Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin) speaks Wednesday about the effort to extend enhanced Affordable Care Act insurance premium tax credits that will expire at the end of 2025. Nancy Peske, left, and Julia Harris-Robinson, center also joined the press conference. (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)

With the loss of enhanced subsidies for the health insurance she has bought on the federal marketplace HealthCare.gov, Nancy Peske’s health plan will cost $1,163.50 a month in 2026.

That’s more than three times what she paid this year — $372 a month, Peske said Wednesday.

But if there’s one thing she wants everyone to know, it’s this: The higher prices for health insurance aren’t just something that she and other people who buy their coverage on the federal marketplace are facing.

Long before the ACA, Peske learned about “the premium death spiral,” she said.

“The more you raise the price, the more people drop out of the pool. This means you have to raise the price, which means more people drop out of the pool. And it goes on and on and on,” Peske said.

“It’s not just my health insurance that’s going to go up. It’s everybody’s — right?” she said. “We’re all in this together.”

Peske was one of two people who have relied on HealthCare.gov, created as part of the Affordable Care Act, who spoke Wednesday at a press conference in Milwaukee with Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin).

Baldwin called the press conference  to draw attention anew to the skyrocketing cost of health insurance — and to the failure of Congress to address it in the stopgap spending bill that passed the U.S. Senate Monday, the U.S. House Wednesday evening and was signed by President Donald Trump.

“This is a health and wellness issue,” Baldwin said. “This is an affordability and cost-of-living issue, and this is a quality of life and dignity issue. And it touches every single one of us right now.”

A success amid ‘a broken system’

Health care in the U.S. is “a broken system that prioritizes profits over patients,” Baldwin said. Despite that, she said, the 2010 Affordable Care Act was an important advance for expanding health care access.

She said that was improved by enhanced federal subsidies enacted in 2021 to offset the cost of health insurance for people who must buy their own policies on the federal HealthCare.gov marketplace that was created by the ACA — making insurance more affordable and drawing record numbers of people to the marketplace to get health coverage.

The enhanced subsidies expire at the end of 2025, however, and until this week a Republican stopgap spending bill that passed the U.S. House in September stalled in the U.S. Senate as Democrats pushed unsuccessfully to extend the subsidies.  

“That is what is at the center of the government shutdown and debate in Washington, D.C.,” Baldwin said. “We know the impact of taking away these tax breaks. For 275,000 Wisconsinites, their health care [insurance] costs will double, triple or even more. For 30,000 Wisconsinites, they predict the price will be too high, and that those Wisconsinites will go without insurance altogether.”

A handful of Democratic Senators changed their votes Monday to advance the spending bill in return for a promise of a future vote on the subsidies, with the House taking up the revised bill Wednesday. Baldwin didn’t join them.

“I said the entire time that a handshake deal with my Republican colleagues to reopen the government and no real action to lower health care costs was simply not good enough,” said Baldwin of her vote against the bill.

She also forced an amendment to extend the tax credits for a year — a compromise, she said, because she wants them extended permanently, but one she offered “to avoid catastrophe for families across Wisconsin and give folks breathing room while we negotiate longer-term solutions.”

The amendment failed on a party-line vote.

“Every single Republican voted no on my amendment,” Baldwin said. “They chose to send a clear, unmistakable message that they are OK with jacking up health care costs on 22 million Americans.”

Early retirement, then sticker shock

HealthCare.gov user Erica Topps also joined Baldwin’s news conference. Topps took early retirement in April and bought a health insurance policy through the federal marketplace for herself and her college-age daughter that started in June.

At the marketplace open enrollment for 2026 that started Nov. 1, that plan’s premium increased by $1,200 a month and the deductible went from $6,700 per person to $10,600 per person, Topps told reporters She found another plan via the marketplace and is enrolling, but she’s concerned about the future beyond that.

“Part of my plan is to go back to work” so she can get health insurance, Topps told the Wisconsin Examiner, because it will be 10 years before she can qualify for Medicare.

Before taking early retirement, “I did my due diligence,” she said. “I feel like the rug was pulled out from under me.”

Peske is a freelance writer, editor and consultant. She is also a cancer survivor, whose diagnosis two years ago was covered thanks to her HealthCare.gov policy. Going without health insurance is unthinkable, but at the age of 63, she must wait another two years before she can go on Medicare, she said.

Peske told the Wisconsin Examiner that she will scrape together the money to afford her new premium. “I’ll not put a dime into my underfunded retirement account,” she said. She expects to “tighten the belt” on household expenses, “and I will probably cut into my savings.”

Freelancers and small businesses account for 40% of the U.S. economy, Peske told reporters.

“Do you want everyone to go out of business?” she asked. “Should I just do what so many people do and get a much lower paying job at a company? Because I’m desperate for health care. I don’t think that’s the solution. I think you want to keep people like me in business, generating money, adding to the economy, and being able to live, to not die of cancer.”

Seeking inroads with GOP lawmakers

Baldwin said she has been talking with Republicans about finding common ground in increased transparency in the health care system, from insurance companies, pharmacy benefit managers and providers.

In addition, she told the Wisconsin Examiner after the press conference, she continues to have conversations with GOP Senate colleagues who have expressed interest in continuing the subsidies to avert the sharp hike in premiums.

None of them were willing to break ranks and vote for her amendment this week, however.

“Those discussions were happening informally, in quiet, not in the public spotlight,” Baldwin said. “But they were afraid to vote on something that they, probably, some of them want, because Donald Trump said you can’t talk about this before the government reopens.”

Baldwin said that the next step will be for the Democrats to settle on the bill that Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune has promised they could bring to the upper chamber for a vote.

As much as she favors a permanent extension of the enhanced credits, if the Democrats go that route, “we know it will go down, and it will be on a pretty much a partisan vote,” Baldwin said.

“I want results, so that probably dictates towards supporting something that conceivably does respond to some of the concerns Republicans have raised,” she said. “I’d like to pick the path most reasonably likely to succeed on behalf of the people who sent me to Washington to fight for them.”

Gov. Tony Evers speaks to reporters at a food pantry in La Crosse on Monday. (Screenshot/CSPAN)

Gov. Tony Evers reiterated Monday that Wisconsin won’t pull back the money that the state distributed to its FoodShare program late last week.

“They [the federal government] want that money back — they’re not getting it back,” Evers said in a short news conference at a La Crosse food bank. “It’s for the people that are part of this program.”

The Evers administration moved swiftly Thursday evening to funnel $104.4 million to Wisconsin’s FoodShare program after a federal court ordered the U.S. Department of Agriculture to fully fund November Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program payments.

Wisconsin FoodShare participants spent $9.9 million of the benefits on groceries Friday, according to the Evers administration.

By Monday, however, the administration said that it was lacking sufficient SNAP funds to reimburse retailers after the U.S. Treasury blocked the federal benefits payment to Wisconsin on Friday.

USDA said it would fully fund November’s SNAP payments in response to Thursday’s court order. Instead, however, the Trump administration petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to halt the order and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson put it on hold for 48 hours.

On Saturday the Trump administration directed states to return a portion of their SNAP funds to the federal government.

“No,” Evers declared in response.

On Monday, Wisconsin joined more than two dozen states in a motion filed in federal court in Massachusetts to block the Trump administration’s Saturday directive.

The directive “underscores the arbitrary and capricious nature of their conduct in this matter and demonstrates the need for immediate relief,” the motion states. “USDA must make full benefits available to SNAP beneficiaries without delay, and the November 8 guidance should be enjoined.”

A federal judge temporarily blocked the directive Monday.

On Monday afternoon, Evers toured WAFER Food Pantry in La Crosse, where he spoke with reporters about USDA’s order to states to pull back funds pushed out to electronic benefit cards used by SNAP recipients, including FoodShare users in Wisconsin.

“That’s embarrassing. That’s embarrassing for any president of the United States,” said Evers in a news conference that was televised on CSPAN.

“He [Trump] can claw all he wants,” Evers said. “It’s not going to happen. They have no authority to do that.”

Evers said that grocery stores should not have to wait for FoodShare funds that they are due when customers make purchases on their electronic benefits cards. “They should be getting reimbursed like they always have,” he said.

The state Department of Health Services and the state Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection both issued statements Monday warning retailers and grocery stores that are part of the FoodShare program that they cannot reject customers with funds legally loaded onto their QUEST benefit cards, and businesses cannot turn away people using the cards.

“While there haven’t been reports of people being turned away or of price gouging thus far, we want to make sure everyone is clear on the expectations. No one in Wisconsin should have to worry about their next meal,” said DATCP Secretary Randy Romanski.

Evers signed an anti-price-gouging order on Oct. 31.

In a letter Sunday to Wisconsin’s congressional delegation, Evers called the administration’s clawback attempt “a shocking and disturbing request—and one that should be condemned by every person, regardless of their political beliefs or party.”

Evers noted that the state’s three Democratic federal lawmakers have spoken up in opposition to the administration’s actions.

“I find it deeply troubling the rest of you have failed to do so,” he wrote, referring to Wisconsin’s seven Republican Congress members, “and I implore you to change that today.”

A sign in a grocery store indicates that SNAP benefits are accepted. Wisconsin's health department, which administers the state's FoodShare program funded through SNAP, said Tuesday November benefits will be reduced and could take weeks to be paid. (Getty Images)

Despite court orders for the federal government to resume sending federal funds to the states for food assistance programs for the month of November, the money will take weeks or longer to arrive and will only cover a portion of the benefits people are supposed to receive, Wisconsin’s health department confirmed Tuesday.

The delay is a result of the federal decision to spend only the contingency funds said aside for the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, or SNAP, according to a statement late Tuesday afternoon from the Wisconsin Department of Health Services communications office. DHS administers Wisconsin SNAP benefits through the state’s FoodShare program.

SNAP benefits stopped flowing Nov. 1 as a result of the federal government shutdown, which has halted federal spending in all but some specific functions of the government.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture declined to tap other funding sources in order to cover the full benefits for November, a department official said in a court document filed Monday.

About 700,000 Wisconsin residents receive SNAP benefits through the FoodShare program, according to DHS. Benefits are distributed to an electronic “QUEST” card that is used like a debit card to purchase food at participating grocers and other vendors.

According to DHS, because of the benefit reduction, states must recalculate the benefits they send to households enrolled in the SNAP program. States must then send an electronic file with the revised benefit information to the electronic benefit transfer businesses that distribute the funds to members’ QWEST cards.

“Due to the many steps that need to be taken as well as the likely bottleneck of only having two vendors that can deploy benefits to cards, the Trump Administration indicates this process will take weeks to months instead of days compared to the timeline if the federal government had chosen to provide full November benefits to states,” DHS said in an update sent to news organizations Tuesday afternoon.

“Because the federal government chose a more complex pathway, the federal government will need to issue guidance to states and then states will have to determine how to allocate partial benefits to each household,” the DHS update stated. “This means the timeline for partial November benefits to be added to [each] member’s cards is still to be determined.”

A provision in the federal mega-bill cutting spending and taxes that President Donald Trump signed July 4 will further complicate the process, according to DHS.

States with error rates of more than 6% in their SNAP programs will bear additional administrative costs. Paying partial benefits rather than full benefits “will force states to use an unprecedented process instead of the process we would typically use,” according to the DHS update, “which has the potential to jeopardize Wisconsin’s and other states’ error rates.”

DHS has asked the Legislature to allocate an additional $69.2 million to the department to cover anticipated increases in administrative costs and hire additional staff to help keep Wisconsin’s error rate low.

Tables that USDA distributed Tuesday indicate that in 48 states, including Wisconsin, the reduced November benefits will range from $149 a month for a one-person household to $497 for a four-person household and $894 for a household of eight. The DHS update noted that “we caution that the tables don’t necessarily reflect what a family would receive.”

Although the Trump administration agreed in court filings to partially fund November’s SNAP benefits, Trump backtracked on that pledge with a social media post, saying that the benefits would not be released until Democrats in Congress agreed to reopen the government.

Tuesday’s update from DHS alluded to the post, stating that the department is “aware of the president’s recent social media message from this morning” — after DHS received the USDA message and the reduced benefit amounts — “and will continue to monitor activity from the federal government.”

Workers, including one man in a wheelchair, discuss a project they are working on in Houston, Texas. (Getty Images)

A state program to help people with disabilities find employment is running short of funds, the state labor department reported Monday, leading to a waiting list for people seeking the agency’s services.

The Department of Workforce Development will seek $4.6 million from the state Legislature to fully fund the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation in the 2026 fiscal year.

The division serves about 19,000 people at any one time and enrolls about 1,000 new participants each month who have disabilities and are looking for work opportunities, said Haley McCoy, director of communications at DWD.

The unemployment rate for people with disabilities is about twice that for the general population, said Melanie Cairns, managing attorney for Disability Rights Wisconsin.

“The Division of Vocational Rehabilitation provides vital support and services that people with disabilities need in order to work and to find better work,” Cairns said.

Those services include assessment of a person’s current job skills and discussions about the individual’s work goal and what services and supports they need to pursue that goal, Cairns said. Those can include grants for training in a specific occupation or skills, job coaching and other forms of support.

Federal funds cover 78.7% of the program’s cost, with the state required to pitch in 21.3% to match that. The additional state appropriation DWD is seeking would unlock the corresponding additional federal money.

The 2025-27 state budget appropriated $21.3 million in state funds for the 2026 fiscal year — $2.4 million less than the state spent in 2025 and $4.6 million less than what the state had projected it would need, according to DWD.

Unless the shortfall is made up, the agency will have to put potential new participants on a waiting list, according to DWD. McCoy said about 2,000 people are currently awaiting an employment plan through the division and would be put on the waiting list as a consequence.

DWD has scheduled a virtual public hearing for Thursday, Nov. 13, at 2 p.m., to explain the need for the waiting list and seek comment from the public about that prospect.

“We want to find a solution to continue to provide employment services for anyone with disabilities who wants to find a job,” said DWD Secretary-designee Amy Pechacek in a statement Monday. “We welcome the public to participate in this public hearing and are working with all stakeholders to address this issue.”

Sign on the door of the Dane County Job Center in Madison, Wisconsin. (Wisconsin Examiner photo)

Unemployed Wisconsinites could lose a week’s jobless benefits if they don’t show up for an interview if a new draft bill becomes law.

The same measure would also turn up the scrutiny on the weekly work searches that people who’ve lost a job must undertake to collect unemployment insurance.

Gov. Tony Evers has repeatedly vetoed bills authored by Republicans in the Legislature that contain those and other changes to Wisconsin’s unemployment compensation system.

In his veto messages, Evers, a Democrat, has consistently criticized GOP lawmakers for trying to change the rules on jobless pay without working through Wisconsin’s joint labor-management Unemployment Insurance Advisory Council.

This time, however, the proposals have come from the advisory council itself.

On Sept. 24, the council voted to advance a bill that was endorsed by both its labor and management members. Despite that unanimous backing, some worker advocates are condemning the draft legislation.

“This is a terrible, terrible bill,” said lawyer Victor Forberger, whose practice focuses on representing people whose claims for unemployment compensation have been rejected by the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development.

State Rep. Christine Sinicki (D-Milwaukee), the ranking Democrat on the Assembly’s labor committee, has repeatedly scolded Republican lawmakers for proposing unemployment insurance changes without going through the advisory council.

But after reading the advisory council’s draft legislation, Sinicki said, “I will not be voting for the bill, and we will probably offer an amendment to it.”

Shane Griesbach, a union official who chairs the council’s labor caucus, defends the council proposal, highlighting that it includes an increase in the maximum weekly unemployment benefit for the first time in more than a decade.

“It was a compromise between both labor and management on various issues,” Griesbach told the Wisconsin Examiner.

The draft bill has not yet been formally introduced in the Legislature. On Tuesday, Oct. 28, members of the Assembly Committee on Workforce Development, Labor, and Integrated Employment were told by email to hold their calendars open for a hearing on Nov. 13.

Labor-management negotiations

From the launch of Wisconsin’s unemployment compensation system in 1932 — the first of its kind in the country — the Unemployment Insurance Advisory Council has been a standing feature, intended to reflect the interests of both sides.

“The Wisconsin UI advisory council — with five representatives each from labor and management — was designed to balance the needs of workers and employers in unemployment insurance policy,” said Laura Dresser, associate director of the High Road Strategy Center, a think tank at the University of Wisconsin-Madison that focuses on the impact of economic policy and trends on working people.

“It is a good idea, and part of the Wisconsin Idea, to build this sort of policy infrastructure around the people who rely on and fund the system,” Dresser said. “But if either labor or management thinks they can get a better deal from the Legislature than the advisory council, that undermines the policy-making power of the council itself.” 

Among the controversial provisions of the draft bill is a disability pay penalty.

Under the typical protocol for bills that come from the advisory council, Sinicki, as the ranking minority party member of the labor committee would be listed as a coauthor of the legislation.

But Sinicki objects to the bill’s proposed penalty for people with unemployment claims who receive federal disability payments. If that doesn’t change, “I will not put my name on the bill,” Sinicki said

Since 2013, people laid off from work have been denied unemployment compensation if they also received Social Security Disability Income. This summer, a federal judge ended that ban, and the advisory council’s draft bill removes the ban as well.

But the draft bill also includes an “offset” that would claw back money from the SSDI recipient’s jobless pay each week. Over the course of one month, the amount clawed back would equal 50% of the recipient’s monthly disability check.

Earlier this year, DWD proposed to the advisory council ending the SSDI jobless pay ban but deducting 100% of federal disability income.

In September, Sinicki and state Sen. Kristin Dassler-Alfheim (D-Appleton) introduced their own bill to repeal the SSDI unemployment pay ban and criticized DWD’s offset recommendation. Nine days later, the department told the Unemployment Insurance Advisory Council it was dropping the offset proposal entirely and simply recommending an end to the SSDI jobless pay ban.  

The advisory council brought back the offset, however, at 50% rather than 100% of the federal disability income, in the draft bill approved Sept. 24.

Forberger said that at either 100% or 50%, requiring an offset against disability income is likely to wipe out jobless pay for many SSDI recipients.

Resurrecting vetoed changes

Other provisions in the advisory council draft have previously passed the state Legislature with only Republican votes, and then been vetoed by Evers.

‘Ghosting’ interviews: Unemployment insurance recipients accused of “ghosting” a scheduled job interview — failing to show up — would lose their weekly jobless pay for that week. A recipient would also lose benefits for a week for declining a job offer or failing to report on the first scheduled work day after being offered a job.

Republican lawmakers this year passed legislation that also would penalize “ghosting” interviews and rejecting job offers. No Democrats voted for the legislation, and Evers vetoed the bill, AB 169, on Friday. 

“I object to creating additional barriers for individuals applying for and receiving benefits from a program that is designed to support people and families experiencing economic hardship, as well as creating additional mandates for the department in administering these benefits,” Evers wrote in his veto message.

Forberger said the ghosting penalties — which have been introduced and vetoed in past years as well — are unneeded, with unemployment insurance claims remaining at close to record lows.

“We’ve still got a huge worker shortage in the state,” Forberger said. “This does absolutely nothing.”

Work search audit quotas: Another provision in the advisory council bill would require DWD to audit the work searches of half of all people making unemployment claims.

Evers vetoed a bill in 2023 that included the work search audit requirement.

“I object to this bill because the department already has substantial eligibility requirements and fraud prevention mechanisms in place to protect the unemployment system from potentially fraudulent activity,” Evers wrote at the time.

In response to a Wisconsin Examiner inquiry, DWD Communications Director Haley McCoy said via email that the department’s unemployment insurance division “has a well-established work search auditing program.” People making unemployment insurance claims must report their required work searches each week, which are subject “to random or targeted audits,” McCoy said.

McCoy declined to specify the department’s current audit frequency, calling that information “sensitive” and confidential “to protect program integrity.”

Identity proofing requirements: The advisory council bill includes new requirements for unemployment insurance applicants to prove their identities, and would require DWD to follow specific steps, including comparing applications for jobless pay against databases tracking death records, employment records, citizenship and immigration records.

On Friday Evers vetoed AB 168, which included similar identity proofing requirements.

“The department already implements comprehensive fraud prevention strategies, including identity verification, making the proposal to mandate identity proofing both unnecessary and overly burdensome of claimants,” Evers wrote in his veto message.

A benefit increase

The advisory council bill includes a one-time $25 increase in the maximum weekly payment that goes to jobless workers: to $395 a week starting in 2026, from $370 a week.

“The last time unemployment has seen an increase in the weekly benefit rate was 2013,” said Griesbach, the council’s labor caucus chair.

Griesbach said that benefit increase, the unemployment insurance clawback for disability pay, the “ghosting’ penalty and the work search audit requirements were all products of the advisory council’s consensus process.

“All those things were part of an agreed-upon bill between labor and management and negotiation and compromise by both groups,” Griesbach told the Wisconsin Examiner. “It was an agreed-upon bill, and there were a lot of different topics that were discussed, and that was the compromise that was reached.”

Forberger said the proposed benefit increase keeps Wisconsin’s top unemployment benefit well below other Midwestern states.

In Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota and Illinois, the maximum weekly benefit is at least $500 a week or more. Only Indiana, with a maximum benefit of $390 a week, would be lower, he said.

“This is a paltry increase,” Forberger said of the Wisconsin proposal. “It’s nothing to brag about.”

The advisory council bill’s increase is also less than DWD had recommended in its proposals to the council. The department proposed raising the maximum weekly  benefit by $127 in 2026, to $497, and then indexing the maximum to the consumer price index in 2027.

Sinicki acknowledged that by giving new life to Republican-authored unemployment insurance bills that she’s sharply criticized in the past, the advisory council’s bill has put her in a difficult position.

The ghosting penalty, for example, is an “attempt to throw more people off of unemployment insurance,” Sinicki said. She also voiced skepticism of increasing work search audits without funding more staff positions.

But the disability penalty, she said, is more than she would be willing to support.

“This puts me in a very tough spot, and also puts a lot of Democrats in a very tough spot,” Sinicki said. “As a Democrat, I cannot vote to take away benefits from disabled people.”

American Family Children's Hospital in Madison. An annual report from the Wisconsin Hospital Association says hospitals in the state are doing better financially, but face uncertainty. (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)

Uncompensated health care at Wisconsin hospitals rose more then 30% in 2024 from the year before, according to a new report from the Wisconsin Hospital Association.

People without health insurance or regular health providers are using emergency rooms more, the report also finds.

The association annually assesses the state of Wisconsin hospitals, including their finances, utilization and staffing. The 2024 report was released Thursday.

“We are seeing a modest improvement in hospital financials across the state,” said Kyle O’Brien, president of the Wisconsin Hospital Association, in an interview. Nevertheless, he added, “there’s a lot of uncertainty in the health care market right now.”

While the state’s hospitals were doing better in 2024 than in the previous two years, 40 hospitals had a negative operating margin, O’Brien said, and many hospitals across the state where margins were positive, but narrow.

Uncompensated care includes charity care — provided by the hospital with the full knowledge that the cost won’t be covered — as well as bad debt: care for which the hospital expected to be paid but wasn’t.

In 2024, uncompensated care in both categories added up to $1.77 billion — a 30.5% increase over the 1.36 billion in uncompensated care in 2023.

O’Brien said several factors are responsible for that increase. One of those is generally higher deductibles on health insurance plans, requiring patients to spend more out of pocket before their insurance coverage kicks in.

“If that patient can’t pay for that higher out-of-pocket [expense], hospitals are the ones that either have to try to collect those dollars, or they are the ones that provide relief through charity care, bad debt policies, or things like that,” O’Brien said.

For hospitals, another top concern is how much Medicaid pays to cover the cost of care.

State budgets over the last decade have been increasing Medicaid hospital payments, O’Brien said, with the 2025-27 budget having the largest increases to date. Even so, he said, hospital Medicaid reimbursements fall short of fully covering the cost of the care that Medicaid is supposed to cover.

Decisions by health insurance to deny coverage are a source of “general consternation” for hospitals, O’Brien said — both with group health insurance policies but also for Medicare Advantage policies. Medicare Advantage policies are sold to people eligible for the federal Medicare program but are instead provided by private insurance companies.

O’Brien said the hospital association is also concerned about projected increases in people without health insurance as a result of higher premiums paid by people who buy their own insurance at the federal marketplace, HealthCare.gov, created under the Affordable Care Act.

Enhanced subsidies for HealthCare.gov policies enacted in 2021 will expire at the end of this year unless they are renewed. The subsidies are provided in the form of federal income tax credits for consumers who purchase insurance through HealthCare.gov

This week the state Office of the Commissioner of Insurance released projected rates for 2026 that reflected the loss of those enhanced subsidies.

Those higher costs have prompted widespread predictions that, after years in which enrollment in the marketplace plans has set new records, enrollment will drop off and more people with go without health insurance instead.

“We are certainly concerned anytime there’s a potential that somebody might lose coverage,” O’Brien said. Federal law requires hospitals to treat patients whether or not they are able to pay.

“We have been advocating with the congressional delegation to reauthorize those enhanced premium tax credits,” O’Brien said. He said members of Congress have been focused on “issues that are playing out right now [that] may be even bigger than hospital-related issues, but I think that they understand our concerns.”

Democratic lawmakers in Wisconsin have announced food drives and are blaming Republicans for looming cuts in federal food assistance. (Getty Images)

With the expected loss of federal food assistance funding starting Saturday, Democratic state lawmakers are mounting a series of food drives as part of their campaign to draw attention to their argument that Republicans are to blame.

Wisconsin’s FoodShare program will stop receiving its monthly payments from the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, starting Nov. 1.

The Trump administration has blocked further SNAP funding as a result of the federal shutdown that began Oct. 1, although the U.S. Department of Agriculture has $6 billion in reserves. A coalition of Democratic attorneys general and governors, including in Wisconsin, has sued the administration over the refusal to tap the reserve fund.  

In Milwaukee County, Sen. Chris Larson and state Rep. Christine Sinicki, both Milwaukee Democrats, scheduled a news conference and food drive for Thursday morning at a food pantry in Cudahy, a suburb just south of the city.

Across the state, Rep. Jodi Emerson (D-Eau Claire) and Sen. Jeff Smith (D-Brunswick) are holding a news conference and food drive Thursday morning in Eau Claire in conjunction with local nonprofits there.

Reps. Jill Billings (D-La Crosse) and Tara Johnson (D-Town of Shelby) are holding a press conference and food drive on Thursday afternoon at a La Crosse food bank, joined by local advocates. 

The aim is “to highlight the disastrous effects of the shutdown on Wisconsinites and discuss how our community can step up to support the most vulnerable among us in their time of need,” Billings’ office stated in announcing the event.

Johnson has also scheduled an event  and food drive Friday with Sen. Brad Pfaff (D-Onalaska) at a Viroqua food pantry with Vernon County advocates.

In Appleton, the Democratic Party of Outagamie County and state Senate hopeful Emily Tseffos have organized a two-week food drive that began Monday, Oct. 27 and will run through Nov. 8. That drive will supply pantries across the Fox Valley, according to the group.

“The fact that the government remains shut down while people right here are about to go hungry didn’t sit right with me,” Tseffos said in a statement. “So a group of friends and I got together to see what we could do.”

Gov. Tony Evers, shown here in a press gaggle in March, said Monday that health insurance rates on the ACA market are set to skyrocket in Wisconsin. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)

Last updated 10/28/2025, 1:51 p.m. 

The cost for health care coverage purchased on HealthCare.gov in Wisconsin will rise for some insurance policies by anywhere from 45% to 800% for 2026, depending on where a person lives, Gov. Tony Evers announced Monday.

The increased rates will be made worse with the end of enhanced federal subsidies, provided in the form of tax credits, that have lowered insurance costs through the marketplace since 2021, Evers and Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin) said during a virtual press conference Monday morning. The enhanced subsidies expire at the end of December.

“In 2025, 88% of Wisconsinites [who] enrolled in coverage on HealthCare.gov qualify for tax credits, saving an average of $664 a month,” Evers said. “And without these enhanced tax credits, health care premiums for Wisconsinites are going to skyrocket, period. Many Wisconsinites will see their premiums double, and some of them will see staggering increases.”

HealthCare.gov is the federal insurance marketplace, created under the 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA) to improve health insurance access for people without health coverage from an employer or from government programs.

More than 310,000 Wisconsinites purchased health insurance through the marketplace for 2025, according to the Wisconsin Office of the Commissioner of Insurance (OCI). HealthCare.gov open enrollment for 2026 starts Nov. 1.  

OCI released a list Monday with examples of rate increases for patients of various ages and under selected scenarios based on age, family size and incomes. The examples compared rate increases across eight counties.

Evers said a statewide average increase wasn’t available “because it’s going to impact lots of people in a lot of different ways.”

The comparisons made by OCI all reflected health plans in the Silver category on HealthCare.gov. Silver plans have a “moderate” deductible and require patients to pay 30% of the cost of care (see sidebar, HealthCare.gov insurance plan categories).

In a few scenarios and locations, rate increases will be lower than 10%. Those are exceptions, however. Most scenarios and locations showed premium increases ranging from more than 30% on up. Some increases were well over 100%, and one example showed an increase of more than 800% in one county.

The comparisons reflect the premium cost after any subsidies are applied. 

The ACA included subsidies on the cost of insurance from the beginning for people with incomes up to 400% of the federal poverty guideline.

The enhancements that were put in place in 2021 and expire at the end of December included increases in the subsidies for the original group. They also extended subsidies to people with incomes above 400% of the poverty guideline, to avoid an “eligibility cliff” at those higher incomes. 

In the comparisons, the 2025 premiums include the effect of the enhanced subsidies, while the 2026 premiums reflect the return to the original subsidy formula.

According to OCI’s report 2026 premiums will increase:

• Between 39% in Waukesha County and 85% in Barron County for a 26-year-old with an income of $48,000 (subsidy continues, but reduced).
• Between 16% in Marathon County and 43% in Barron County for a 26-year-old with an income of $65,000 (subsidy ended).
• Between 18% in Brown County and 84% in Barron County for a 40-year-old with an income of $65,000  (subsidy ended).
• Between 132% in Waukesha County and 391% in Barron County for a 60-year-old with an income of $63,383  (subsidy ended).
• Between 221% in Waukesha County and 812% in Barron County for a 60-year-old couple with an income of $85,658  (subsidy ended).
• Between 2% in Waukesha County and 57% in Barron County for a family  of four with a household income of $128,000 (subsidy continues, but reduced).
• Between 102% in both Waukesha and Dane counties and 312% in Barron County for a family of four with a household income of $130,000  (subsidy ended).

In both family examples, the parents are ages 48 and 47 and children ages 8 and 12.

Nationwide, some 22 million Americans will see their premiums double on average, Baldwin said. She cited projections that 4 million Americans “will look at that price tag and decide to drop their insurance altogether because it’s simply too expensive. It’s more than they can afford.”

KFF, a nonpartisan, nonprofit health policy news and analysis organization, reported Oct. 3 that seven out of 10 people nationally who buy health coverage through the federal marketplace said they would not be able to afford insurance without the enhanced subsidies.

Democrats in Congress have named extending the subsidies as one of their conditions for Democratic support of the Republican majority’s legislation to end the current federal shutdown.

In response, GOP leaders in Congress have called on Democratic lawmakers to sign on to their spending bill to restart the government and then negotiate to extend the subsidies.

Baldwin said Democrats won’t accept “a wink and a nod” that the tax credit talks should come after the government reopens. She said she’s heard privately from Republicans in the Senate who agree that Congress should extend the subsidies.

With 78% of Americans, according to one poll, “who believe we need to address this, and many of my Republican colleagues want to do so, then we need to have an agreement to extend the tax credits as we reopen the government,” Baldwin said.

Later Monday in Milwaukee, Evers held a round table with business owners, advocates and lawmakers to discuss the HealthCare.gov rate increases.

“If you’re seeing these jumps in 26-year-olds, across the board, I don’t know how we afford this,” said Dan Jacobs, owner of the Milwaukee restaurant DanDan. Jacobs said about two-thirds of his employees have health insurance, most of them probably purchasing it through the marketplace.

His business subsidized the insurance premiums that full-time employees and managers bought through HealthCare.gov for 2025, he said, but with the premium increases, reported Monday, “we’re not going to be able to afford to do that,” Jacobs told Evers.

Kara Pitt-D’Andrea, who operates a nonprofit child care facility in Milwaukee with about 25 employees, told Evers,  “100% of us are on the ACA or Medicaid.” 

She called health coverage a moral imperative rather than an act of charity. “To say to people, ‘We refuse to come to the table to create a sustainable option for you’ is the equivalent of saying, ‘You are unimportant in the game of business that we are playing,’” Pitt-D’Andrea said.

U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan speaks with furloughed federal workers on Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2025. Pocan, a Democrat, brought pizza for the group and discussed the current federal shutdown. (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)

Ellie Lazarcik worked in a few different industry jobs after moving to Madison in 2017. None of them really fit, she says. Then she learned that the U.S. Forest Service Forest Products Lab in Madison was hiring.

Coincidentally, she knew of the lab from a visit she made “way back when I was in college, for a wood sculpture class of all things,” Lazarcik said Wednesday.

“Over a decade had passed since then, and I saw a job opening come up in the lab and thought, ‘Why not? That place was really amazing when I visited. They had really cool stuff going on then, and they probably still have really cool stuff going on,’” she recalled.

She applied and got the job.

That was five years ago. Her job title is physical science technician in the lab’s building and fire science program. Her work supports other members of the research team — setting up lab tests, preparing samples and then running them through the testing or analysis process and sorting through the data afterward.

“And I love what I do,” Lazarcik said.

Since President Donald Trump took office in January, “there have been a lot of really sort of rapid-fire changes,” she said. “We’re on our toes a lot trying to figure out what we can or can’t pursue in terms of research.”

Still, she has continued to find the job engaging. “We’ve been able to keep doing cool projects,” Lazarcik said. “I’ve been involved in some interesting stuff in the lab — but it has been challenging.”

Since Oct. 1, however, Lazarcik has been furloughed along with hundreds of thousands of federal workers on account of the federal government shutdown.

“This is my first furlough and I’m not particularly enjoying it,” she said. Missing a paycheck is one reason, but it’s not the only one.

“It is pretty uncomfortable not knowing when I will get paid next, when I can go back into the lab and continue working on projects that got stopped abruptly,” Lazarcik said, “It’s stressful.”

Lazarcik is married and  her husband “has a job and a paycheck, which definitely helps,” she said. “But going from a two-paycheck household to one has been a pretty stark difference.”

On Wednesday, Lazarcik brought her toddler in his stroller over to the Social Security Administration office on Madison’s far West Side. U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Black Earth) and members of his staff stopped by a little after noon with boxes of pizza as a token of appreciation for some of the furloughed federal workers.

About 18,000 federal employees live in Wisconsin, and about 8,000 are expected to be out of work currently due to the shutdown, the state labor secretary, Amy Pechacek, said at a virtual news conference on Thursday, Oct. 18.

“We’re seeing you and we very much appreciate what you’re doing,” Pocan told the group of just over a dozen federal employees who turned out. “We understand the sacrifice you and your families are making.”

Even before the shutdown, the Trump administration fired about 200,000 federal workers, Pocan said.

“These actions are illegal,” he said, but added that they are likely to drive some people out of the federal workforce. “We’re going to lose a lot of good, qualified people with experience.”

Pocan said communication in Washington, D.C., between the Republican majority in both the House and the Senate and Democrats has been at a standstill.

“I’d prefer we were there now, negotiating to get things done. But we’re not,” Pocan told the group. “We’re seeing a lot of things happen this session that aren’t normal.”

In September the Republicans sought to pass a continuing resolution on spending that if enacted would have averted the shutdown. A majority voted for the measure in the House, but in the U.S. Senate there were not enough votes to clear the 60 needed to advance most bills in the upper chamber.

Democratic support is necessary to meet that threshold, but Democratic lawmakers argued that in return for their votes they should have an opportunity to have some input into the continuing resolution.

Their demands have included extending enhanced subsidies for health insurance premiums sold through the federal HealthCare.gov marketplace and reversing cuts to Medicaid that Republicans included in their big tax cut and spending cut bill enacted in July.

In previous spending standoffs, Pocan said, leaders of both parties in both houses of Congress have been able to hash out agreements, usually avoiding a shutdown altogether or else managing to resolve one before it drags on.

“This time, though, so much has changed,” Pocan said.

A bipartisan deal failed in December after Trump and Elon Musk opposed it. Congress managed to approve another stopgap spending bill two days later that carried the federal government to March 2025.

“Then we had to start over in March,” Pocan said. That measure was unpopular with Democrats, he said, but enough Senate Democrats voted for it to pass,  funding the federal government through Sept. 30.

“And immediately we saw recissions — illegal again — and more illegal actions by the Trump administration taking funds away,” Pocan said. That history over the last 10 months has made Democrats wary of a deal that doesn’t address their priorities, he added.

Lazarcik hopes Congress acts soon to pass legislation that ends the shutdown. In the meantime, she gets by, tapping into savings, “looking at where you can squeeze a little bit tighter,” and skimping on putting aside funds for retirement — “which is really hard.”

Not everyone understands, however.

“I hear a lot  of people talk about, ‘Oh, man, that must be cool.’ It’s really not,” she said. “It’s pretty stressful having to try to plan when you can’t know when your next paycheck is coming.”

She is grateful for a support network of close friends and family members. “[They] do understand furlough is not just some crazy vacation you get to go on,” Lazarcik said.

The forest products lab has had a strong feeling of community that Lazarcik has always enjoyed. That has persisted during furlough, “even in this time when we’re not all going to the same building every day.”

Coworkers have stayed connected, reaching out to each other to meet up, talk and “de-stress,” Lazarcik said. “Even though we’re not all working on a regular schedule and we’re not getting paychecks, we still are supporting each other, and that’s been really great.”

A produce cooler at Willy Street Co-op in Madison, Wisconsin. FoodShare funding from the federal government will stop Nov. 1 if the federal government shutdown continues. (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)

Unless the shutdown ends by that date, Wisconsin’s FoodShare program, which serves more than 700,000 Wisconsin residents — about 12% of the state’s population — will run out of funds Nov. 1, Gov. Tony Evers said Tuesday. FoodShare is funded through the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, previously known as Food Stamps.

Two Wisconsin Head Start early childhood education programs are at risk for not receiving their expected federal authorization that was to start Nov. 1, according to Jennie Mauer, executive director of the Wisconsin Head Start Association.

“Our social safety net is stretched,” Mauer said Tuesday. “This is just going to really short communities, and I think providers are bracing. We just don’t know the tidal wave that’s going to hit us, so everybody is really concerned.”

The U.S. Department of Agriculture notified states earlier this month that the SNAP program would not have enough funds to pay full benefits to the program’s 42 million participants nationwide.

The department directed states to hold off on the transactions that move SNAP funds onto the electronic benefit cards that FoodShare members use to buy groceries.

FoodShare “may not be available at all next month if the federal government shutdown continues, leaving nearly 700,000 Wisconsinites without access to basic food and groceries,” the governor’s office said in a statement Tuesday.

“President Trump and Republicans in Congress must work across the aisle and end this shutdown now so Wisconsinites and Americans across our country have access to basic necessities like food and groceries that they need to survive,” Evers said.

Both the FoodShare and Medicaid programs refer to their participants as members. “FoodShare benefits are 100 percent funded by the federal government and the shutdown will need to end before members can begin getting benefits again,” the state Department of Health Services announced in the FoodShare news page Tuesday.

If FoodShare benefits stop in November, they won’t be lost, but they will be delayed, said Matt King, CEO of the Hunger Task Force in Milwaukee. When the shutdown ends, benefits will become available again, including those not paid during the shutdown.

The Hunger Task Force supplies food pantries throughout the greater Milwaukee area. If benefits stop, food pantry operators and suppliers expect to see a sharp increase in the need for their services.

“FoodShare is the first and most critical line of defense against hunger,” King said Tuesday. “The food pantry network across Wisconsin acts as a safety net to help people in an emergency. It’s not set up to be a sustainable source of food to meet all of their grocery needs.”

While helping people get access to food in an emergency, the food pantry network also works to connect people with “more sustainable and ongoing resources like the FoodShare program,” he said.

The impending pause on FoodShare funds will compound a need that has already increased by 35% across the state in the past year, King said. “The longer the government shutdown goes on, the more strain it will put onto the emergency food system.”

Mauer of the Head Start association said two of the state’s 39 Head Start programs were to receive authorization for their next round of funding starting Nov. 1, and with them the ability to draw on their federal grants for the next several months.

So far, the authorization hasn’t been received, Mauer said. In addition, however, if the authorization is issued but the shutdown remains in effect, “there’s no money” until a budget is enacted, she added. “They need money in the coffers for [Head Start agencies] to draw down.”

The issue will repeat for programs that must reauthorize by Dec. 1 and Jan. 1 if the shutdown continues.

The remaining Head Start programs are not believed to be in peril, Mauer said, because their grants have already been funded by the previous fiscal year’s appropriations.   

The Head Start program operated by the Sheboygan Human Rights Association is one of the two awaiting its Nov. 1 reauthorization and the new round of funding that would ordinarily begin then.

“At this point, we are unsure how we will be affected,” said Theresa Christen-Liebig, the executive director of the nonprofit. The agency is using “some state funding resources to continue services until mid-November,” Christen-Liebig told the Wisconsin Examiner in an email. The agency’s board will meet next week to consider its steps for the rest of November and beyond, she said.

“The uncertainty makes the situation stressful and hard on our staff and families,” Christen-Liebig said. “We are keeping everyone updated as we try to work things out and decisions are made to continue to provide services.”

Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development's secretary designee, Amy Pechacek, right, with Gov. Tony Evers at a 2023 DWD event held at the Plumbers Local 75 training center in Madison. Pechacek held a news conference online Thursday where she spoke about the impact of the federal government shutdown on DWD and the state. (Photo courtesy of DWD)

As the federal shutdown drags on, Wisconsin is likely to feel the impact — in employment, in agriculture and in the safety net for workers, according to the state’s labor secretary.

“Right now, we have the ability to continue to operate and our goal is to not disrupt our current workforce programs or state workforce,” said Amy Pechacek, secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development, during an online news conference Thursday.

Governments in some other states have started to reduce their workforces, Pechacek said. Wisconsin is holding off on filling vacancies and taking other steps “to try and preserve all of the funding we can so that we don’t have programmatic or employment disruptions,” Pechacek said.

Nevertheless, 75% of the DWD’s $500 million annual budget — three out of every four dollars — comes from the federal government, she said.

The remaining 25% that comes from the state isn’t “just one big pot,” Pechacek added, but funds specific programs. For example, the state workers compensation program, which covers treatment costs and lost income for people injured on the job, is entirely state funded. That includes the cost of administering the program.

But job support services — local job centers, career counseling, unemployment insurance administration, state apprenticeship programs, and the division of vocational rehabilitation for people with disabilities — are “all tied to federally funded programs,” Pechacek said.

“We need the federal government to come together, come up with a funding mechanism and continue to support their obligations to all the states and to all the people to ensure that we can move forward with the economic health and prosperity that we have enjoyed without this chaotic massive interruption,” she said. “The longer this goes, the continued adverse and exponentially worse impacts to our workforce will compound.”

Pechacek’s virtual news conference Thursday took the place of DWD’s monthly report on Wisconsin employment data. The usual reports draw on the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics surveys that poll employers on the number of jobs they have and poll households to calculate the unemployment rate.

The data BLS compiles and analyzes is one of the casualties of the shutdown, Pechacek said, hampering employers, job seekers, nonprofits, economic development agencies and governments.

All of them rely on BLS data “to guide fiscal decision making, determine whether to open or expand their businesses, determine if they’re going to hire or lay off, figure out how to allocate resources, and understand really how best to train their current workforce,” Pechacek said. Without that information, “employers are putting off important decisions, essentially fumbling around in the dark until Congress can get around to turning back the lights on.”

Unemployment claims can serve as one indicator, and Scott Hodek, section chief in the DWD Office of Economic Advisors, said the department is looking at other data sources to fill in some of the missing information. Those sources include various private sector organizations as well as the regional federal reserve banks.

“But really it’s pretty difficult to get an accurate picture of what’s happening,” Hodek said. “It will get more difficult as time goes on.”

Another federal report on inflation is expected to be released soon, even with the shutdown, because the findings are used to calculate annual cost-of-living increases for Social Security recipients, Hodek said.

That report will also figure into the deliberations of the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee when it meets at the end of October to decide whether to cut interest rates. The Fed’s dual mission includes keeping inflation as close to 2% as possible while encouraging maximum employment.

“That becomes very difficult to do if you don’t have any of that data to make those decisions,” Hodek said.

Looking at the coming months, Pechacek said, the process of applying for H-2A agriculture visas is on hold. The visas enable about 3,000 migrant workers to come in annually to work in specific seasonal agricultural operations, including planting, harvesting and food processing, she said.

DWD is required to verify that there is a worker shortage in the occupations to be covered, and the U.S. Department of Labor must certify the state’s verification report before the federal government issues the visas, she said, but the federal certification of the state’s report is on hold because of the shutdown.

December and January are the months when the most requests come in for H-2A visas, Pechacek said, so if the shutdown continues for too long, the agricultural employers depending on those workers would be unable to get the needed certification.

Pechacek said the department is also watching to see how many federal employees file for unemployment insurance.

There are about 18,000 federal employees in Wisconsin, and DWD has estimated that 8,000 might be affected by the shutdown. By comparison, she said, one of the largest layoffs in Wisconsin took place in 2018 when a larger retailer shut down, laying off 2,200 employees.

So far, however, there have been just 30 initial claims from federal workers, Pechacek said.

If federal workers who file unemployment claims get back pay when they return to work, however, they’ll have to repay the unemployment insurance fund.

Pechacek noted that President Donald Trump has threatened to permanently fire federal workers in the shutdown as well as to withhold back pay for furloughed federal workers who return to work. Between uncertainty about those threats and court rulings that have blocked some mass federal layoffs, however, “it is really an ongoing situation,” she added.

Pechacek several times criticized Trump and the Republican leaders in Congress for the shutdown.

“The president and congressional Republicans have shut down our nation’s government trying to force massive health care cuts and cost increases to the nation’s working and middle class families and we are in a stalemate,” she said.

“We really need our federal government to return to work so they can restore some predictability and reliability to our economy and continue to be the partner that we need to ensure the economic health and prosperity of Wisconsin workers.”

South Central Federation of Labor President Kevin Gundlach addresses a rally in support of Group Health workers seeking union representation on Monday, Oct. 13. (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)

A stalemate between Group Health Cooperative of South Central Wisconsin and employees who have been seeking union representation for the last 10 months shows little sign of breaking soon.

At a mass meeting Monday at the Alliant Center in Madison, members of Group Health, sometimes called GHC for short, passed a motion directing the co-op to voluntarily recognize the union as the employees originally petitioned in December — covering three departments and a series of health care professionals.

The motion set a deadline of Friday, Oct. 17. Marty Anderson, Group Health’s chief strategy and business development officer, said Thursday that action on all the motions would likely be deferred, probably until November.

“We communicated clearly ahead of the meeting that all motions are advisory in nature,” Anderson said. “Any deadlines that would be in any of the motions would also be advisory in nature.”

Monday’s mass meeting was the first of its kind for Group Health members to ask questions of the co-op administration and express their opinions about the union drive. About 172 people attended, according to a Group Health spokesperson. Group Health has more than 50,000 Class A and Founding members — the two groups that were considered eligible to attend, according to the co-op.

In the spring, a volunteer committee met with the board to argue in favor of recognizing the union. 

People attending the Monday meeting described the crowd as strongly supportive of the union, and the voice votes in favor of recognizing the union and other motions favored by union supporters were unanimous, according to Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Wisconsin. 

Growing dissatisfaction 

At a rally outside the Alliant Center before the meeting, South Central Labor Federation President Kevin Gundlach, a Group Health member, charged that the co-op “has lost its way” in its response to the union organizing drive.

“We want GHC to listen to the workers,” Gundlach said. “And these workers know, and it says on my shirt here” — he pointed to his chest — “it’s better in a union.”

Group Health has rejected charges that it’s trying to thwart the union drive, contending that it simply wants health care employees in all departments to take part in the union representation vote — not just those from departments and job classifications that were included in the original union petition.

Union supporters say that claim is disingenuous and a ploy to “dilute the vote,” in the words of several workers interviewed — racking up votes against the union from employees in departments that don’t have the same concerns.

Anderson denied the charge. “We don’t know” what the votes will be, he said.

According to workers involved in the union drive, the Group Health union campaign grew out of increasing dissatisfaction in specific co-op departments with working conditions and what they contend was a lack of input into the co-op’s practices.

“I feel like we can improve the patient care that we provide through unionization and through increased involvement in decision-making,” Dr. Nisha Rajagopalan, a family physician who has worked at Group Health for 22 years, said Thursday.

Pay practices, employee turnover and a voice at the table are all reasons employees have cited for supporting the union.

“GHC leadership stopped collaborating with us and despite our many patient care concerns and our many meeting requests,” said Julie Vander Werff, a physician assistant, the lead speaker at the Monday rally.

Who should be in the union?

Complicating the organizing campaign is the conflict over exactly who among Group Health’s workers should be included in the union.

Union supporters involved in the organizing drive originally proposed that the union represent a bargaining unit of about 220 people. They were doctors, physician assistants, nurse practitioners and nursing staff in three departments: primary care, urgent care and dermatology. Their petition also included physical therapists, occupational therapists and health educators.

The petition was filed Dec. 12, 2024. Group Health filed a brief asserting that the unit the employees sought “was an inappropriate unit,” said Anderson, the Group Health executive.

To resolve the differences, a National Labor Relations Board staffer held a meeting on Dec. 30 in Madison, where he moved between separate rooms, one housing Group Health executives and the co-op’s lawyer, the other housing SEIU Wisconsin staff and Group Health employees leading the union drive.

The NLRB staffer suggested to the union group that they narrow their petition to a single clinic, Group Health employees wrote in a letter to the Group Health board of directors Feb. 10, 2025. Hoping to get an agreement, they took the suggestion.

Group Health opposed the single-clinic unit, however. In subsequent hearings the co-op management’s lawyer argued the vote should include all direct care employees, including in departments that weren’t part of the union’s original petition.

After reviewing briefs from both sides, the NLRB regional director in Minneapolis who heard the case ruled that the single clinic unit that the union had proposed would not be an appropriate bargaining unit. The decision issued by Regional Director Jennifer Hadsall stated that the unit proposed by the employer, Group Health, was appropriate and set an election among all the co-op’s health care employees.

SEIU Wisconsin, however, moved to block the election. A raft of pending unfair labor practice charges against the employer could scare employees from voting for the union, SEIU charged. Hadsall agreed to block the vote until the charges are resolved.  

As a result, the vote is on hold. The NLRB investigation of the charges is on hold as well, because of the federal government shutdown.

Shared concerns, conflicting concerns

In her order, Hadsall also included a footnote that states she did not address the unit that the employees had originally asked for because it had not been formally litigated.

“We had always argued that we are a clinically integrated organization,” Anderson said. “Our staff floats between various parts of the organization and different clinics. And the bargaining unit was established [consisting of] all of our clinical sites and all of our direct care employees.”

But pro-union employees say there are concrete differences between employees who are in the groups that they had originally included in the union petition and the rest of the Group Health staff — including direct care providers.

“Initially our bargaining unit included employees who were in primary care and urgent care,” said Rajagopalan, the family doctor. “We practice similarly and we share the same concerns. There are other departments within GHC that don’t share the same concerns [and] practice very differently than we do. That’s why our initial bargaining unit is an appropriate unit.”

Pat Raes, president of SEIU Wisconsin and a nurse at UnityPoint-Meriter hospital in Madison, said that throughout her health care career she’s seen many workplaces where only some groups of workers are unionized.

“At the bedside or at the side of the patient, it doesn’t make a difference because the priority is patient care,” Raes said. “It’s not whether you’re unionized or not.”

Addressing the rally before Monday night’s meeting, Steve Rankin said it was “entirely normal” for workers in a single workplace to be represented by different unions or no union depending on their department or position.

“There is no reason that everyone at Group Health has to be in the same union,” said Rankin, who joined Group Health when it was founded in 1976 and has been active in marshalling Group Health patients to support the union effort. “We call on GHC to recognize the bargaining unit chosen by the workers themselves and to commit to bargaining in good faith toward the contract.”

While the board has yet to consider the motion that was passed at Monday night’s meeting, Anderson said Thursday that voluntary recognition was unlikely. 

“We want an NLRB sanctioned and overseen vote,” he said. “That’s always going to be our criteria.”

Gov. Tony Evers speaks to reporters in March 2025. Evers has written the Department of Energy urging officials not to cancel $1.5 billion in funds for Wisconsin projects. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)

With more than $1.5 billion in federal energy investments in Wisconsin at risk, Gov. Tony Evers is urging the Trump administration not to roll back previously awarded funds in the face of rising energy costs.

Evers’ response, in a letter to U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Chris Wright, followed multiple news reports in the last week about energy projects on target lists for cancellation.

The governor’s office has compiled a list of 22 projects for which federal Energy Department funding totaling $1.56 billion has been marked for cancellation.

“Federal support plays a critical role in advancing the Wisconsin Idea and American innovation, lowering energy bills for families across America, supporting clean energy development to improve energy independence and resilience, creating good-paying jobs in innovative industries and sectors, and maintaining our nation’s leadership in science and technology,” Evers wrote Tuesday in his letter to Wright.  

“Given these clear benefits and the importance of these investments to Wisconsin’s and our nation’s economy, I was deeply concerned to see reporting last week containing a list of over 600 DOE funding awards that are potentially going to be targeted for termination with no clear reasoning or justification.”

Evers’ letter mentions several Wisconsin projects and companies on the target list, including several that the Wisconsin Examiner reported on this week.

The letter also notes forecasts of rising costs for electric power that the energy policy think tank Energy Innovation attributes to the tax and spending cut megabill that President Donald Trump signed July 4.

“Terminating these funding awards at a time of record-high energy demand and rising costs would be counterintuitive, reckless and ill-advised,” Evers concludes in his letter to Wright. “I urge you to reaffirm DOE’s commitment to honoring these funding awards and to continue supporting these investments that drive Wisconsin’s and the nation’s energy landscape forward.”

Assembly Majority Leader Tyler August (R-Walworth) attacks the Assembly Democrats in a floor speech on Tuesday, Oct. 14. (Screenshot/WisEye)

During an Assembly floor session in which most of the bills passed on voice votes that were unanimous or nearly so, the chamber’s Democrats took the occasion Tuesday to make pointed arguments with amendments that were quickly quashed.

Republican lawmakers lashed back with accusations of politics and grandstanding, while Democrats retorted that they were raising issues relevant to their constituents that the GOP majority has ignored.

On a bill that includes a pilot program for enabling video communications between callers and public safety call centers, Rep. Christian Phelps (D-Eau Claire) offered an amendment to restrict the video recordings from being shared.

“My amendment tightens the guardrails on the pilot program to clarify that no real-time video could be shared with private contractors or masked federal agents with ICE or any other actors not relevant to the incident being reported,” Phelps told lawmakers.

In recent door-to-door visits with constituents, “most of them have been saying they want to protect and expand Medicaid, public schools, they’re worried about the economy,” he added. “Zero percent said that they want more government surveillance.”

The amendment was rejected 54-42.

“What is the bar?”: Wisconsin Legislature divided as it passes resolution honoring Charlie Kirk 

The official theme of the day — set as always by the Republican caucus — revolved around public safety, and was cued up with the first hour set aside to honor first responders from each of the state’s 99 Assembly districts.

On the floor, the Assembly passed bills to ban gadgets that can automatically hide or swap out a driver’s license plate (SB 66); increase the penalties for impersonating police, fire fighters and other emergency service personnel (AB 136); punish people who harass search and rescue dogs (AB 239); increase the penalty for human trafficking (AB 265); and require drivers to move over for disabled vehicles on the highway just as they must already give a wide berth to a stopped emergency vehicle (AB 409).

The body also concurred — on a voice vote and without debate — with a Senate bill that split lawmakers on party lines in the 2023-24 legislative session and was vetoed by Gov. Tony Evers.

The legislation, SB 25, would shield police officers involved in the fatal shootings of civilians from judicial investigations under Wisconsin’s John Doe law if prosecutors decline to issue charges unless new evidence is produced. The bill passed a divided Senate in March.

Amendments as talking points

On Tuesday, disagreement only broke open when Democrats used the amendment process to highlight some of their policy priorities that weren’t otherwise up for discussion.

Each time, Rep. Kevin Petersen (R-Waupaca), filling in in the speaker’s chair, ruled the amendments out of order, and the Assembly Republicans agreed in party-line votes.

The first of the Democratic amendments was on SB-183, which came to the Assembly after passing the Senate earlier Tuesday.

The legislation increases the Medicaid reimbursement for emergency medical services when drivers arrive to pick up a patient but the person ends up forgoing a trip to the hospital.

Rep. Alex Joers (D-Waunakee) offered an amendment to increase the state budget by $69.2 million to offset increases in the state’s cost to run the federally funded FoodShare program.

Rule changes that Republicans enacted in the tax-cut and spending-cut megabill that President Donald Trump signed July 4 set an “impossible standard” for Wisconsin to meet, he said. “We want to prevent another multi-million dollar heist by Trump and his followers.”

When the vote came on the bill itself — which passed by a unanimous voice vote — the bill’s Assembly author, Rep. Tony Kurtz (R-Wonewoc) angrily scolded the Democrats.

“I’m a little bit taken back by the amendment that was thrown on to this bill,” Kurtz said. “I understand you want to get your political points, that’s fine. But there’s other bills you can do that with. This was a disrespect to those first responders that were here today.”

The next bill to get that treatment was SB 309, giving dispatchers and 911 call center operators immunity from any civil liability if they transfer a caller to the national 988 suicide and crisis line. That bill also passed with a unanimous voice vote.

First, however, state Rep. Joan Fitzgerald (D-Fort Atkinson) proposed an amendment to restore $25 million a year for the current two-year budget that would go to municipalities to improve or expand their EMS operations. The money was included in Gov. Tony Evers’ budget proposal but removed by the Joint Finance Committee’s Republican leaders.

“Today, you have the opportunity to change that and do the right thing and make sure municipalities get the money they need to fund these essential services,” Fitzgerald said. The Assembly voted 54-42 against the amendment. 

Raising Epstein

A few bills later came SB 76, requiring prosecutors to get a judge’s approval before dismissing or amending charges for a broad group of crimes. That bill passed on a 53-43 party-line vote, with only Republican support.

There was no discussion of that bill’s content, however. Instead, Democrats offered an amendment requiring the governor to issue a formal notice calling for the release of the federal files on deceased sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

Even before Epstein’s name was uttered in the chamber, Majority Leader Rep. Tyler August (R-Walworth) launched a broad verbal attack on the Democrats.

As with the other amendments, August raised a “point of order,” objecting to the amendment’s relevance to the legislation. He accused Democrats of “political gamesmanship” and pursuing “gotcha votes” to embarrass Republicans, and charged that “they just flat-out lie” in political campaigns.

“And so this is just another embarrassing moment for Assembly Democrats,” August said. “And then they wonder why they’re never going to be in charge of this place.”

Rep. Clint Anderson (D-Beloit) retorted just as sharply.

“You know what’s embarrassing is getting mad about us talking about holding a pedophile accountable,” Anderson said. “I think it is time that we send a message that we think no matter how powerful, how wealthy, and how politically connected you are, you will be held accountable if you traffic children.”

Rep. Lee Snodgrass (D-Appleton) argued that the amendment was relevant because the original bill was about restricting deferred prosecution.

“We all just voted unanimously to increase penalties for human trafficking and extend the statute of limitations,” Snodgrass said. “You simply cannot vote for that and then vote down this amendment.”

When Rep. Randy Udell (D-Fitchburg) began recounting some of the names of Epstein’s reported victims, Petersen interrupted.

“How do any of these names relate to Wisconsin?” Petersen said.

Udell: “They are all victims of Epstein and these files should be released.”

Petersen: “Did they happen in Wisconsin?”

Udell (who represents the 47th Assembly District): “We don’t know. The files haven’t been released.”

Petersen: “Representative from the 47th, on the point of order — not on national politics.”

Electric power lines. Clean energy projects, including several that involve improving the efficiency of electric power grids, are at risk of losing federal funding that was promised during the Biden administration. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

The projects are on a list that covers three groups of cuts proposed in May, on Oct. 2 and this past week. The online news outlet Semafor reported the third set of proposed cuts, which alone totals $12 billion, on Tuesday, Oct. 7, and published a link to a list that covers all three groups.

“However, it’s not clear whether, or when, the full list of cancellations will be enacted, or if President Donald Trump is instead looking to use them as leverage in negotiations over the [federal government] shutdown,” Semafor reported.

The Wisconsin grants on the list are a mix of projects that help boost energy efficiency, including supporting the expansion of energy storage battery systems. One potential casualty is more than $1 million to prepare young people to enter apprenticeships in the skilled trades.

Clean energy holds the promise of addressing air pollution and climate change as well as revitalizing the state’s industrial base, said John Imes, director of the Wisconsin Environmental Initiative (WEI), a nonprofit that advocates policies benefiting the environment and the economy.

“These are all win-win that all of us want regardless of our political affiliation,” Imes told the Wisconsin Examiner. “This is all bottom-line stuff.”

Rolling back projects that enhance cleaner and more efficient use of energy will likely increase the cost of energy, Imes said.

“It means higher electric bills, higher energy bills, fewer choices and lost jobs,” he said. “We’re going to lose momentum.”

Battery power and rural grid upgrade

The two largest Wisconsin projects on the Department of Energy list of targets involve one company, Alliant Energy. They account for more than half of the Wisconsin funds targeted for cancellation.

The projects are being undertaken by Alliant’s Wisconsin Power & Light unit. They include a $50 million grant for upgrading the rural electrical grid and $30 million for a power storage system using a technology based on carbon dioxide this is to be built near Portage, Wisconsin.

“We understand the Administration and Department of Energy (DOE) are working through their budgets and have notified some businesses of changes to grant announcements,” said Cindy Tomlinson, Alliant senior manager for communications, in an email message last week.

“At this time, we have not been made aware of any changes to the announced DOE grants for our Alliant Energy projects,” Tomlinson said. “We are optimistic the value and viability of these projects is clear and that they will remain fully funded. These projects deliver economic and customer benefits.”

The electrical grid upgrade project received a conditional commitment from the energy department in December, but a final award agreement hasn’t been executed, Tomlinson said, and no federal funds have been received or spent.

The federal grants accounted for about one-third of the total planned investment for each project. If the grid upgrade grant is canceled, the project is still expected to go forward, Tomlinson said, “however at a slower, more gradual pace than the fast, concentrated fashion outlined in our grant application.”

Other potentially affected grants include $28.7 million for Johnson Controls, based in the Milwaukee suburb of Glendale, to support the company in its expansion of heat pump manufacturing.

The grant’s total value was $33 million at the time it was awarded to the company. According to USAspending.gov, a federal site that tracks the status of federal outlays, the business has received $4.4 million of the total.

Johnson Controls announced the grant in November 2023, part of an investment to scale up heat pump manufacturing at plants in Texas, Kansas and Pennsylvania and increase production by 200%, the company said at the time.

The company did not respond to inquiries Thursday and Friday by email and by telephone about the status of the grant or its planned heat pump manufacturing expansion.

Energy efficiency and innovation

Another Wisconsin recipient with grants on the list that are slated for elimination is Slipstream, a Madison-based nonprofit that provides consulting services on energy efficiency and innovation.

“We’re trying to make our energy systems more efficient and better so everybody’s paying less for energy,” said Scott Hackel, Slipstream’s vice president for research.

Hackel said Slipstream is working with other organizations on the list of targeted projects, and some of those organizations have been notified of grant terminations.

Slipstream also has two direct grants on the list, but has not received any notification that those grants are being terminated, Hackel said.

Slipstream had been awarded $5.2 million for work on equipping buildings with technology that enables them to automatically manage their power demand — reducing the building’s electrical load when demand on the grid is high and amping up the load when broader demand eases.

The organization is in the middle of a project implementing demand management technology in a group of buildings. The information gained from that test could be used to develop incentive programs for building owners to adopt that kind of technology, Hackel said.

If that gets cut off before it’s finished, other buildings in Wisconsin “would not have this example to look to,” he said.

A second grant awarded to the organization, $4 million, is to be used to train inspectors, building designers and others in how to effectively comply with and make the best use of building codes, particularly energy codes.

“Everything we’re doing is trying to make buildings and homes more affordable to live in with lower utility bills,” Hackel said. “If we’re not able to do that, that’s also a cost to people in Wisconsin.”

Two Universities of Wisconsin grants, one for $10 million and the other for $2.9 million, are on the list. Both involve projects to test technology innovations, according to the federal grant information documents.  

‘Electric city’ upgrades and a job-training program

A grant for the city of Kaukauna, Wisconsin, to install battery storage and make related electrical grid upgrades is also on the list. The original grant totaled $3 million, and so far $59,362 has been paid out, according to USAspending.gov, leaving $2.95 million that could be canceled.

The storage system is to bolster Kaukauna’s hydroelectric power generation operation, which dates to 1913 and led to the community’s adoption of “Electric City” as its nickname.

“Collateral damage from the Trump administration’s remarkably poor governance record continues to collect, this time in Kaukauna,” said Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson. “I can’t think of something more insulting than making the electric grid of a place known as ‘Electric City’ less safe or efficient.”

Also on the list is the Wisconsin Regional Training Partnership, a Milwaukee nonprofit that provides training and certification to prepare people to enter apprenticeships in the skilled trades. WRTP was awarded a $1.5 million grant for training in skills related to transportation electrification. So far $112,470 has been paid out. 

Dan Bukiewicz, head of the Milwaukee Building Trades Council and co-chair of the WRTP board of directors, said that the board hasn’t been notified that its grant might be at risk of being taken away by the Trump administration.

“I won’t say we’re surprised,” however, Bukiewicz said. “They’re just trying to roll back a lot of the green energy and infrastructure [investments]. … It’s trying to make time stand still, and it just won’t if the United States is going to compete globally.”

WRTP students typically come from underserved communities and are the most in need, Bukiewicz said. The program’s training emphasizes job safety, introduces students to the construction industry, equips them with basic skills that an apprenticeship will build on, and acquaints them with how the industry and the technology are changing and where they might find a place that suits them.

If the federal grant is pulled, “these dollars are irreplaceable,” Bukiewicz said. “It’s not just taking money away and eliminating classes. It’s eliminating opportunities and a chance for generational change for people who really need it.”

Sen. Dianne Hesselbein (D-Middleton) speaks at a press conference Wednesday morning about the Senate Democrats' "Affordable Wisconsin Agenda." (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)

If there’s one word at the top of Democratic Party political discourse this year, it’s “affordability.”

Whether focused on a particular issue — child care, health care and housing are the most frequent examples — or on the cost of just about everything, making goods and services and life “affordable” figures high in the opening pitches of candidates across the state.

“I think the No. 1  issue that we need to focus on is affordability,” said Mitchell Berman, a Racine County nurse, when he announced in August he would seek the  Democratic nomination to challenge Republican U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil in Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District.

Trevor Jung in Racine launched his state Senate campaign in September with a focus on “affordability” and “good-paying jobs.” Corrine Hendrickson, a former child care proprietor in New Glarus, said “affordability” is the top issue for her state Senate bid — and she wasn’t just talking about child care.

Democrats campaigning to be the party’s nominee for governor as diverse as David Crowley, Missy Hughes, and Francesca Hong have all uttered the word in introducing themselves to the public.

On Wednesday, the State Senate Democratic Committee had a press conference outside the Capitol to announce the Democrats’ focus on affordability, both for their upcoming legislative agenda and with an eye on the 2026 elections.

“Right now in Wisconsin, 65% of families are saying they are just getting by or they are struggling,” said Sen. Dianne Hesselbein (D-Middleton), the Senate minority leader. A spokesperson said the July Marquette University Law School poll was the source for the survey finding.

State Senate Democrats plan to spend the next few weeks traveling Wisconsin and hearing from state residents. Hesselbein said those conversations will become fodder for “tangible policy solutions that will help working families keep more of their hard-earned money, and we’re calling it the Affordable Wisconsin Agenda.”

Nathan Kalmoe, a University of Wisconsin political scientist, said via email that emphasizing poor economic conditions could be risky for Wisconsin Democrats running in state elections. While Republican lawmakers “may take some blame, the governor is a Democrat,” and voters tend to hold the chief executive responsible for economic conditions, he said. 

Kalmoe added that focusing on the economy exclusively at the expense of concerns for the most marginalized or concerns about Trump administration actions that threaten democracy would be “disturbing, and dangerous.”

Nevertheless, polling trends in the last several months suggest why Democrats nationwide have been focusing on inflation and the economy, said John D. Johnson, a research fellow and political analyst at Marquette University.

In Marquette polls shortly after President Donald Trump was elected to a second term in November, and again before he took office in January, 41% of adults nationally said they believed his policies would reduce inflation.

In Marquette’s most recent national poll, conducted in mid-September and released Oct. 2, “that had fallen to 25%,” Johnson said in an email to the Wisconsin Examiner. “Meanwhile, the share believing Trump’s policies would increase inflation grew from 45% to 60%.”

In the September poll, 40% of adults named “inflation and the cost of living” as the top issue in the U.S. “Another 19% chose ‘the economy’ more generally,” Johnson said.

“Overall, 29% of adults approved of Trump’s handling of ‘inflation and the cost of living’ while 71% disapproved,” Johnson said. (On “border security,” meanwhile, 55% of those polled approved Trump while 45% disapproved.)

In May, 68% of Republicans and 23% of independent voters told the Marquette pollsters they approved of how Trump was handling “inflation and the cost of living.” By September, Republican support had slipped to 57%, but among independents, support had plummeted to 14%.

“In other words, this is (1) an issue where there is a lot of daylight between how Republicans and Independents rate Trump, and (2) an issue where Trump is falling with both Democrats and Independents,” Johnson said.

At the Senate Democrats’ news conference Wednesday, a succession of senators — along with one state representative who is a Senate hopeful — spoke of how the issue of affordability cuts across a wide range of topics. And each laid blame for inaction on their Republican rivals.

“Senate Democrats have already been leading the fight to lower the cost of housing, whether trying to expand the homestead tax credit or preventing hedge funds from buying up available housing stocks, but undoubtedly more needs to be done,” said Sen. Jeff Smith (D-Brunswick).

Rep. Jenna Jacobson (D-Oregon), who has the endorsement of the Senate Democrats as she seeks the party’s nomination in the 17th Senate District next year, pointed to “reckless federal policies” hitting farmers and hiking grocery bills.

Democratic state lawmakers have proposed a free school meal bill along with grants for farmers who provide food to food pantries, replacing a federal program cut by the Trump administration, she said; both are “examples of some of the kinds of policies that we can advance to lower everyday costs.”

Sen. Kristin Dassler-Alfheim (D-Appleton) warned of coming spikes both in health insurance costs and in the rates of people without health insurance because of the expiring Affordable Care Act premium subsidies at the center of the federal shutdown fight in Congress. “We need Congress to get to work and renew these ACA subsidies,” she said.

Meanwhile, bills in the state Legislature to lower prescription drug costs and cap the price of asthma medication “haven’t even gotten a public hearing,” Dassler-Alfheim said. “We could be doing more here in Wisconsin to make life a little bit more affordable for everyone.”

Sen. Sarah Keyeski (D-Lodi) said Wisconsin continues to face “a child care crisis,” with too few options for working families. Care is increasingly costly, “not because child care providers are making huge profits,” she said. “It’s because we can no longer underpay those doing the child care work, mostly women.”

Democrats have been pushing for expanding child care support, “yet Republicans in Madison stand in the way every single time,” Keyeski said.

Hesselbein said that the Senate Democrats hope that they can follow up on their conversations with voters across the state by “bringing those ideas back to the state Legislature, working on them and hopefully being able to pass them in a bipartisan manner.”

At the same time, however, she blamed inaction on Republican lawmakers who “are mired in internal conflict, unwilling to cross the aisle and get stuff done for Wisconsinites.” The  2026 election will enable voters to “turn the page,” she said, “and vote for a vision that puts Wisconsinites first, that puts you and your families first.”

U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Black Earth) speaks about impending insurance price increases due to the sunset of enhance subsidies for health insurance policies purchased at HealthCare.gov. (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)

Sometime in the next 10 days, Wisconsin residents will see directly what the stakes are in the ongoing standoff in Washington over the federal shutdown, U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Black Earth) said Wednesday.

That’s when people who buy health insurance through the federal HealthCare.gov marketplace under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will find out their likely premiums for 2026.

“In the next probably 10 days, we’re going to have a lot more information,” Pocan said at a press conference in the state Capitol along with small business owners and state lawmakers. “Health care is going to start getting very expensive for everyone beyond what it costs now — but for some people it’s going to be so cost prohibitive that they’re going to actually wind up losing their health insurance.”

Most Democrats in the U.S. Senate have refused to vote to advance a Republican continuing resolution to keep the federal government funded and have said they won’t do so if Republicans won’t negotiate with them on the bill.

In demanding changes to the stopgap spending bill, Democrats have focused on enhanced premium tax credits that provide subsidies for most people who buy health insurance on the federal marketplace.

The enhanced subsidies, enacted in 2021 and extended in 2022, will expire at the end of this year, driving up the premium cost for health insurance policies sold on the marketplace.

Pocan said that with the premiums on ACA policies going up and losing the additional subsidies, “a couple 60 years old making $85,000 in my district could see somewhere between a $16,000 and $17,000 increase next year in their premiums.” The projections are the product of KFF, the independent health research, policy and news organization.

Macy Buhler owns a child care center. She said her own health insurance comes through her husband’s job, but some of her employees have relied on the ACA and HealthCare.gov to buy insurance. With the possibility that they won’t be able to afford those plans any more, she said, she’s been inquiring with insurance companies about their potential options.

“I’m doing the best I can,” Buhler said. “But when people don’t see that this is going to affect our workforce, it frustrates me. It will absolutely affect our workforce. It will absolutely affect families who are middle class and lower. It will affect our farmers.”

Kyle LaFond, who  owns a custom manufacturing business, said he and his team of eight employees have relied on the ACA for health insurance.

“The ACA really leveled the playing field in terms of being able to provide coverage,” LaFond said.

Among his employees, the projected increases for health insurance will range from $2,000 to about $12,000. “For a growing family, those price hikes are almost insurmountable. It’s unconscionable,” La Fond said.

With the increased subsidies expiring, “I might lose some good people,” he added. “So I’m talking about the future of my business.”

Democrats tried to make extending the subsidies part of the tax- and spending-cut megabill that President Donald Trump signed in July, but the procedure Republicans used to pass that legislation allowed them to move it through the process without Democratic votes.

Pocan said the Democrats are not willing to trust the Republican majority to  negotiate on the ACA subsidies if the Democrats first agree on the GOP bill and simply reopen the government.

Previous deals in December and in March on stopgap spending bills fell apart, he said. “Then Donald Trump did recissions, which are against the law, and started taking away funding that we did. Article 1 of the Constitution gives the power of the purse to Congress and he took it away. So they get all of that.”

Pocan said the recurring Republican claim that Democrats are holding out “because they want to give hundreds of billions of dollars of health benefits to illegal aliens — PolitiFact gave that an outright false.”

Pocan refrained from using a barnyard epithet for the claim. “Manure is what it is,” he said, glancing around at the ornately decorated Assembly parlor. “It’s a pretty room. I got to talk pretty.”

But, he said, “by federal law, not one dime can go directly to someone who’s an undocumented person — I’m going to use that terminology — from Medicare, Medicaid, or the Affordable Care Act. So, nothing. So, it’s not true.”

Public awareness about the shutdown could be lagging. Pocan said his office had 85 calls last week about the shutdown.

By contrast, in the last nine months, his office has taken 14,435 calls about health care. “So this is something that people really care about.”

Rep. Ryan Clancy (D-Milwaukee) speaks before a vote on a housing-related bill in the state Assembly Tuesday. (Screenshot/WisEye)

A group of housing bills that Republican lawmakers have fast-tracked since they were first announced two weeks ago made it through the Wisconsin Assembly Tuesday — most with unanimous support, but not without criticism from Democrats.

In a floor speech before the Assembly began voting Tuesday, Rep. Kalan Haywood (D-Milwaukee), assistant minority leader, said the GOP housing package fell short of what might have been possible with bipartisan discussion.

“While there is support for many of these bills on our side, we are by no means satisfied,” Haywood said.

Haywood complimented the Republican chair of the Assembly’s Housing and Real Estate committee, Rep. Robert Brooks (R-Saukville), for his “willingness to listen and work together.”

He described bills enacted in the 2023-24 session as “a bipartisan housing package that we could build on this session,” and said that in the spring, bipartisan work had begun on a new round of bills, accompanied by “honest communication with both sides and with stakeholders.”

Those discussions stopped abruptly in June, Haywood said, and when the bills came out two weeks ago the results were “half baked.”

“There are some good things in these bills that may help create some additional housing, but we could have done much more,” Haywood said.

A series of procedural votes on the floor Tuesday surrounding one bill — AB 455, creating a grant program for condominium conversions from multi-family homes — was emblematic of the gap between how Democrats and Republicans viewed not just the legislation but the larger issue of housing.

In the Housing and Real Estate Committee meeting Friday, Oct. 3, Rep. Ryan Clancy (D-Milwaukee) managed to persuade three Republicans to join the panel’s Democrats to pass an amendment that expanded the bill to include housing cooperatives, not just condominiums.  

After the amendment was adopted, Sen. Steve Nass (R-Whitewater) sent an email written in red to all state lawmakers of both parties, mocking Clancy’s amendment as applying to “communes” and criticizing its Republican supporters.

When the bill reached the floor Tuesday, the original author, Rep. Dave Murphy (R-Greenville), submitted a rewrite, known as a substitute amendment.

The rewrite included another amendment, from Democrat, Rep. Lori Palmeri (D-Oshkosh), giving tenants of a building being converted to condos the right of first refusal to purchase their residence. But it omitted the Clancy amendment.

“We had a brief and awesome moment of bipartisanship this last week, and then we had an all red email from Senator Nass,” Clancy said on the Assembly floor. “I did not realize that my Republican colleagues were beholden to him and not even their own leadership there.”

The substitute amendment, Clancy said, would “strike out this bipartisan amendment and just turn it into another handout to developers.”

Brooks, the housing committee chair, had announced at the Republican press conference before the floor session that cooperatives would be stripped out, calling the approach “very difficult to manage because of the financing mechanisms and other things.”

Clancy said he would vote for the legislation despite the removal of his amendment. “But it is so disappointing to have to do that because we had something better in front of us,” he added.

The bill, like most of the bills up for a vote Tuesday, passed on a voice vote.

Others that passed with broad support included AB 424, updating requirements for the rental of mobile and manufactured homes; AB 451, allowing cities and villages to designate residential tax incremental districts to help fund infrastructure improvements; AB 452, allowing land subdividers to certify their designs and public improvements comply with state requirements; and AB 456, making a variety of changes to real estate transaction practices.

A handful of measures labeled as housing bills passed with little or no support from Democrats.

AB 453 would require local communities to grant rezoning requests for housing developers if they meet certain conditions, including that the area is projected as residential in the community’s comprehensive plan. The party-line vote was 55-39.

Rep. Mike Bare (D-Verona) said the measure fell short of what could have been done and that it lacked funding for local governments that would have to bear the cost it would impose. The bill’s author. Rep. David Armstrong (R-Rice Lake) vowed to seek funding in the next state budget.

AB 450 would put off the effective date of Wisconsin’s updated commercial building code until April 1, 2026. Originally blocked in 2023, the new code was reinstated by the the Department of Safety and Professional Services (DSPS) after a state Supreme Court ruling this July held that state laws allowing the Legislature to block executive branch administrative rules indefinitely were unconstitutional.

The current effective date is Nov. 1.

Rep. William Penterman (R-Hustisford) said delaying the code further was needed “for clarity” because builders had been planning projects under the previous code.

After the GOP majority rejected an attempt by Democrats to replace the bill with language that increased funding for DSPS on a 54-41 party-line vote, the legislation passed on a voice vote — but with substantial, audible cries of “No” from Democrats.

AB 366 would allow landlords to demand a written statement from a licensed health professional attesting to a tenant’s need for an emotional support animal.

“There are numerous people that have contacted us about the fraudulent means of how you can get a service dog,” state Rep. Paul Tittl (R-Manitowoc), said at a Republican press conference before the floor session.

On the floor, Clancy criticized the bill for potentially harming people for whom emotional support animals are a necessity but who are unable to see  a health professional.

“To the extent that there is a problem, where we want to actually certify that some animals are supportive and some are not, we can fix that problem,” Clancy said. “But that requires actually talking to the stakeholders before taking pen to paper.”

Dr. Lauren VanDeHey speaks at a press conference on Tuesday in favor of legislation to require insurers to cover infertility treatment. (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)

Treatments for infertility can cost tens of thousands of dollars, leaving some couples to borrow huge sums to cover the expense and others to decide against having children at all.

Lawmakers are circulating a draft bill to change that by requiring health insurers in Wisconsin to cover infertility procedures. If the measure is enacted, Wisconsin would join 22 states and the District of Columbia in providing some form of coverage for fertility treatments, according to advocates.

“Infertility is a medical issue,” said state Rep. Jodi Emerson (D-Eau Claire) at a Capitol press conference Tuesday. “And like any other health condition, it deserves the medical treatment to be affordable and accessible. Yet right now, too many individuals and couples are forced to choose between financial stability and the chance to start a family. That’s a choice no one should ever have to make.”

Emerson is the lead Assembly author of the proposal, along with Sen. Kelda Roys (D-Madison), the lead Senate author.

Roys described infertility as a deep source of disappointment for many couples who want to have children. “One of the things that it shouldn’t do, though, is bankrupt you,” she said. “Everyone should be able to access treatment for health conditions and diseases like infertility without regard for the type of insurance you have.”

Dr. Bala Bhagavath, an infertility specialist based in Madison, told reporters that he previously practiced in New York and Rhode Island, where state laws mandate coverage for infertility treatments. Relocating to Wisconsin “has been a rude awakening,” he said.

“Although some patients get coverage for diagnosis of their condition, most pay out of pocket for both diagnosis as well as treatment,” Bhagavath said. “It’s quite common for patients to take out loans and second mortgages so that they can build a family. I’ve had patients taking a second job or moving south of the border to Illinois as they would get insurance coverage for infertility treatment.”

Dr. Lauren VanDeHey, a medical resident in obstetrics and gynecology, said that as a cancer survivor she underwent a procedure to preserve embryos to avoid the risk of damage from chemotherapy and radiation. She was able to get free medication and the cost of some of her in vitro fertilization services discounted, but is still faced with a $17,000 bill she and her husband  will have to pay off over the next several years, she said.

“I am fortunate I will be able to pay these debts off when I complete my medical training,” she said. “For others, taking on this expense is simply not an option. Support for this bill needs to be a bipartisan effort because cancer and infertility can affect anyone.”

Attorney General Josh Kaul speaks to residents of Marinette during a visit in 2019. (Photo by (Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)

Attorney General Josh Kaul announced Tuesday he will run for reelection in 2026 — taking his name off the list of potential Democratic contestants in the race for governor.

“This is a pivotal time for our nation,” Kaul said in a written statement. “Some of our most basic rights are under threat. Severe cuts have been made to programs that provide opportunities and have helped communities move forward. It’s critical that we continue to have an AG who will stand up for our freedoms and the rule of law.”

Kaul was first elected to the office in 2018, when Tony Evers won his first term as governor. Both won second terms in 2022, although Kaul by a narrow margin.

After Evers announced in July that he would not seek a third term, turning the 2026 race for governor into a wide-open contest, Kaul was among the Democrats who were widely assumed would seek the nomination to succeed him. In his first press conferences after the Evers announcement, Kaul demurred when asked about his plans.

In the months since Evers said he would step aside, more than a half-dozen Democrats have announced they would campaign to be the state’s chief executive, while Kaul remained on the list of “potential” candidates.

“In Wisconsin, we’ve made meaningful progress, and we need to build on that progress,” Kaul said in his announcement statement. “As my track record shows, I’m committed to working to protect public safety and to looking out for the interests of Wisconsinites.”

“Josh Kaul has been a champion for Wisconsin and a bulwark against the MAGA extremist politicians and the Trump administration who have been trying to subvert our democracy, attacking our personal freedoms, and stealing from everyday working people,” Devin Remiker, chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin said in a statement. “Wisconsinites are fortunate to have Josh Kaul as Attorney General, and our state will be lucky to have him serve another four years.”

 So far the Democrats who have announced they will run for the open governor’s seat include Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, former economic development CEO Missy Hughes, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, state Sen. Kelda Roys (D-Madison) and state Rep. Francesca Hong (D-Madison). Milwaukee factory worker and baseball stadium beer vendor Ryan Strnad and former state Rep. Brett Hulsey.