Experts said they know of no states that routinely audit insurance companies over denying health care claims.
Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers said Feb. 18 he wants to make his state the first to audit based on high rates of claim denials and do “corrective action” enforced through fines.
The Wisconsin insurance commissioner’s office and expertsfrom the KFF health policy nonprofit and Georgetown University saidthey know of no states using claim denial rates to trigger audits.
The National Association of Insurance Commissioners and the national state auditors association said they do not track whether states do such auditing.
ProPublica reported in 2023 it surveyed every state’s insurance agency and found only 45 enforcement actions since 2018 involving denials that violated coverage mandates.
Forty-five percent of U.S. adults surveyed in 2023 said they were billed in the past year for a medical service they thought should have been free or covered by their insurance.
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In 2020, Dane County Judge Susan Crawford sentenced Kevin D. Welton to four years in prison after a prosecutor requested 10.
Welton was charged with touching a 6-year-old girl’s privates in a club swimming pool in 2010 and with twice touching a 7-year-old girl’s privates in the same pool on one day in 2018.
Welton was convicted of three felonies, including first-degree sexual contact.
Crawford and Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel are running in the April 1 Wisconsin Supreme Court election.
An ad from an Elon Musk–funded group said Crawford could have imposed 100 years.
A 100-year maximum wasallowed, but highly unlikely, given the prosecutor’s request. Welton’s lawyer requested probation.
Crawford said the crimes occurring years apart made Welton a repeat offender, requiring prison, but were less serious than other sexual assaults, and 10 years was longer than needed for rehabilitation.
Brad Schimel, the conservative candidate in Wisconsin’s April 1 Supreme Court election, has supported Wisconsin’s 1849 abortion law but also says voters should decide abortion questions.
The liberal candidate, Susan Crawford, claimed Schimel “wants to bring back” the law, which bans abortion except to protect the mother’s life.
Wisconsin abortions were halted, due to uncertainty over the 1849 law, after the U.S. Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade in 2022, but resumed in 2023 after a judge’s ruling.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court is deciding whether the 1849 law became valid with Roe’s reversal, said Marquette University law professor Chad Oldfather.
Schimel has campaigned supporting the law, asking “what is flawed” about it. He recalled in 2012 supporting an argument to maintain the law, to make abortion illegal if Roe were overturned.
Schimel said Feb. 18 Wisconsinites should decide “by referendum or through their elected legislature on what they want the law to say” on abortion.
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Twenty-onestates, including Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia offered Election Day voter registration for the Nov. 5 election.
That meant eligible voters could both register and cast a ballot on Election Day.
North Dakota has no registration but requires proof of identification to vote.
Republican Eric Hovde claimed Feb. 12 that the number of states was six. He suggested fraud caused his Nov. 5 loss to U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis.
The margin was nearly 29,000 votes (49.3% to 48.5%).
Hovde didn’t reply to a call for comment.
He mighthave been alluding to the 1993 National Voter Registration Act, which exempted six states. Wisconsin was exempted because it had Election Day registration.
Wisconsin requires proof of residency to register and photo identification to vote.
Its same-day registration can complicate verifying eligibility of certain voters.
Wisconsin’s spring election, featuring two candidates for Supreme Court, is April 1; the primary, featuring three candidates for state schools superintendent, is Feb. 18.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Recent peer-reviewed studies connect water fluoridation with less dental decay in children.
A Feb. 4 post on a Wisconsin section of Reddit raised the issue.
The post alludedto a pediatrician’s 2019 statement that dental infections increased significantly after Calgary, Alberta, ended fluoridation in 2011.
Calgary aims to reintroduce fluoridation by March 2025.
In a 2021 study Canadian researchers found that seven years after Calgary ended fluoridation, 65% of Calgary second grade children had cavities, versus 55% in Edmonton, Alberta, which fluoridated.
Canadian researchers in 2024 reported more occurrences of general anesthesia dental treatments among children in non-fluoridated communities.
Israeli researchers in 2024 found treatment of dental problems among children doubled after Israel stopped fluoridation.
The American Dental Association and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control supportfluoridation.
U.S. Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. hasadvocated for ending fluoridation.
About 84% of Wisconsinites had fluoridated water in 2024, down from 87% in 2022, as more communities stopped fluoridating water systems.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Federal data show that airline flights are safer than other major transportation modes in the U.S.
A claim about safety was made by U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy after 67 people were killed in the Jan. 29 midair collision of an American Airlines flight and an Army helicopter near Washington’s Ronald Reagan National Airport.
Duffy is a Republican former congressman from northern Wisconsin.
Highway transportation accounts for 95% of fatalities and over 99% of injuries from transportation incidents.
From 2008 through 2022, airline flights had lower passenger death rates than buses, railroad passenger trains and passenger vehicles, according to the latest annual figures.
The rate is deaths per 100,000 passenger miles.
In 2022, the rates were:
0.001: Air
0.004: Bus
0.03: Rail
0.54: Passenger vehicles
There were four fatal airline crashes from 2008 through 2022.
The lifetime odds of dying as an aircraft passenger in the U.S. are “too small to calculate,” the nonprofit National Safety Council said.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
A man convicted of sexual assault was freed after an office led by Susan Crawford missed a court deadline.
In an ad, Brad Schimel, the conservative candidate in the April 1 Wisconsin Supreme Court election, suggested that Crawford, the liberal candidate, was personally responsible.
In October 1999, a Waukesha County jury convicted Thomas Gogin of second-degree sexual assault. Gogin contended the sex was consensual. He was sentenced to seven years in prison.
In July 2001, a Waukesha-based state appeals court ordered a new trial. It ruled Gogin’s attorney made errors that could have affected the verdict.
An attorney in the Wisconsin Justice Department’s appeals unit, led by Crawford, missed the deadline to appeal to the state Supreme Court.
Gogin, who served about two years in prison, was not retried. Instead the Waukesha County district attorney offered a plea deal. Gogin pleaded no contest to third-degree sexual assault and was sentenced to five years of probation.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
As Wisconsin’s attorney general, Brad Schimel helped lead a 20-state lawsuit that sought to overturn the Affordable Care Act.
The federal law, known as Obamacare, expanded health insurance coverage by offering exchanges and subsidies for individuals to buy health insurance, and in other ways.
The 2018 lawsuit argued Obamacare was made unconstitutional by a 2017 tax law change signed by President Donald Trump. Schimel at the time called Obamacare “overreaching and harmful.”
In 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed the lawsuit. It ruled the plaintiffs didn’t have legal standing to sue. However, it didn’t decide whether Obamacare was unconstitutional.
Susan Crawford, the liberal candidate in the April 1 Wisconsin Supreme Court election, criticized Schimel’s lawsuit. Schimel is the conservative candidate.
Nearly two-thirds of U.S. adults have a favorable view of Obamacare; 72% of Republicans have an unfavorable view.
A record 313,579 Wisconsin residents signed up for health insurance through Obamacare during the 2025 open enrollment.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
The Laken Riley Act requires federal authorities to detain immigrants who entered the country illegally and are arrested for, or charged with, violent crimes or theft, including shoplifting.
Immigrants without authorization can also be deported if convicted of certain felonies or “moral turpitude” crimes, including theft.
But the Laken Riley Act does not require conviction.
The Act does not state age restrictions, though minors have detention protections.
Democratic U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, who represents the Madison area, made a claim about shoplifting and the Act before President Donald Trump signed it on Jan. 29.
Riley, a Georgia college student, was murdered Feb. 22, 2024, by a Venezuelan. Border Patrol agents apprehended him for illegal entry in September 2022. He was released to pursue his case in immigration court.
Researchshows that immigrants are not more likely than native-born U.S. citizens to commit crimes.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Most inmates in Wisconsin’s federal prison, and in federal prisons nationally, are U.S. citizens.
Following Trump administration arrests of immigrants suspected or convicted of crimes, Republican U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden of western Wisconsin claimed Jan. 27 that over 50% of inmates at the Federal Correctional Institution in Oxford, Wisconsin, are “illegal aliens.”
Oxford is a low-security prison 60 miles north of Madison that houses 1,100 male offenders.
As of Jan. 25, 59% of Oxford inmates, and 85% of federal inmates nationally, were U.S. citizens. The Federal Bureau of Prisons does not readily have data on what percentage of inmates are unauthorized immigrants.
Nationally:
U.S. citizens constituted two-thirds of recently federally sentenced individuals.
The most serious offense for 76% of noncitizens sentenced for a federal crime in recent years was immigration-related, such as unlawful U.S. entry or smuggling noncitizens (14% were drug-related).
Donald Trump’s administration has called unauthorized immigrants criminals, but being undocumented is a civil violation.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Brad Schimel reached a plea bargain with a criminal defendant whose attorney made donations to Schimel’s election campaign.
An attack on Schimel, the conservative candidate in the April 1 Wisconsin Supreme Court election, was made by Susan Crawford, the liberal candidate. Schimel has considerably more front-line criminal prosecution experience.
In June 2013, Schimel’s Waukesha County district attorney’s office charged Andrew Lambrecht with felony possession of child pornography.
In May 2014, Lambrecht’s lawyer, Matthew Huppertz, wrote a letter to Schimel, filed in court. Schimel had said that if Lambrecht pleaded to the charge, he would not file more charges and would recommend the mandatory minimum three-year prison sentence.
In January 2015, Lambrecht, who had no prior record, pleaded guilty. He was sentenced to three years.
Schimel announced his run for state attorney general in October 2013. From December 2013 until Schimel won the election in November 2014, Huppertz made monthly contributions to Schimel’s campaign totaling $5,500.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Dummies used by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in vehicle crash testing roughly represent typical-size adult males, but only small-size adult females.
The adult dummies represent males who are 5-foot-9 and 160-171 pounds and females who are 4-foot-11 and 97-108 pounds. An average female is 5-foot-4 and weighs 171 pounds while an average male is 5-foot-9 and weighs 200 pounds, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In March 2023, the federal Government Accountability Office recommended NHTSA address discrepancies in testing of females, and people who are older or heavier. It noted that in crashes, females are at greater risk of death and certain injuries than males.
NHTSA responded saying it is developing more representative dummies.
Congress took no action on legislation introduced in May 2024 to modernize the testing.
The issue was mentioned during the recent U.S. Senate confirmation hearing for Republican Sean Duffy, a former Wisconsin congressman, to be transportation secretary.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Republicans in the Legislature put a referendum on the April 1 ballot to add the requirement to the state constitution. State Sen. Kelda Roys, D-Madison, said the amendment makes it “harder to vote” than to buy a gun.
In Wisconsin, federally licensed gun dealers are required to do background checks on gun purchasers, but other sellers, such as individuals selling privately or at gun shows, are not.
According to a 2015 national survey of gun owners, 22% who made their most recent purchase within two years said they did so without a background check; the figure was 57% among gun owners in states such as Wisconsin that didn’t regulate private gun sales.
It’s the latest national survey, said Johns Hopkins University gun policy expert Daniel Webster.
On voter ID, a University of Wisconsin-Madison study estimated Wisconsin’s law prevented 4,000-11,000 Milwaukee and Dane county residents from voting in the 2016 presidential election.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s recent announcement that the social media site will no longer work with third-party fact checkers makes it all the more important for the public to help fact checkers like us at Wisconsin Watch.
More on that in a minute.
Before joining Wisconsin Watch, I worked for PolitiFact. Some of my fact-checking reporting was funded by Zuckerberg’s company, Meta. I spent a lot of time debunking posts on Facebook and Instagram.
Last week, ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, Zuckerberg announced he was ending Meta’s fact-checking program.
That means less fact-checking of social media by PolitiFact and other independent fact checkers.
Wisconsin Watch wasn’t part of that program, so we’re not directly affected by Zuckerberg’s decision. We can carry on as we have with our fact briefs, which are done in partnership with Gigafact. Our briefs, which answer a question yes or no in 150 words, have been held up as a model.
But the loss of Meta’s program underscores the importance of citizen involvement in fact-checking — whether it’s checking claims made on social media or anywhere at all.
It’s my hope that Zuckerberg’s decision will spur citizens all the more to keep an eye out for surprising and dubious claims — and to bring them to the attention of fact checkers.
Wisconsin Watch monitors what Wisconsin’s politicians are saying and what other folks are saying about Wisconsin. But we could use your eyes and ears, too.
If you come across a statement that seems off — or is interesting, but you can’t tell whether it’s true or false — please let us know. Including a link to the statement helps, too.
Then post our published briefs to inform the debates happening in your social media channels.
We do our best to make our fact briefs a trusted source. And we’d appreciate your support.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
Wisconsin taxpayers paid $1.6 million to Planned Parenthood and others who sued over a 2013 state law that was ruled an unconstitutional restriction on abortion access.
In a new attack, the Wisconsin Democratic Party blamed conservative Brad Schimel for the costs, but he didn’t become state attorney general until 2015.
Schimel faces liberal Susan Crawford in the April 1 state Supreme Court election.
The law would have required doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of where an abortion was done.
After Planned Parenthood sued, federal judge William Conley in Madison temporarily blocked the law, then in 2015 ruled it unconstitutional.
Schimel appealed, arguing the restriction was reasonable. A three-judge federal appeals court in Chicago upheld Conley. Schimel asked the U.S. Supreme Court to take the case, but it refused.
The definition of mass shootings varies, but research has found the U.S. has the most.
Reasons include high gun ownership, “cultural factors like individualism and fame-seeking, sensationalized media coverage, and gaps in mental health care and law enforcement,” said James Densley of the Violence Prevention Project Research Center.
According to two peer-reviewed studies:
U.S. mass shootings accounted for 73% of all incidents and 62% of all fatalities in developed countries from 1998–2019.
That study’s author wrote in February there were 109 U.S. mass shootings from 2000-2022 and 35 in comparable countries. The U.S. accounted for 33% of the population of the 36 countries, but 76% of the incidents and 70% of victim fatalities.
The U.S. had 30.8% of all mass shooters from 1966–2012, despite having less than 5% of the world’s population.
Democratic U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan made the U.S. claim after a mass school shooting Dec. 16 in Madison, Wisconsin, which he represents.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
The armed officers claim was made Dec. 19 by school safety advocate Ryan Petty in an interview about a mass shooting Dec. 16 at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin.
Petty’s daughter was killed in the 2018 mass shooting at a Parkland, Florida, school, which did.
Petty said the connection is “proven.” He didn’t cite research to Wisconsin Watch.
Whether arming school resource officers “leads to net harms or benefits … could be addressed with strong scientific research designs or observational studies,” RAND said.
A 2023 University at Albany-RAND study found school resource officers reduce some violence and increase weapon detection, “but do not prevent gun-related incidents.”
A 2021 U.S. DOJ-funded study said “data suggest no association” between armed officers and deterring mass shootings.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
But what made this year particularly special was the introduction of the Forward newsletter. Each week the Wisconsin Watch state team produces shorter stories about what we expect to be the big news and trends in the days, weeks and months ahead. It’s something our local media partners asked for and our state team reporters delivered.
As the year winds down, we gave each state team reporter the assignment of picking a favorite story written by another member of the team (Secret Santa style!). Here were their picks:
Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, speaks during a Republican press conference on June 8, 2023, in the Wisconsin State Capitol building to announce a tentative agreement between legislative Republicans and Gov. Tony Evers on a shared revenue bill. (Drake White-Bergey / Wisconsin Watch)
To some, radio is a source of entertainment and information from a bygone era. They’re mistaken. Hallie Claflin’s deeply reported, authoritative story illustrates the immense and continuing influence of talk radio — especially conservative talk radio — in Wisconsin politics. The rise of former Gov. Scott Walker, the toppling of a Democratic mayor in Wausau and the deaths of certain bills in the Legislature can all be tied, at least in part, to advocacy or opposition from conservative talk radio hosts. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, the state’s most powerful Republican, makes regular appearances on broadcasts and described talk radio as being “as powerful as it’s ever been.” This story is worth your time as you look ahead to 2025.
Phoebe Petrovic’s profile of militant, anti-abortion Pastor Matthew Trewhella, her first investigation as Wisconsin’s first ProPublica local reporting network fellow, was an engaging read. But I especially liked the companion piece she wrote. It’s a reader service to do this kind of story when we do a large takeout on a person or subject unfamiliar to most readers. It also might drive readers to the main story when they learn more about why we did it. It puts the readers behind the scenes a bit and has the potential to make readers feel more connected to Wisconsin Watch.
Tom Kertscher does an amazing job with all of his fact briefs, but my favorite has to be a compilation that fact-checked presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump right before their September debate. Over the past few races, presidential campaigns have been full of misinformation. Debates are a vital time to show the reality of candidates and their beliefs. Tom’s story made sure people could accurately judge the claims both candidates were making. I learned about many new and important topics across party lines like Trump’s for-profit college, Harris’ claim about tracking miscarriages and accurate deportation statistics.
The Waupun Correctional Institution — shown here on Oct. 27, 2023 — was not over capacity as of late July 2024. But the state prison system as a whole has long incarcerated more people than its prisons were designed to hold. (Angela Major / WPR)
Khushboo Rathore’s DataWatch report detailing that the state’s prison population was at nearly 130% capacity stood out as one of my favorite pieces this year. Not only did this short story shed light on severe deficiencies in Wisconsin’s prison system, it also presented the findings in a digestible format that helped readers understand overcrowding in prisons through striking data. It’s one thing to report that Wisconsin prisons are overwhelmed, and it’s another to have the numbers that show it. This piece has the power to reshape future conversations about statewide prison reform, which is what our work here at Wisconsin Watch is all about!
The Wisconsin Supreme Court holds its first hearing of the new term on Sept. 7, 2023, at the Wisconsin State Capitol. (Andy Manis / For Wisconsin Watch)
Jack Kelly has some of the best sourcing this newsroom has ever seen. He’s such an affable people-person, and it enables him to get coffee with anyone and everyone and build legitimate relationships that result in wild scoops, like this one. It’s a testament to his brilliance as a reporter.
The value of food imported into the U.S. exceeds what is exported.
That’s a recent reversal of a long-term trend, as U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden stated Dec. 2.
But it doesn’t necessarily mean the U.S. is “beholden on other nations,” as the western Wisconsin Republican claimed.
The U.S. was an annual net exporter of agricultural products from at least the 1970s through 2018, but since then has mostly been a net importer, and the gap is widening.
In fiscal 2025, the value of agricultural imports is projected at $215.5 billion and exports $170 billion.
William Ridley, a University of Illinois agricultural and consumer economics professor, said the U.S. produces more food for itself than ever, but it’s a net importer because of demand for imported food, much of it from allies.
Some imports, including out-of-season produce, come from foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies, said Steve Suppan, of the nonprofit Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Act 10, which effectively ended collective bargaining for most Wisconsin public employee unions, has saved taxpayers billions of dollars.
The 2011 law could be reviewed by the Wisconsin Supreme Court because of a recent judge’s ruling.
The law achieved savings mainly by shifting costs for pension and health benefits for public employees to the employees.
The nonpartisan Wisconsin Policy Forum found in 2020 that state and local governments saved $5 billion from 2011 to 2017 in pension costs alone.
PolitiFact Wisconsin reported in 2014 that public employers saved over $3 billion on pensions and health insurance.
Getting rid of Act 10’s pension, health insurance and salary limits would raise annual school district costs $1.6 billion and local government costs $480 million, the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty estimated in September.
However, the recent court ruling doesn’t invalidate Act 10’s higher employee contribution requirements, said attorney Jeffrey Mandell, who represents unions in the pending case.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
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