceptable,” she said, adding that “Congress must reclaim its authority over education during upcoming federal funding battles.”
State Rep. Matt Morgan, R-Richmond, surveys a map of proposed new congressional districts in Texas, as Democratic lawmakers, who left the state to deny Republicans the opportunity to redraw the state's 38 congressional districts, began returning to the Texas Capitol in Austin on Aug. 20, 2025. REUTERS/Sergio Flores
Texas cannot use its new congressional map for the 2026 election and will instead need to stick with the lines passed in 2021, a three-judge panel ruled Tuesday.
“The public perception of this case is that it’s about politics,” U.S. Judge Jeffrey Brown, a Trump appointee, wrote in the ruling. “To be sure, politics played a role in drawing the 2025 Map. But it was much more than just politics. Substantial evidence shows that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 Map.”
Brown ordered that the 2026 congressional election “shall proceed under the map that the Texas Legislature enacted in 2021.” The case will likely be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, but time is short: Candidates only have until Dec. 8 to file for the upcoming election.
The decision is a major blow for Republicans, in Texas and nationally, who pushed through this unusual mid-decade redistricting at the behest of President Donald Trump. They were hoping the new map would yield control of 30 of the state’s 38 congressional districts — up from the 25 they currently hold — and help protect the narrow GOP majority in the U.S. House.
The map cleared the GOP-controlled Legislature in August and was quickly signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott. Several advocacy groups sued over the new district lines, saying lawmakers intentionally diluted the voting power of Black and Hispanic Texans and drew racially gerrymandered maps. Over the course of a nine-day hearing in El Paso earlier this month, they aimed to convince the judges that it was in voters’ best interest to shelve the new map until a full trial could be held.
It was not immediately clear if the state still has a legal path to restoring the new map in time for 2026. Unlike most federal lawsuits, which are heard by a single district judge and then appealed to a circuit court, voting rights lawsuits are initially heard by two district judges and one circuit judge, and their ruling can only be appealed directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The decision comes 10 days into the monthlong period when candidates can sign up for the March primary. The filing deadline is Dec. 8.
This is just the opening gambit in what promises to be a yearslong legal battle over Texas’ congressional map. A lawsuit over the state’s 2021 redistricting — including its state legislative and education board seats — went to trial earlier this summer and remains pending before the same three-judge panel. The judges have indicated they may want to see how the U.S. Supreme Court rules on a major voting rights case before issuing their full ruling on Texas’ maps.
But for Trump, and many of his Republican supporters in Texas, the short-term goal of having this map for the 2026 election was as important as the long game.
“I’m convinced that if Texas does not take this action, there is an extreme risk that [the] Republican majority will be lost,” Sen. Phil King, R-Weatherford, said on the floor of the state Senate before the new map passed. “If it does, the next two years after the midterm, there will be nothing but inquisitions and impeachments and humiliation for our country.”
A woman is detained by federal agents after exiting a hearing in immigration court at the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building on Sept. 3, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — More than 60 members of the congressional Democratic Women’s Caucus Tuesday sent a letter to the head of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raising “extreme concerns” about the treatment of pregnant immigrants in detention.
“The health and safety of pregnant women should not be threatened as a result of the administration choosing not to adhere to Federal regulations,” the 61 Democratic lawmakers wrote to ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons. “That is why we urge the administration to fully comply with the existing regulations and immediately correct the violations.”
They specifically cited concerns at ICE facilities in Lumpkin, Georgia; Basile, Louisiana; and Broadview, Illinois.
“At the detention centers, it was reported that pregnant women were being shackled, locked in restraints, or placed in solitary confinement,” they wrote, citing American Civil Liberties Union reports. The women have also been deprived of proper prenatal, postpartum, lactation and miscarriage care, they said.
The letter argues that ICE’s own regulations do not require pregnant, postpartum or nursing immigrants to be detained and detainment should only occur if the release is “prohibited by law or exceptional circumstances exist.”
“By detaining vulnerable women in appalling conditions while pregnant, you are subjecting both the pregnant individual and the unborn child to significant risks and possible death,” according to the letter. “We urge the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and ICE to follow its own rules and regulations on detention of pregnant women and demand their humane treatment.”
Lawmakers are asking for ICE to immediately release any detained immigrants who are pregnant.
They are also pushing for ICE to answer several questions, including the number of pregnant immigrants in detention; the number of births or still births that took place in detention; the number of medical incidents experienced by pregnant detainees; and how many pregnant immigrants have been shackled by ICE.
Lawmakers asked ICE for a response within 45 days.
ICE officials did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment.
Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez speaks during a Wisconsin Technology Council forum featuring Democratic and Republican hopefuls in the 2026 governor's race Nov. 6, 2025. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
The longest ever federal government shutdown that ended last week revolved around a top issue for Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez as she campaigns to be Wisconsin’s next governor: health and health care.
A registered nurse by training and former official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Rodriguez has been deeply involved in health care policy, first in her single term as a member of the Wisconsin Assembly and then, since 2023, as the No. 2 official in the state’s executive branch.
And, she says, it motivated her to declare her intention to succeed Gov. Tony Evers after Evers decided to stand down from the 2026 election.
“One of the reasons why I wanted to run is to make sure that we have somebody in a leadership position that, No. 1, understands health care, and No. 2, really gets how unaffordable and broken it is,” Rodriguez told the Wisconsin Examiner in an interview Monday.
She also sees a shift in the federal government away from established public health principles, forcing states to take the lead on setting public health standards. In the governor’s office, she said, her professional background would equip her to tackle those issues.
As a state representative, Rodriguez proposed a bill in the 2021-22 legislative term to accept the expansion of Medicaid — BadgerCare in Wisconsin — through the Affordable Care Act. Expansion would allow the state to enroll people with incomes between 100% and 138% of the federal poverty guidelines in Medicaid, with the federal government paying 90% of the additional cost.
When the ACA took effect, Gov. Scott Walker was in office and refused throughout his two terms as governor to accept the federal support and expand the program.
Evers defeated Walker in 2018 and promised to accept the federal expansion, but in the lame-duck session before he was sworn in, the Republican majority in the Legislature passed a bill that Walker signed, requiring the Legislature’s approval for expansion.
Since then, repeated attempts by Democrats to expand Medicaid, including the bill Rodriguez authored four years ago, have failed with Republican majorities in both houses of the Legislature.
Another form of Medicaid expansion — covering mothers for a year after they give birth — has the support of bipartisan majorities in the Senate and the Assembly, but Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) has opposed bringing it to the floor.
“We are one of two states that have not done that — us and Arkansas,” Rodriguez said. “And I think Arkansas may be working on it. So we may be the only one left at the end of the day.”
Rodriguez’s political career started with her Assembly race in 2020, flipping a Republican seat in the Milwaukee suburbs. She followed that with her race for lieutenant governor in 2022 and now her campaign for the Democratic nomination to run for governor in 2026.
Throughout her political life, she said, she has been supported by 314 Action, a political organizing group seeking to elect more scientists and people in science-related professions, including health care.
During the recent federal government shutdown, Democrats in the U.S. Senate insisted that any resolution to fund the government also extend federal subsidies for health insurance under the ACA. The expiration of those subsidies at the end of this year will cause health insurance premiums to double, on average, participants in the ACA marketplace.
Ultimately, a handful of Democratic senators voted with the Republicans to advance a GOP-authored spending bill that ended the shutdown without addressing the looming health insurance cost spike.
But the issue won’t go away, Rodriguez said.
“We’re looking at a doubling of premiums,” she said. “A 60-year-old couple are looking $1,500 to $2,000 more a month to be able to pay for their health insurance. That is absolutely unaffordable for most Wisconsinites.”
The problem extends beyond just people who buy their insurance through the federal marketplace, she warned.
“The larger amount of people who are uninsured in the state, the higher our health care costs are going to get, because they’re going to wait, they’re going to delay care, they’re going to be sicker when they get into care, and it’s going to cost hospital systems more in terms of uncompensated care,” Rodriguez said.
“If people will go uninsured, it’s going to raise costs,” she added. “And continuing to talk about it, continuing to let people know how that works, is something that I’m uniquely equipped to do as a nurse, as somebody who’s worked within the health care system. And it’s one of the reasons why I’m running for governor.”
Rodriguez said she has seen the benefits that the ACA has brought in the last decade and a half.
Before it was in place, “people delayed care,” she said. “They came in sicker to my emergency department and it cost a whole lot more dollars to be able to treat them and they were out of work because they had to be treated within a hospital system as opposed to going to their regular doctor and being able to get the care that they needed and be able to take care of their diabetes, to take care of their hypertension. Those are the kind of things that the Affordable Care Act has allowed us to do.”
She said she’s heard from small business owners who were able to start a business because they could get health insurance thanks to the ACA.
“Do we need to fix it? Absolutely. Do we need to get it better? Absolutely,” Rodriguez said. “But to get rid of it is going to have devastating effects on health care in Wisconsin.”
Rodriguez said she also brings the perspective of health and health care to other policy topics.
“The medicine we give you, the procedures that we do — it’s such a tiny fraction of how healthy we are,” she said.
Food, housing and “a good-paying job to put a roof over our heads and to pay for the food we eat and to pay for the medications we’re prescribed” are health issues, too, Rodriguez said. That’s why housing affordability, for example, is part of her platform, she said.
“Tom Tiffany in the governor’s seat [is] not going to put a priority on lowering costs for Wisconsinites,” she said.
She also predicted that, if elected, Tiffany would sign laws restricting abortion in Wisconsin — “and that is going to be extraordinarily dangerous for people.”
Rodriguez views her science background as a strong selling point. “I think we want somebody who’s going to use data and science to make decisions,” she said.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trump’s secretary of the federal Department of Health and Human Services, has been “using conspiracy theories as his underlying belief system, and that hurts real people,” Rodriguez said.
She cited surging measles cases in Wisconsin and nationally and the deaths of children in some states after the federal government weakened its support for vaccination.
“That hasn’t happened in a decade, and they’re continuing to feed this anti-science rhetoric that is going to harm our kids here in Wisconsin,” Rodriguez said. “I’ve been clear, I think RFK Jr. should resign. I don’t think he’s qualified for the job that he has and he’s actually a danger to public health across the country.”
An aerial view shows a data center situated near single-family homes in Stone Ridge, Va., last year. Local communities around the country are seeking more input on where and how data centers are built. (Photo by Nathan Howard/Getty Images)
When local activist Frank Arcoleo found out over the summer that a data center was coming to his neighborhood in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, he said he was furious. There’d been no votes or public hearings.
The first phase of the data center project under development there only required administrative approval from a few city officials, based on the building permit application and state laws.
“So these data centers are going in, and guess what? The public gets nothing to say about it because the city’s already approved it,” Arcoleo said.
Now, Arcoleo is backing a zoning ordinance under consideration by the Lancaster City Council that aims to ensure residents have a say in the future. The ordinance would require data center projects to undergo a special exception hearing from the city’s zoning hearing board. It would also require data centers to adhere to the city’s noise ordinance and for developers to submit a report detailing the project’s planned electricity and water use for the city to review.
Similar efforts are underway across the country, as municipalities move quickly to enact ordinances about where and how data centers are built. A few communities have turned to ballot measures or lawsuits.
But at the same time, some state lawmakers are rushing to pass legislation that would accelerate the development of data center infrastructure.
More data centers are being built nationwide to meet the demand for digital services, including power-hungry artificial intelligence systems. Data centers, which house thousands of servers, are able to store and transmit the data required for internet services to work.
The facilities support a digital society and can provide increased tax revenue. Data center advocates argue they also can bring new jobs and other benefits for states and local communities. But residents and local leaders in several localities across the country — including cities in Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, New Mexico, Tennessee, Virginia and other states — are concerned about how the facilities could drive up utility bills and harm the environment.
Lancaster’s residents, including Arcoleo, are worried about the amount of energy required to power data centers — which could drive up electricity rates for the entire city, he said.
“Data centers alone will cause dirty electricity sources — coal-fired plants, diesel-fired plants, natural gas-fired plants — that were due to come offline to stay online because we need every kilowatt of power that exists,” said Arcoleo, a member of the progressive advocacy group Lancaster Stands Up. “That affects me too because it ruins my environment.”
But Pennsylvania’s governor has been working to bring more data centers to the state. In June, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro announced that Amazon was planning to invest at least $20 billion to build data center campuses across Pennsylvania — the largest private sector investment in state history. He’s also pushing proposals to encourage more energy production in the state, which would supply data centers. But critics say parts of his plan would sideline local officials.
‘This is moving so quickly’
Data centers require a great deal of electricity to run, which some state officials worry will drive up electricity demand — and utility bills.
Many data centers also require significant amounts of water to cool their servers. Large data centers can consume up to 5 million gallons of water per day — equivalent to the water use of a town of 10,000 to 50,000 people, according to a report from the Environmental and Energy Study Institute, a nonprofit that provides educational resources to policymakers and the public.
Local leaders and advocates across the country are weighing the potential outcomes in their community. In August, Starwood Digital Ventures submitted plans to New Castle County, Delaware, for a data center project that could consume as much power as 875,000 to almost 1 million homes — nearly twice the 449,000 housing units that exist in the state, according to Spotlight Delaware.
The proposed data center sparked strong opposition from residents at a July town hall, including state House Speaker Melissa Minor-Brown, a Democrat, who organized the event. New Castle County Councilman David Carter was already working on an ordinance that would put up guardrails for data center development in the area.
Under the proposed ordinance, data centers could not be built within 1,000 feet of any residential zoning district. Developers would also be required to coordinate with state regulators to ensure enough water is available to cool the facility’s servers. The ordinance also outlines a decommissioning process for data centers that are no longer in use.
“Most of these concerns are things you can manage and plan for, but this is moving so quickly that I think across the country, most jurisdictions are playing catch-up for their codes to best manage these data centers,” Carter told Stateline.
Currently, Virginia leads the country in data center development. In the absence of state laws, Virginia’s localities began to make their own data center rules.
Earlier this year, local leaders in Loudoun County, Virginia, which has one of the highest concentrations of data centers in the world, amended the county’s zoning ordinance to require data center proposals to go through a public hearing process and get approval from the Board of Supervisors.
Loudoun County officials are looking forward to new data center bills coming out of next year’s legislative session, said Michael Turner, vice chair of the Board of Supervisors. But he added that decisions regarding data center development should ultimately be left to localities.
“The decision for how local communities can use their land has to be left to the local communities,” Turner said. “But there’s no question: There’s rising tension between local community government, and state and federal government, as this high demand for both data and energy is continually rising.”
Meanwhile, Virginia Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin vetoed a bill in May that would have required data center developers and energy utilities to disclose information to local governments on noise and environmental impacts of a proposed project.
In DeKalb County, Georgia, in October, county leaders voted to extend a local moratorium on new data center applications until Dec. 16 while local leaders assess the impact of the incoming facilities, according to Decaturish. At the same time, county leadership is considering a zoning amendment that would regulate where data centers can be built, how they are designed and other standards.
Local advocates in other areas of the country are pursuing change through the ballot box or lawsuits. Residents in Augusta Charter Township, Michigan, collected enough signatures for a referendum that would let voters decide on rezoning for a proposed data center. Township leaders believe the new facility will generate tax revenue for the community, but residents are concerned about noise and light pollution and higher electric rates, according to Inside Climate News.
In Doña Ana County, New Mexico, residents and an environmental law group filed two lawsuits that allege county commissioners violated state law by approving a data center project that had an incomplete application. Local advocates and state lawmakers representing the county say the developers’ plan to build a natural gas generating station for the data center would exploit a loophole in a state law that requires utilities to use fully renewable energy resources by 2045, according to Source New Mexico.
Still, some local leaders welcome data centers in their area. In September, AVAIO Digital, a Connecticut-based data center developer, announced that it had broken ground on a $6 billion data center campus in Brandon, Mississippi, about 15 minutes outside of Jackson.
Shortly after the data center was announced, several concerned residents in Rankin County began a petition demanding that county representatives address concerns about utility bills and pollution.
But Brandon Republican Mayor Butch Lee said he sees the project as an opportunity. As more data centers are built, it will prompt more areas to expand and modernize their electrical grid, he said. Local leaders are also working to ensure that the data center uses recycled water for cooling its systems in an effort to promote conservation practices, he said.
“I don’t see any environmental problems,” Lee said. “I don’t see any water problems. I just see a changing national and global landscape of what the next 100 years is going to be like.”
And John Malone, a principal at AVAIO Digital, said the company wants to commit itself to being good neighbors.
“All of these things work better when you’re good neighbors. And so we get it — this is a big project coming into your community,” Malone said. “Of course, people are going to have questions.”
Pennsylvania pushes
Lancaster’s residents are not alone. Local leaders in two Pennsylvania townships, East Vincent and North Middleton, are considering similar rules that would restrict where data centers can be built and operated.
They would establish a special zoning designation for data centers and require developers to study how the structures could affect the local environment, water supply, traffic patterns and more.
And a new zoning ordinance adopted by West Pennsboro Township in August requires those studies and confirmation from developers that an electricity supplier in the area will be able to supply enough power for a data center to serve new data centers in the area.
In Pennsylvania, developers are advertising data centers as an economic opportunity for the state’s local communities, said Livia Garofalo, a researcher with Data & Society’s Trustworthy Infrastructures team. The nonprofit research institute studies the social implications of data-centric technologies.
For some of these communities who are experiencing economic difficulty … some of these townships are saying, ‘Well, why not?’
– Livia Garofalo, researcher with Data & Society’s Trustworthy Infrastructures team
She said that while some local leaders welcome the potential revenue, others are wary of the major changes data centers have brought to other communities like theirs. A lot of Pennsylvania towns have witnessed the rise and fall of other industries — such as steel and coal — that were said to be good opportunities. Now, they must decide if the data center industry is worth it.
“For some of these communities who are experiencing economic difficulty — especially with a federal shutdown — some of these townships are saying, ‘Well, why not?’” Garofalo said.
Lancaster residents are still trying to understand what the new data center means for the city.
But for Josh Nice, who lives in the city’s Stadium District neighborhood, there’s an “anticipatory grief” — the feeling of worry that comes with an impending loss or change.
“Things like this [data centers] are never designed to benefit communities and working people,” said Nice. “They’re only designed to exploit communities and enrich stakeholders and rich people.”
In Virginia, Turner said he hopes that local communities can work alongside state officials and the federal government in the future to make decisions together.
“All the counties are very concerned about the federal government or the state making broad brush decisions about local land use that can really negatively — and, I mean, negatively — affect local communities,” Turner said.
This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Wisconsin Examiner, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
(The Center Square) – One of the sponsors of Wisconsin’s statewide sports wagering legislation is warning prediction markets could take over the sports wagering marketplace if state lawmakers don’t pass a law in the Assembly Wednesday allowing the state’s 11…
(The Center Square) – The Wisconsin Senate voted 22-11 on Tuesday to make the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association subject to open meetings and public records.
If you or someone you know is considering suicide, call or text the three-digit suicide and crisis lifeline at 988. Resources are available online here.
A recently released report details problems at Wisconsin prisons including high staff turnover, overcrowding and issues with solitary confinement.
Wisconsin’s Department of Corrections paid the firm Falcon, Inc. roughly $500,000 to complete the yearlong review of the prison system’s adult facilities.
Among other issues, the report zeroed in on the department’s policies for solitary confinement, officially known as restrictive housing.
Alarms raised about solitary confinement of people with serious mental health struggles
The report raised concerns about how often people are locked up in solitary confinement while dealing with serious mental health issues.
“Individuals with SMI (serious mental illness) placed in restrictive housing are more likely to become violent and, if released from restrictive housing, are more likely to return,” the report’s authors noted, citing outside research. “Those individuals housed in restrictive housing are also more likely to die by suicide than those living in other housing settings.”
On the last day of March 2025, 872 adults were locked up in solitary confinement through the DOC, making up close to 4% of the prison population. That was roughly on par with the percentage of inmates in solitary confinement six years prior.
A significant number of those in solitary confinement — 101 people on the day measured in March 2025 — were classified as having a serious mental health issue.
Dusk falls on Columbia Correctional Institution on June 18, 2025, in Portage, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
The report noted that people who spend extended periods of time in solitary confinement are more likely to be part of the DOC’s mental health caseload, meaning they’ve been referred for mental health needs of varying severity. Sixty-nine percent of the people locked up in solitary confinement for more than 120 days were part of the DOC’s mental health caseload. By comparison, 46% of the general prison population was on that mental health caseload.
The report did commend the DOC for attempting to limit extended stays in solitary confinement by adopting a May 2024 policy that requires a higher-up to approve solitary confinement stays longer than 120 days.
It urged DOC to change its solitary confinement policies by creating “alternative” units for people with serious mental illness, “so they can automatically be diverted from restrictive housing.”
DOC urged to change practice of using solitary confinement for people on suicide watch
Per its policies, the DOC can send people to solitary confinement as “disciplinary separation,” which is punishment for bad behavior.
It also sends people to solitary confinement through what it calls “administrative confinement,” which is when people are deemed a threat to themselves or others if they’re kept with the general prison population. Typically, that extends to people who are flagged for “suicide watch,” if they’re deemed to be at risk for suicide.
But putting suicidal people into solitary confinement cells is likely making the situation worse, the report warns.
“Observation cells are typically in restrictive housing units, which is problematic,” the report notes. “Individuals on observation status are not allowed therapeutic items, visits, phone calls, or recreation.”
The report urges the DOC to stop that practice and instead move its areas for observing at-risk people to “more appropriate environments that support therapeutic care and patient safety.”
Protesters call on the short-staffed Wisconsin Department of Corrections to improve prisoner conditions and lift restrictions on prisoners’ movement during a protest on Oct. 10, 2023, at the State Capitol in Madison, Wis. (Meryl Hubbard / Wisconsin Watch)
Marianne Oleson, an activist with Ex-Incarcerated People Organizing of Wisconsin, described the DOC’s existing solitary confinement policies as barbaric. She spent five years incarcerated in Wisconsin.
“It’s torture,” Oleson said of solitary confinement. “As someone who has spent time in their quote-unquote ‘restrictive housing’ unit for being suicidal, you’re only compounding the harm and the hurt.”
She said solitary confinement left her with permanent psychological scars.
“My mind was my weapon,” Oleson said. “My mind was destroying me, and the answer they gave me was to lock me down with that weapon. And I nearly broke. I’ve seen women break, honestly.”
In an email, DOC spokesperson Beth Hardkte acknowledged that most observation cells for people on suicide watch are located in the restrictive housing units of prisons, although she said there is no specific DOC policy requiring them to be located there.
“Observation cells are specially designed to ensure safety and property can be restricted to prevent self-harm,” she said. “Observation status also requires more intensive staffing and availability of psychological or health care staff.”
Report also highlights issues with overcrowding, high staff turnover
Also noted in the report are struggles with “staff attrition” and a large proportion of inexperienced staff members.
“WIDOC has experienced a great deal of staffing changes, with a significant number of the current staff hired during or after the COVID19 pandemic,” the report notes.
And it detailed the DOC’s struggles with overcrowding. Nearly every state prison is holding more people than it was designed for. On average, men’s prisons were at 130% capacity, and women’s prisons were at 166% capacity.
That overcrowding is leading to delays for people who are supposed to be transferred from one prison to another, the report notes. In some cases, that means people aren’t locked up according to their designated security level, such as men classified as medium-security remaining in a maximum-security prison.
Currently, there are more than 23,000 adults locked up in Wisconsin’s prisons — making them over capacity by more than 5,000 people. The state’s prison population is now roughly at pre-pandemic levels, which is more than triple the size of the prison population in 1990.
Oleson said the report highlights the need for policy and legislative changes to cut back on the number of Wisconsinites behind bars.
“It confirms what we have said for years,” Oleson said. “Wisconsin’s prisons are dangerously overcrowded, under-resourced and in desperate need of healing.”
Security cameras are mounted on barbed wire fence at Taycheedah Correctional Institution, a maximum- and medium-security women’s prison, June 24, 2025, in Fond du Lac, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Wisconsin’s Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, who first took office in 2019, has said he wants to decrease Wisconsin’s prison population, although that reduction hasn’t happened in practice. Some Republican members of the GOP-controlled Legislature have said they oppose his goals of eventually decreasing prison beds and expanding certain early release programs.
In a statement, DOC Secretary Jared Hoy says the report by Falcon, Inc. shows the prison system is “moving in the right direction.”
“Falcon experts recognized the work of countless dedicated DOC employees to modernize our health care and restrictive housing policies,” Hoy’s statement said. “As much as we’ve done, we can always do more, do better and the recommendations in the report provide a guide for our agency.”
This story was originally published by ProPublica.
The most powerful Republican in Wisconsin stepped up to a lectern that was affixed with a sign reading, “Pro-Women Pro-Babies Pro-Life Rally.”
“One of the reasons that I ran for office was to protect the lives of unborn children,” Assembly Speaker Robin Vos told the cheering crowd gathered in the ornate rotunda of the state Capitol. They were there on a June day in 2019 to watch him sign four anti-abortion bills and to demand that the state’s Democratic governor sign them. (The governor did not.)
“Legislative Republicans are committed to protecting the preborn because we know life is the most basic human right,” Vos promised. “We will continue to do everything we can to protect the unborn, to protect innocent lives.”
Now, however, Vos has parted with some in the national anti-abortion movement in its push for a particular measure to protect life: the life of new mothers.
Many anti-abortion Republicans have supported new state laws and policies to extend Medicaid coverage to women for a year after giving birth, up from 60 days. The promise of free health care for a longer span can help convince women in financial crises to proceed with their pregnancies, rather than choose abortion, proponents say. And many health experts have identified the year after childbirth as a precarious time for mothers who can suffer from a host of complications, both physical and mental.
Legislation to extend government-provided health care coverage for up to one year for low-income new moms has been passed in 48 other states — red, blue and purple. Not in Arkansas, where enough officials have balked. And not in Wisconsin, where the limit remains two months. And that’s only because of Vos.
The Wisconsin Senate passed legislation earlier this year that would increase Medicaid postpartum coverage to 12 months. In the state Assembly, 30 Republicans have co-sponsored the legislation, and there is more than enough bipartisan support to pass the bill in that chamber.
But Vos, who has been speaker for nearly 13 years and whose campaign funding decisions are considered key to victory in elections, controls the Assembly. And, according to insiders at the state Capitol, he hasn’t allowed a vote on the Senate bill or the Assembly version, burying it deep in a committee that barely meets: Regulatory Licensing Reform.
Vos’ resistance has put him and some of his anti-abortion colleagues in the odd position of having to reconcile their support for growing families with the failure of the Assembly to pass a bill aimed at helping new moms stay healthy.
“If we can’t get something like this done, then I don’t know what I’m doing in the Legislature,” Republican Rep. Patrick Snyder, the bill’s author and an ardent abortion foe, said in February in a Senate hearing.
Reached by phone, Vos declined to discuss the issue with ProPublica and referred questions to his spokesperson, who then did not respond to calls or emails. Explaining his opposition, Vos once said, “We already have enough welfare in Wisconsin.” And in vowing to never expand Medicaid, he has said the state should reserve the program only for “those who truly need it.”
His stance on extending benefits for new mothers has troubled health care professionals, social workers and some of his constituents. They have argued and pleaded with him and, in some cases, cast doubt on his principles. ProPublica requested public comments to his office from January 2024 to June 2025 and found that the overwhelming majority of the roughly 200 messages objected to his stance.
“I know this is supported by many of your Republican colleagues. As the ‘party of the family’ your opposition is abhorrent. Get with it,” one Wisconsin resident told the speaker via a contact form on Vos’ website.
Another person who reached out to Vos chastised him for providing “lame excuses,” writing: “The women of Wisconsin deserve better from a party that CLAIMS to be ‘pro-life’ but in practice, could care less about women and children. We deserve better than you.”
‘A commonsense bill’
Donna Rozar is among the Wisconsin Republicans who staunchly oppose abortion but also support Medicaid for new mothers.
While serving as a state representative in 2023, she sponsored legislation to extend the coverage up to one year. Her effort mirrored what was happening in other states following the end of Roe v. Wade and the constitutional right to an abortion. Activists on both sides of the abortion issue recognized that there could be a rise in high-risk births and sought to protect mothers.
“I saw this as a pro-life bill to help mothers have coverage for up to a year, in order to let them know that they would have the help they needed if there were any postpartum complications with their pregnancy,” said Rozar, a retired registered nurse. “I thought it was a commonsense bill.”
Vos, she said, would not allow the bill to proceed to a vote even though it had 66 co-sponsors in the 99-person chamber. “The speaker of the state Assembly in Wisconsin is a very powerful individual and sets the agenda,” she said.
Rozar recalled having numerous “frustrating” conversations with Vos as she tried to persuade him to advance the legislation. “He was just so opposed to entitlement programs and any additional expenditures of Medicaid dollars that he just stuck to that principle. Vehemently.”
Donna Rozar, a Republican former state representative from Marshfield, sponsored legislation in 2023 to extend Medicaid coverage for mothers but said Assembly Speaker Robin Vos wouldn’t even allow a vote on the bill. She is seen at Gov. Tony Evers’ State of the State address on Jan. 24, 2023, in Madison, Wis. (Drake White-Bergey / Wisconsin Watch)
Vos has argued as well that through other options, including the Affordable Care Act, Wisconsinites have been able to find coverage. While some new mothers qualify for no-cost premiums under certain ACA plans, not all do. Even with no-cost premiums, ACA plans typically require a deductible or co-payments. And next year, when enhanced premium tax credits are due to expire, few people will be eligible for $0 net premiums unless Congress acts to change that.
Rozar lost her race for reelection in August 2024 after redistricting but returned to the state Capitol in February for a Senate hearing to continue advocating for the extension. She was joined by a variety of medical experts who explained the extreme and life-threatening risks women can face in the first year after giving birth.
They warned that without extended Medicaid coverage, women who need treatment and medication for postpartum depression, drug addiction, hypertension, diabetes, blood clots, heart conditions or other ailments may be unable to get them.
One legislative analysis found that on average each month, 700 women fell off the Medicaid rolls in Wisconsin two months after giving birth or experiencing a miscarriage because they no longer met the income eligibility rules.
Justine Brown-Schabel, a community health worker in Dane County, told senators of a new mother diagnosed with gestational diabetes who lost Medicaid coverage.
“She was no longer able to afford her diabetes medication,’’ Brown-Schabel said. “Not only did this affect her health but the health of her infant, as she was unable to properly feed her child due to a diminishing milk supply.”
She described another new mother, one who had severe postpartum depression, poor appetite, significant weight loss, insomnia and mental exhaustion. Sixty days of Medicaid coverage, Brown-Schabel said, “are simply not enough” in a situation like that.
Currently, new moms with household incomes up to 306% of the poverty line (or $64,719 a year for a single mom and baby) can stay on Medicaid for 60 days after birth. But the mother must be below the poverty line ($21,150 for that mom and baby) to continue with coverage beyond that. The new legislation would extend the current protections to a year.
Bipartisan unity on the legislation is so great that Pro-Life Wisconsin and the lobbying arm of the abortion provider Planned Parenthood, which offers some postpartum services, both registered in support of it before the Senate.
“It’s something that we can do and something that’s achievable given the bipartisan support for it,” Matt Sande, a lobbyist for Pro-Life Wisconsin, said in an interview. “It’s not going to break the bank.”
Once fully implemented, the extended coverage would cost the state $9.4 million a year, according to the state Legislative Fiscal Bureau. The state ended fiscal year 2025 with a budget surplus of $4.6 billion.
With the Assembly bill buried by Vos, Democratic Rep. Robyn Vining tried in July to force the issue with a bit of a legislative end run. She rose during floor debate on the state budget and proposed adding the Medicaid extension to the mammoth spending bill.
All of the Republicans who had signed on to the Medicaid bill, except one absent member, voted to table the proposal, sinking the amendment. They included Snyder, the bill’s sponsor, who in an email to ProPublica labeled the Democrats’ move to raise the issue during floor debate “a stunt.”
“Democrats were simply more concerned with playing political games to garner talking points of who voted against what, than they were in supporting the budget negotiated by their Governor,” he said.
Said Vining of the Republicans who tabled the amendment: “They’re taking marching orders from the speaker instead of representing their constituents.”
Well-funded opposition
Vos’ opposition echoes that of influential conservative groups, including the Foundation for Government Accountability, a Florida think tank that promotes “work over welfare.” Its affiliated lobbying arm openly opposed the Medicaid extension for new moms when it first surfaced in Wisconsin in 2021, though it has not registered opposition since then. Reached recently, a spokesperson for the foundation declined to comment.
Over the past decade, the foundation has received more than $11 million from a charitable fund run by billionaire Richard Uihlein, founder of the Wisconsin-based shipping supplies company Uline. In recent years, Uihlein and his wife, Liz, also have been prolific political donors nationally and in the Midwest, with Vos among the beneficiaries.
Since 2020, Liz Uihlein has given over $6 million to Wisconsin’s Republican Assembly Campaign Committee, which is considered a key instrument of Vos’ power. And in February 2024, she donated $500,000 to Vos’ personal political campaign at a time when he was immersed in a tough intraparty skirmish.
One concern cited by extension opponents such as the Foundation for Government Accountability is that Medicaid coverage for new moms could be used for health issues not directly related to giving birth. Questions over how expansive the coverage would be spilled into debate in Arkansas in a Senate committee in April of this year.
“Can you explain what that coverage is? Is it just like full Medicaid for any problem that they have, or is it somehow specific to the pregnancy and complications?” asked GOP Sen. John Payton.
A state health official told him new mothers could receive a full range of benefits.
“Like, if they needed a knee replacement, I mean, it’d cover it?” Payton said.
“Yes,” came the reply.
The bill failed in a voice vote.
In Wisconsin, no lawmaker voiced any such concern during the February Senate hearing, which was marked by only positive feedback. In fact, one lawmaker and some medical experts in attendance openly snickered at the thought that Arkansas — a state that ranks low in public health measurements — might pass legislation before Wisconsin, leaving it the lone holdout.
Ultimately, the Wisconsin Senate approved the legislation 32-1 in April, sending it along to the Assembly to languish and leaving Wisconsin still in the company of Arkansas on the issue.
Despite the setbacks and Vos’ firm opposition, Sande of Pro-Life Wisconsin and other anti-abortion activists are not giving up. He thinks Vos can be persuaded and the bill could move out of its purgatory this winter.
“I’m telling you that we’re hopeful,” Sande said.
Rozar is, too, even though she is well aware of Vos’ unwavering stance. “He might have egg on his face if he let it go,” she said.
ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.
Eight railroad depots still serve passengers in Wisconsin, for Amtrak trains that travel across the southern half of the state. But once, there were a few hundred rail stations here. While many of those buildings are gone, others remain with new uses.
“We just don't realize what's in our leaves,” watershed ecologist Alicia Ramsey said. “People throw out their leaves, or they compost their leaves, or they mulch their leaves, not realizing how much life is actually in them.”
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