We found no documentation confirming a Sept. 29 statement by U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., that 6 million people unknowingly received health insurance through the Affordable Care Act.
Johnson cited a report by Paragon Health Institute, a think tank alignedwith the Trump administration.
The report produced an estimate, not a count, claiming 6.4 million people were fraudulently enrolled in Obamacare. It said they were not income-eligible, including millions who “appear to be enrolled without their knowledge.”
Fraud is much more common among brokers misappropriating patients’ identities than by patients, said KFF Obamacare program director Cynthia Cox and Justin Giovannelli of Georgetown University’s Center on Health Insurance Reforms.
Consumers are cautioned about offers to enroll them in Obamacare.
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U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, the Republican front-runner in the 2026 race for Wisconsin governor, has a mixed record on statements fact-checked by Wisconsin Watch.
The northern Wisconsin congressman has been on target on some claims, such as low Wisconsin business rankings, the link between marijuana and psychosis, and a drop in Wisconsin reading scores.
Other assertions, including claims about tariffs, aid for Ukraine and vetting evacuees from Afghanistan, have been off.
Peer-reviewed research has found links between marijuana use and psychosis — the loss of contact with reality, experienced as delusions or hallucinations.
The consensus is there is a clear association, but more research is needed to determine if there is causation.
In August, Tiffany called for more research on the link to inform legalization policy.
Canada has set tariffs exceeding 200% for U.S. dairy products.
But the tariffs are imposed only when the amount imported exceeds quotas, and the U.S. “has never gotten close to exceeding” quotas that would trigger Canada’s dairy tariffs, the International Dairy Foods Association said.
Tiffany claimed that Wisconsin had “fallen behind” Mississippi in reading.
In the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress assessment, issued every two years, Mississippi’s fourth grade public school students scored higher than Wisconsin’s in reading proficiency, though the ratings “were not significantly different.”
In 2022, 33% of Wisconsin fourth graders rated “at or above proficient” in reading, vs. 31% in Mississippi. In 2024, Wisconsin dropped to 31%; Mississippi rose to 32%.
A $95 billion U.S. aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, which President Joe Biden signed into law in April 2024, prohibits funds from being allocated to pensions in Ukraine.
Tiffany claimed that the law included “millions” for pensions in Ukraine. His office, pointing to a U.S. State Department news release, told Wisconsin Watch that Tiffany meant to say that previous U.S. aid packages funded Ukrainian pensions.
Following the Afghanistan evacuation that began in summer 2021, more than 76,000 Afghans came to the U.S. after being vetted, The Wall Street Journal reported.
All evacuees were brought to a military base in Europe or the Middle East, where U.S. officials collected fingerprints and biographical details and ran them through criminal and terrorism-related databases, the Journal reported.
In reviews, the Defense and Homeland Security departments found that not all evacuees were fully vetted.
Tiffany made the claim about changes the Biden administration made in 2024 to Title IX, a federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools receiving federal funding.
The new rules protect students and employees from sex-based harassment and discrimination. The rules say future changes will address sex-separate athletic teams.
As of late October 2023, when Tiffany made his claim, more than 200 non-U.S. citizens on the federal terrorist watchlist had tried to enter the U.S. between legal ports of entry and were stopped by Border Patrol during the Biden administration.
The watchlist contains known or suspected terrorists and individuals “who represent a potential threat.”
In making that claim, Tiffany cited a Wall Street Journal report on closed-door congressional testimony given by Devon Archer, a former Hunter Biden business associate, about Joe Biden participating with Hunter in about 20 phone calls when Biden was vice president.
The Journal quoted Republican Rep. James Comer as saying Archer testified that Joe Biden was put on the phone to help Hunter sell “the brand.” A transcript shows Archer testified that Joe and Hunter never discussed business on the calls.
Information cited by Tiffany when he made that claim in 2023 contained only unverified intelligence that the Ukrainian energy company Burisma paid Biden $5 million.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement offers up to $100,000 for vehicle purchases to local law enforcement agencies that assist ICE in apprehending unauthorized immigrants.
ICE announced Sept. 2 that its 287(g)Program also offers other local incentives, including salary and benefits reimbursement for ICE-trained officers and quarterly payments of $500 to $1,000 per officer for finding unauthorized immigrants identified by ICE.
As of Oct. 2, 13 Wisconsin sheriff’s departments, including Brown and Waukesha counties, were working with ICE on unauthorized immigrants in their jails and/or serving immigration warrants on individuals.
The $100,000 is offered to “task force” members. One Wisconsin police department, Palmyra in Jefferson County, is participating. The chief has said his focus is pursuing “criminals.”
ICE says its program targets criminal unauthorized immigrants. Research shows unauthorized immigrants crossing the U.S. border are not more likely than native-born Americans to commit crimes.
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Wisconsin electricity rates – for residential, industrial and commercial users – have exceeded regional averages annually for 20 years.
From 2003 through 2022, Wisconsin rates exceeded the averages in each of the three user categories for eight Midwest states, Wisconsin Public Service Commission reports show.
For the three categories combined, Wisconsin’s rate was second-highest in 2023-24 and third-highest in 2024-25 among 12 central region states, federal Energy Information Administration figures show.
Here are the July 2025 cents-per-kilowatt hour rates in Wisconsin versus the north central region average:
Residential: $18.30/$17.84
Commercial: $13.39/$13.31
Industrial: $9.87/$9.46
Electric bills rose for residential customers of Wisconsin’s five largest utilities, according to the Wisconsin Citizens Utility Board. For example, the average monthly We Energies bill for a typical residential customer was $128.65 in 2024, twice as high as $56.18 for 2004.
Booming data center construction in Wisconsin could affect utility rates.
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Wisconsin was among the bottom 10 states in job and business creation in some 2025 rankings, but higher in others.
For starting a business, National Business Capital, a financier, ranked Wisconsin 42nd, citing high taxes and low available funding. Small-business publication Simplify LLC, whose analysis included new business and job creation rates, ranked Wisconsin 43rd. Wisconsin was ranked 35th by WalletHub and 34th by U.S. News & World Report.
More generally, CNBC ranked Wisconsin 21st for business. Wisconsin scored higher in infrastructure and cost of doing business, lower in quality of life and legal and regulatory burdens. Wisconsin also ranked 21st in a poll of CEOs and business owners on best states for business.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded almost $5 billion less in research grants to U.S. institutions in the 2025 fiscal year than the year prior, a 13.6% reduction, according to an Association of American Medical Colleges report released in August.
The NIH committed $30 billion for research from July 2024 through June 2025, down from the $34.7 billion it obligated from July 2023 to June 2024. More than $3.5 billion of that funding difference was specifically in medical research and development while another half-billion was lost in career training for scientists.
Wisconsin’s share dropped by $84.4 million, or about 14%.
Disruptions in NIH research support have caused most states to lose tens and even hundreds of millions of dollars. They have also halted multiple clinical trials and research projects, including studies on post-tuberculosis lung disease and reducing infectious diseases spread by water.
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Wisconsin does not have any large mountains or mountain chains because the state is in the middle of a tectonic plate and its ancient mountains have eroded.
Mountains typically form near the places where tectonic plates collide, known also as “convergent boundaries.” Around 1.8 billion years ago, state mountain ranges such as the Penokee Mountains were created through these collisions, and they later eroded under moving glaciers.
Some of the highest points in Wisconsin today are Timms Hill, Rib Mountain and Lookout Mountain, which all peak at around 1,950 feet. While the United States Geological Survey does not officially define the term “mountain,” the British define a mountain as taller than 2,000 feet.
Currently, Wisconsin is not located near the edge of the North American plate to which it belongs and thus is unlikely to form a mountain range anytime soon.
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Does Wisconsin have any mountains? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
Polls do not show that most U.S. adults think violence against leaders is acceptable.
YouGov poll, conducted Sept. 10: 11% said violence can sometimes be justified to achieve political goals; the figure was 24% among very liberal respondents.
PRRI International, August-September 2024: 18% (29% of Republicans) said “true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save the country.”
University of Chicago, June 2024: 10% said use of force was justified to prevent Donald Trump from becoming president.
University of California, Davis, May-June 2024: 26% said violence was usually or always justified to advance at least one political objective.
The most-Americans claim was made by Republican Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, discussing conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
Vos cited Rutgers University poll results published in April: 56% self-identifying as left of center said the murder of Trump would be at least somewhat justified.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
The law has rarely been enforced, and Congress has repealed most of its provisions.
Conservative Wisconsin radio talk show host Joe Giganti, discussing the Sept. 10 assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, urged listeners to tell Congress the law is “a tool that needs to be utilized.”
In June, Republicans urged President Donald Trump to use the law to revoke the citizenship of New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist.
Harvard law professor Mark Tushnet said the law could be enforced, in theory, against the Communist Party or members of any organization determined by a jury to have engaged in certain actions to overthrow the government.
National Guard troops, like those President Donald Trump is using to crack down on big-city crime, generally are not trained in law enforcement.
Trump sent National Guard troops to Washington, D.C., in August as a crackdown. The Milwaukee police union president said he might ask Trump to send troops to Milwaukee.
D.C. police get 21 modules of criminal procedure training, and Guard members get none, an analysis found.
The Guard’s primary law enforcement training is crowd control, said the analysis’ co-author, Mark Cancian of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
U.S. Naval War College professor Lindsay Cohn, a civil-military relations expert, said most Guard members are not trained in law enforcement, but some are spot-trained.
Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, head of the Wisconsin National Guard, said Guard members are the “wrong people” to fight crime because they’re not trained police officers.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Interstate truckers in the U.S. are required to read and speak English under guidance by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (MCSAP).
The federal register states that interstate drivers must read and speak enough English that they can “sufficiently converse with the general public” and respond to official inquiries. English-speaking regulations for drivers first came into effect in 1937 under the Interstate Commerce Commission. In 2016 the Obama administration relaxed enforcement, but in April the Trump administration rescinded that directive.
Enforcement of the rules vary from state to state. The U.S. Department of Transportation claimed in a press release that California, Washington and New Mexico have failed to enforce English requirements for commercial drivers.
On Aug. 26, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced the federal government would withhold all MCSAP funding for these states unless they “adopt and enforce” English requirements within 30 days.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
That includes Medicaid (low-income people), Medicare (age 65 and over) and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). And they aren’t eligible to buy coverage through the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) marketplaces.
Federal Medicaid can reimburse hospitals for providing emergency care to unauthorized immigrants, but that is not coverage for individuals.
Vice President JD Vance said Aug. 28 in La Crosse, Wisconsin, that health care benefits can’t be sustained “if you allow tens of millions of people” into the U.S. without authorization “and give them those benefits.”
White House spokespersons did not return requests for comment.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Peer-reviewed research found links between marijuana use and psychosis – the loss of contact with reality, experienced as delusions or hallucinations.
The consensus is there is a clear association, but more research is needed to determine if there is causation.
That’s according to the Journal of Cannabis Research editor, researchers at the Institute of Cannabis Research and a review of 32 studies that reviewed research.
The institute’s Jeff Smith said most cannabis users don’t develop psychosis.
Research samples:
Lifetime use is associated with increased odds of psychosis, especially among daily or weekly users.
Psychotic disorders are 11times more likely among adolescent users than non-users.
Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, who represents most of northern Wisconsin, called for more research on the link to inform legalization policy.
Marijuana for recreational use is legal in 24 states. In May, Republicans nixed a Wisconsin legalization proposal.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Dr. David Gorelick, University of Maryland psychiatry professor and Journal of Cannabis Research editor-in-chief: Interview
Institute of Cannabis Research at Colorado State University Pueblo: director and chemistry professor Chad Kinney; and strategic partnership and outreach specialist and biology professor Jeff Smith: Interview
Americans who earn less than $18,000 are estimated to see a slight federal tax cut under President Donald Trump’s big bill, but the net effect of the bill is likely to lead to a loss in household resources.
The average federal tax change from current levels for the bottom 20% of American earners is a reduction of $150 by 2026 and a reduction of $160 by 2030, according to estimates from the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. In contrast, the average income earner will receive a $2,860 cut while the top 1% of earners will see a $75,410 cut on average.
Lower income earners already pay little in taxes. Reductions in Medicaid and SNAP benefits are likely to affect lower income earners disproportionately, resulting in a projected net decline of 2.9% in their household resources.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Reports in 2024 and 2025 said China controls up to 90% of global drone markets.
Mediareports citing market research firm Drone Industry Insights said China controls nearly 90% of the global commercial drone market.
The U.S., reliant on Chinese-made parts, is “years behind building the manufacturing infrastructure that could come close to rivaling China’s,” Forbes reported.
MIT Technology Review reported that DJI, one China-based drone maker, has more than a 90% share of the global consumer market and that the supply chain there is “so competitive that the world can’t really use drones without it.”
The Atlantic Council think tank said China’s market dominance means Chinese-made drones operating in the U.S. can send sensitive information to China and gives China a military advantage.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, a former Wisconsin congressman, raised the issue Aug. 5.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
A recent law President Donald Trump signed July 24 cuts funding for public broadcast stations, including those that provide local emergency alerts.
The law rescinded $9 billion in previously approved funding – $8 billion for foreign aid and $1.1 billion for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private nonprofit – for fiscal 2026 and 2027.
CPB, which announced it would shut down because of the rescissions, has funneled federal dollars to radio and TV networks such as NPR and PBS.
NPR, PBS and their member stations are mostly funded by private donations, but smaller stations, especially in rural areas, relied more on CPB funding. And people in those areas rely on local stations for emergency weather and other alerts.
Wisconsin stations received $8.5 million in CPB funding in fiscal 2024.
The rescissions don’t affect the Emergency Alert System, for national emergency announcements, or the Wireless Emergency Alerts.
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Aborted fetal cells are not used to manufacture the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine today, though the original rubella vaccine was made using human fetal embryo fibroblast cells obtained from two elective abortions in the 1960s.
The rubella vaccine is one of many vaccines that use the cell lines from those aborted fetuses, meaning they descend from the original fetal cells, but are not taken directly from new fetal tissue. These cells were chosen because the womb’s sterile environment does not contain the viruses often found in animal cells.
During the manufacturing of the MMR vaccine, the vaccine virus is purified and cellular debris and growth reagents are removed, breaking down trace DNA until there is none or almost none left.
Most of the major world religions that oppose abortion, including the Roman Catholic Church, have deemed vaccines permissible to prioritize the health of pregnant women, children and the wider population.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Wisconsin doesn’t require daily exercise for students.
Physical education must be given weekly to students in kindergarten through sixth grade and, for older middle school students, with “sufficient frequency and instructional time to meet the objectives outlined in the district’s curriculum plan.”
High school students must follow a curriculum “designed to build lifelong fitness habits.”
In 2024, GOP lawmakers as part of a child obesity task force introduced legislation to require 180 minutes of weekly “physical activity” for K-8 students. One lawmaker said the aim was to require movement, such as playing tennis, rather than teaching tennis.
State revenue is projected to outpace spending during the next two years leaving a $770 million surplus as of July 1, 2027. If spending and revenue are the same over 2027-29, the state will have a deficit of -$1.4 billion in its general fund by the end of that biennium, the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau reported.
That excludes the state’s $2.1 billion rainy day fund.
Wisconsin ended 2023 with a record $7.1 billion surplus and the last budget cycle with $4.4 billion.
The current state budget spends down $3.6 billion as Gov. Tony Evers prioritized spending increases for education and childcare while Republicans pushed tax cuts.
The state’s general fund in 2027 is projected to be at the lowest level since 2018. Wisconsin faced structural deficits from 1996-2011, with a projected $3.6 billion deficit during the 2011-13 biennium. That prompted steep public employee benefit cuts under the controversial Act 10 law.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Violent crime, nationally and in major cities, is lower than 25 years ago.
Marquette University criminal justice professor Theodore Lentz charted rates for violent crime – murder, rape and sexual assault, robbery, and assault.
The overall rate was below 400 violent crimes per 100,000 people for the past decade, down from about 500 per 100,000 people 25 years ago.
The rates are based on FBI Uniform Crime Reporting figures, which track crimes reported to law enforcement.
The nonprofit Pew Research Center reported that between 1993 and 2022, violent crime dropped 49%, according to the FBI; and 71%, according to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics, which surveys Americans.
In cities of 250,000 people or more, the violent crime rate was 771 per 100,000 people in 2023, down from 1,093 in 2000.
Republican U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman, who represents part of eastern Wisconsin, said July 14 that major-city violent crime is much higher than 25 years ago.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
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