Dr. Mehmet Oz speaks during a confirmation hearing with the Senate Finance Committee in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on March 14, 2025, in Washington, D.C. Oz has been confirmed as President Donald Trump’s nominee to be administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate on Thursday confirmed former television personality and onetime Pennsylvania political candidate Mehmet Oz as director of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

The 53-45 party-line vote places Oz at the helm of the federal agency responsible for administering health care programs relied on by 1 in 4 Americans, including children, seniors and lower-income people.

His confirmation comes as Republicans in Congress look to Medicaid, a state-federal partnership that covers medical expenses for some low-income and older Americans, as a source for hundreds of billions in spending cuts to help pay for extending the 2017 GOP tax law.

Oz testified during his confirmation hearing in mid-March that there are several “painful truths” confronting federal programs within CMS.

“Health care expenditures are growing 2 to 3% faster than our economy; not sustainable. The Medicare trust fund will be insolvent within a decade, that’s the 2.9% taken out of your paycheck,” Oz said. “Medicaid is the number one expense item in most states, consuming 30% of those state budgets, and that’s crowding out essential services like schools and public safety that many of you spent your careers trying to develop. Our health care cost per person in this country is twice that of other developed nations.”

Oz said that chronic disease, which he argued is “linked to poor lifestyle choices,” drives much of the federal spending on health care. He singled out obesity as a central issue.

Oz testified he intended to “empower beneficiaries with better tools and more transparency,” “incentivize health care providers to optimize care with real-time information” in part by using artificial intelligence to “liberate doctors and nurses from paperwork,” and modernize efforts that track waste, fraud and abuse.

‘Ludicrous wellness grifting’

Finance Committee ranking member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said during the hearing that Oz’s comments during a failed Senate campaign about privatizing Medicare were unacceptable.

Wyden also criticized Oz for promoting products on this daytime television show that had no scientific research supporting their claims of improving people’s health or preventing disease.  

“Dr. Oz has used his program to promote some of the most ludicrous wellness grifting that I’ve heard about to date,” Wyden said.

Idaho Republican Sen. Mike Crapo, chairman of the committee, said during a floor speech Thursday that Oz was well qualified to run CMS.

“At his hearing, Dr. Oz spoke strongly about his desire to modernize the CMS and encourage a healthy lifestyle for all Americans,” Crapo said. “His vision for treating the underlying causes of chronic disease and equipping providers with innovative technologies to serve patients will also be a much- needed sea change at CMS.”

CMS scope

The agency manages several federal health programs, including Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program and the health insurance marketplaces established by the Affordable Care Act.

The agency spent more than $1.5 trillion during the last full fiscal year, about 22% of all federal spending.

The more than 6,000 people who work at CMS as well as contractors “process over one billion Medicare claims annually, monitor quality of care, provide the states with matching funds for Medicaid benefits, and develop policies and procedures designed to give the best possible service to beneficiaries,” according to the latest financial report.

CMS is one of many agencies housed in the Department of Health and Human Services that is subject to restructuring plans from Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Oz background

Oz received his undergraduate degree from Harvard University before earning a joint M.D. and MBA from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and Wharton Business School.

He starred in the daytime show “Dr. Oz,” which ran from 2009 until 2022.

He won the Republican primary in the 2022 Pennsylvania U.S. Senate race but was defeated during the general election by Democratic Sen. John Fetterman.

When President Donald Trump announced in November he intended to nominate Oz to lead CMS, he wrote that Oz would “cut waste and fraud within our Country’s most expensive Government Agency, which is a third of our Nation’s Healthcare spend, and a quarter of our entire National Budget.”

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• Yahara House, part of the nonprofit Journey Mental Health Center, is a community mental health program focused on building relationships and job opportunities. 

• Its clubhouse model reduces hospitalizations and boosts employment in adults with serious mental illnesses, experts and advocates say. 

• Yahara House is one of just seven clubhouses in the state and just three with international accreditation. Michigan, by contrast, has 37 accredited clubhouses. Advocates want Wisconsin to learn from Michigan to expand clubhouses statewide. 

• Yahara House relies heavily on Medicaid for funding, but federal budget cuts under the Trump administration may threaten its work.

Chewbacca, Yoda and Princess Leia watched over Joe Mannchen and colleagues as they worked on their Yahara House computers, some designing birthday cards for fellow clubhouse members. 

Taped above each desktop, the “Star Wars” cutouts distinguished the computers from others — a more lively equipment tracking method than four-digit codes, Mannchen explained.   

“We’re not numbers,” the 15-year clubhouse veteran joked. “Why should our computers just be numbers in the system?”

The cutouts accented colorful decor inside Yahara House, which overlooks Lake Mendota on Madison’s isthmus. A pride flag, bulletin boards and photos covered bright blue walls of a mansion built in 1902 and once occupied by Adolph Kayser, a former mayor. Hanging beside century-old stained glass: a “Pets of Yaharans” photo display of cats Pumpkin Boy, B.B. King Cat, Mookie, Spock and Purr. Photos of human Yaharans hung elsewhere.

Yahara House, part of the nonprofit Journey Mental Health Center, is a community mental health program focused on building relationships and job opportunities. The clubhouse model reduces hospitalizations and boosts employment in adults with serious mental illnesses, experts and advocates say. 

Mannchen, who once edited videos professionally, uses those skills to help create updates for members. He and others are considering starting a podcast to promote Yahara House to the community. 

“At the risk of being a little saccharine, it brings me joy,” he said.

Other members work in the Yahara House offices, reception desk or its kitchen, the Catfish Cafe. Still others fill temporary jobs at local shops, restaurants and the State Capitol. A bulletin board celebrates three dozen members with permanent jobs.

Wisconsin has few places like this. Yahara House is one of seven clubhouses in the state and just three with international accreditation, according to Clubhouse International’s latest count. Neighboring Michigan has 37 accredited clubhouses. Advocates want Wisconsin to learn from Michigan to expand clubhouses statewide. 

Medicaid cuts could jeopardize services

Reimbursement from Medicaid, the joint state and federal program to help low-income residents afford care, funds nearly all of the Yahara House budget, said director Brad Schlough.

But budget cuts in Washington may threaten that funding. Seeking to pay for tax cuts and some mandatory spending increases, the Republican-led U.S. House has proposed cutting up to $880 billion in spending over the next decade from the committee that oversees programs including Medicare and Medicaid. For a variety of reasons, including the large size of the program, Medicaid is a likely target for significant cuts. 

“I’m not sleeping well at night worrying about the human costs the proposed funding cuts will inevitably bring,” Schlough said. 

The Trump administration has already made cuts to COVID-era mental health funding and eliminated an office focused on helping older adults and people with disabilities live independently.

More than one in three U.S. adult Medicaid enrollees have a mental illness. Most in Yahara House rely on Medicaid for services within and outside of the clubhouse.

The clubhouse already struggles financially to serve members waiting to enroll or ineligible for Medicaid support services.

“Clubhouses are intended to be open to anyone in the community with a mental illness. The problem is that the funding doesn’t always follow that,” Schlough said.

When members do join the right Medicaid programs, Wisconsin requires hours of recordkeeping for clubhouses to get paid. That contrasts with Michigan, which streamlines payments for clubhouses. 

Yahara House members pride themselves on finding solutions. The community is celebrating 25 years of international accreditation this year and has served adults with mental illness for much longer.

Its longest-tenured member is Michael Larscheid at 47 years. His photo hangs on a bulletin celebrating continuing education. He recently started swimming classes.

While many of his friends have moved or lost touch over the years, Yahara House remains a constant. 

“This is my family here,” he said.

An ‘antidote for loneliness’ 

Larscheid works weekdays in the Catfish Cafe, calling out lunch orders that cost around $1 each.

Mark Benson, a 40-year clubhouse member, joins him, preparing food for about 30 people. Benson researches recipes for twice-weekly desserts that cost 50 cents. In February, he debuted a diabetic-friendly pecan pie. 

Benson is retired from outside work. But when he first joined, Yahara House connected him with a job at an upscale furniture store.

“I was vacuuming around these like three $30,000 consoles and glass tables,” he recalled. “I had to be very careful where I went. It was a good job.”

People with mental illness can often find jobs on their own, but some struggle in workplaces that lack flexibility for mental health days, Schlough said. They might also face transportation barriers. Yahara House keeps a list of more flexible Madison-area employers. The clubhouse trains staff for each job, allowing them to fill in when a club member can’t make a shift. 

Yahara House also provides safe spaces during the day and on holidays and fosters community through weekly events like karaoke. 

Schlough calls clubhouses an “antidote for loneliness.”

Few Wisconsin clubhouses

Despite the advantages, Wisconsin has seen limited clubhouse expansion.

That surprised Sita Diehl, public policy and advocacy director for the National Alliance on Mental Illness Wisconsin chapter. She sees the model as underutilized.

Wisconsin prioritizes other types of services. 

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ latest budget proposal does not include specific funding for clubhouses, state Department of Health Services spokesperson Jennifer Miller confirmed in an email to WPR and Wisconsin Watch.

Still, Evers’ budget would expand the state’s behavioral health system, fund suicide prevention and improve crisis response, Miller wrote, adding: “Supporting people with mental health concerns is a top priority” and that the administration worries that federal Medicaid cuts would harm Wisconsin residents. 

Substantial funding changes for clubhouses would require legislative and state health department approval. There are no current plans to seek a new clubhouse waiver, Miller said but added that expanding Medicaid like other states would boost resources for many services. 

Yahara House’s Medicaid reimbursements flow through the state’s Comprehensive Community Services waiver for people with mental health or substance use issues that could lead to hospitalization. That program best accommodates easier-to-document treatments like psychotherapy, which unfold in hourlong blocks of time, Schlough said.

Yahara House serves members more sporadically throughout the day, leaving staff to spend as many as six hours daily logging time spent serving members — necessary for reimbursement, Schlough said. The exercise conflicts with a clubhouse spirit that encourages staff to treat members more as peers than patients.  

The clubhouse doesn’t pepper new members with questions about diagnoses and limitations. 

“We say, ‘We’re glad to see you,’” Schlough said. “What do you like to do? What are your interests?’” 

‘We want to be a right door’

As a lifelong Madisonian, Rick Petzke probably drove past Yahara House thousands of times. He didn’t know it could help him until his tour almost five years ago.

He joined and received a temporary job at Hy-Vee.

“They liked me so well, they hired me permanently,” Petzke said.

He regrets not learning earlier about a clubhouse members call “Madison’s best kept secret” — like a fancy restaurant on a hidden street. 

Joining requires little more than having a mental illness and not being a harm to yourself or others. But it can take members up to four months to properly enroll with the county in the right  Medicaid program, and a few don’t qualify, Schlough said. 

When members aren’t enrolled? Yahara House eats the cost.

“There are too many wrong doors in this system, and we want to be a right door,” Schlough said.

The clubhouse has few funds for non-reimbursed services, particularly after Dane County cut part of that budget this year, Schlough said. Proposals for the state to allocate a $50,000 matching grant to each Wisconsin clubhouse failed in consecutive legislative sessions. 

The Wisconsin Mental Health Action Partnership wants state lawmakers to appropriate those funds, streamline Medicaid reporting requirements and adopt a clubhouse-specific Medicaid waiver.

The possibility of federal Medicaid cuts could only harm that cause, leaving Wisconsin with fewer dollars to spread around, Diehl said.

Investing in clubhouses could save governments money over time, experts say. Compared to others living with severe mental illness, clubhouse members are less likely to be incarcerated, more likely to pay taxes and less likely to take costly trips to the emergency room.

‘I need to go back to my house’

Jennifer Wunrow left Yahara House for a decade following more than 10 years as a member. During her years away she felt herself “going down” and slipping toward a crisis. 

“I need to go back to my house,” Wunrow recalled thinking.

Members greeted Wunrow upon her return, asking where she’d been. 

When she secured her own two-bedroom apartment with Yahara House help, members and staff helped her move. 

A year later, Wunrow calls herself “the biggest mouth in the house” and helps situate new members. 

“I take a lot of pride in this house,” she said. “I love it here.”

‘Madison’s best kept secret’: People living with mental illness find work, care and community at a clubhouse built for them is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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Official proof of three things — identity, age and citizenship or qualifying immigration status — is required to obtain a Social Security number.

For U.S.-born adults, required documents include a U.S. birth certificate or a U.S. passport, though most U.S.-born citizens are issued a Social Security number at birth.

Noncitizens can apply if they have U.S. permission to work in the U.S. or permanent resident status (U.S.-issued green card). Less common are nonworking immigrants, such as those issued a student visa, who need a Social Security number.

“Merely showing a bill or a school ID is not sufficient,” Kathleen Romig, a former senior adviser at the Social Security Administration, told Wisconsin Watch.

Elon Musk claimed March 30 in Green Bay, Wisconsin, that “basically, you can show … a medical bill and a school ID and get a Social Security number.”

Trump administration officials did not reply to emails seeking comment.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

• Social Security Administration: Original Card for a U.S. Born Adult and Noncitizen
• Paul Van de Water, Social Security expert retired from Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: Email
• Kathleen Romig, former senior adviser at the Social Security Administration: Email
• Forbes: Breaking News: Elon Musk Takes Question After Question At Town Hall Event In Green Bay, Wisconsin
• Washington Post: Musk floats falsehoods about Social Security, immigrants as DOGE seeks changes

Are a medical bill and school identification legally enough to be issued a Social Security number? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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In September, California adopted a law that prohibits local governments from requiring voters to present identification to vote.

The law states that voter ID laws “have historically been used to disenfranchise” certain voters, including those of color or low-income.

The law says California ensures election integrity by requiring a driver’s license number or Social Security number at registration and verifying the voter’s signature with the voter’s registration form.

Voter ID supporters say requiring a photo ID helps prevent voter fraud and increases public confidence in elections.

California is among 14 states that don’t use voter ID. They verify voter identity in other ways, usually signature verification, according to the nonpartisan National Conference of State Legislatures. 

Wisconsin has required photo ID since 2016. On April 1, voters approved a referendum adding that requirement to the state constitution.

Elon Musk alluded to the California law during remarks March 30 in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

• Statenet.com: 2023 CA S 1174
• Cal Matters: New California voter ID ban puts conservative cities at odds with state
• Cal Matters: SB 77: Voting: signature verification: notice.
• National Conference of State Legislatures: Voter ID Laws
• Wisconsin Watch: Has Supreme Court candidate Susan Crawford opposed Wisconsin’s voter ID law?
• Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin voters approve referendum question, voter ID law now part of state constitution
• Wisconsin Watch: Wisconsin’s voter ID ballot question: Here’s what you need to know
• Forbes: Breaking News: Elon Musk Takes Question After Question At Town Hall Event In Green Bay, Wisconsin

Is it illegal in California to require identification to vote? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

(Photo by Drew Angerer | Getty Images)

Wisconsin voters on Tuesday approved a constitutional amendment to enshrine the state’s already existing voter ID law into the state Constitution. 

The amendment was approved by 25 points. The Associated Press called the election less than 40 minutes after the polls closed. 

The Republican-authored referendum does not change the law that was already on the books in the state which requires that voters show an approved ID to register to vote and receive a ballot. Republican legislators said the amendment was necessary to protect the statute from being overturned by the state Supreme Court. In recent years, Republicans in the Legislature have increasingly turned to the constitutional amendment process to shape state law without needing the signature of Democratic Gov. Tony Evers. 

Democrats had accused Republicans of including the referendum on the ballot in this election as an effort to boost conservative turnout in the state Supreme Court election. 

Wisconsin’s voter ID law has been on the books for more than a decade. During debate over the law, Republican lawmakers discussed its potential to help the party win elections by suppressing the vote of minority and college-aged people who tend to vote for Democrats. 

Democrats and voting rights groups said the law amounted to a “poll tax.” A 2017 study found that the law kept 17,000 people from the polls in the 2016 election. 

Since its passage, a number of court decisions have adjusted the law, leading the state to ease restrictions and costs for obtaining a photo ID — particularly for people who can’t afford a high cost or don’t have proper documents such as a birth certificate. 

Republicans in Wisconsin and across the country have increasingly focused on photo ID requirements for voting since conspiracy theories about election administration emerged following President Donald Trump’s false claims that he was robbed of victory because of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential campaign.

While the law doesn’t change, the approved language of the amendment gives the Legislature the authority to determine what types of ID qualify as valid for voting purposes. Currently, approved IDs include Wisconsin driver’s licenses and state IDs, U.S. passports, military IDs and certain student IDs.

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Electric vehicles might be the future, but profitability? That’s still a rare luxury in the EV world. An interesting study has revealed that just four EV-only brands are currently operating at a profit, while many others continue to bleed money at impressive rates. It probably won’t shock anyone that Tesla and BYD are leading the charge, but some of the other top-performing names are a bit less expected.

Read: Only 1 In 7 Of Today’s Chinese EV Brands Will Be Profitable By 2030, Analysts Claim

The study examined the operating income ratios of major EV brands and found that in 2024, Tesla reported an operating margin of 7.2%, putting it just ahead of BYD at 6.4%. However, while Tesla’s margin has declined since 2023, BYD’s has been climbing. If that trajectory holds, as many analysts expect, BYD could soon surpass Tesla in operating profitability.

Vertical Integration Pays Off

Key to the growth of both of these brands is that they are vertically integrated, helping them to scale and reach profitability sooner. The only other two brands analyzed by the study to have reached profitability are China’s Li Auto and the Series Group, which includes the Seres, Aito, and Landian brands.

While none of the other EV brands analyzed turned a profit in 2024, a few are edging closer. Zeekr, part of the Geely group, reported an operating margin of -8.5% last year. But with sales on the rise, it may soon begin delivering profits for its parent company. Xpeng and Leapmotor are also moving in the right direction, having more than halved their losses between 2023 and 2024.

Nio is another important player in China’s EV market, but not a profitable one. Its 2024 operating margin came in at over -30%, suggesting it still has a long climb ahead before it sees black ink on its balance sheet.

Tesla Stands Alone Outside China

Tesla remains the only non-Chinese EV brand to hit profitability. Polestar hasn’t crossed that threshold yet, though it did manage to reduce its losses in 2024. Similarly, Rivian also remains in the red, though like Polestar, it continues to receive substantial external funding.

At the other end of the spectrum, Lucid holds the dubious honor of running the steepest losses in the EV sector. According to data from Rho Motion, its 2024 operating margin was -374%. That’s an improvement from over -500% the year before, but still, not exactly a sign of financial health. Heavy backing from Saudi Arabia is helping Lucid stay afloat despite the massive shortfalls.

ABC for Health, a public interest law firm, argues that a Dane County health assessment should have addressed the problem of medical debt. (Getty Images)

ABC for Health, the public interest law firm, has filed a complaint with the IRS, charging a team of hospitals led by UW Health of falling short of federal standards when they filed a Community Health Needs Assessment required of health nonprofits under federal law.

Late last year, the hospitals  released their report on the health needs of Dane County.

Federal law requires nonprofit health care providers to file such a  document every three years. The December report covered reproductive care, chronic illness, mental health and substance abuse, along with special sections about health concerns for children and youth as well as the elderly.

But in 63 pages, the report included no discussion of how the cost of care and medical debt have burdened people without money and hampered their access to the health care system.

For Bobby Peterson, that was a glaring omission — and on Thursday, Peterson and ABC for Health, the firm he founded and directs, filed a complaint with the IRS, charging the report doesn’t live up to the federal law’s requirement for a Community Health Heeds Assessment (CHNA).

ABC for Health focuses on health care access along with helping people overcome or avoid medical debt.

The organization’s complaint argues that failing to address that issue in the Dane County health needs document violates the collective responsibility of UW Health and the other three nonprofit hospital systems that produced it.

“Their insistence to exclude medical debt from consideration during the CHNA betrays many principles and requirements of non-profit hospitals,” the complaint states. “We maintain that UW Health’s intentional indifference towards the medical debt epidemic stems from a value for their own revenue at the expense of their community. That value is at odds with UW Health’s duty towards its community.”

Sara Benzel, media relations manager for UW Health, defended the report Thursday as well as the hospital system’s handling of medical debt.

“UW Health stands behind the priorities identified in the community health needs assessment process,” Benzel told the Wisconsin Examiner in an email message.

“Regarding the UW Health Financial Assistance Policy, we are proud of the work we do every day to make this support accessible, and the work we have done to simplify the process and lower barriers to accessing financial support.”

She said the hospital system’s financial assistance program is posted online in English and Spanish.

“The application has been simplified over the years using an equity lens, requires minimal supporting documents, and goes up to 600% of the federal poverty level, well above others in the state,” Benzel said.

Medical debt critic

ABC for Health has been a longstanding critic of hospitals’ handling of medical debt and has published several reports finding fault with how hospital systems address the problem of patients unable to pay their health care bills.

While hospitals have programs for financial help when a patient has no insurance and can’t afford to pay out of pocket, ABC has argued those programs are too often needlessly complex. The organization also contends that hospitals’ financial counselors don’t take actions that could circumvent a problem — such as helping patients enroll in Medicaid if they qualify.

The requirement for a Community Health Heeds Assessment is a little-noticed provision in the 2010 Affordable Care Act — the legislation nicknamed Obamacare that has helped drive down the numbers of uninsured Americans since its passage 15 years ago. Nonprofit health care systems must  produce a CHNA report for their communities every three years.

“The IRS is regulating this because they are looking at their tax-exempt status,” Peterson said Thursday. “And to be a tax-exempt organization, to be able to step away from all the property tax requirements that many of us face, they have a responsibility then to give back.”

He sees a hospital’s approach to medical debt as a direct measure of how they give back.

“They have a community benefit that they need to provide, and part of that benefit is making sure that they’re providing enough charity care and services to the vulnerable in a community,” Peterson said.

The 2025-2027 CHNA report, like several previous editions, was the work of Healthy Dane Collaborative, a coalition of the county’s four hospital systems: Unity Point-Meriter, SSM Health-St. Mary’s Hospital, Stoughton Health and UW Health. The report’s drafters conducted a survey, collected and analyzed data, met with a variety of community organizations and held focus groups

The final report included discussions of health care disparities by race, income and gender. It called attention to the health care needs of the LGBTQ and immigrant communities, including undocumented migrants.

Early on, the text of the report emphasized concern for health equity — “ensuring fair distribution of health resources, outcomes, and opportunities across different communities.”

Seeking a voice

At an ABC for Health symposium Thursday on Medicaid and health care access, Peterson said the report’s priorities were “good things” and were all important.

“But what we wanted to see was access to health care coverage,” Peterson said, along with a discussion about improving financial assistance policies and better coordination among providers. “It wasn’t there. That’s not part of what they wanted to give out to the community.”

Peterson said ABC started reaching out more than a year and a half ago to offer input for the CHNA report.

“We wanted to make sure that the people that are in the planning process understand what the access to health care coverage needs are, what the barriers in the financial assistance process are, and how can we make it better. What can we do to improve that process?” Peterson said.

“We thought this is a real opportunity for us to make sure that all these issues that we see every day can be put up in this Community Health Needs Assessment process,” he added. “We wanted our voice and the voice of our clients to be heard.”

The IRS complaint includes email messages ABC Health sent various people about the assessment process starting in mid-2023.

In a message Aug. 13, 2024, Peterson told Adrian Jones, UW Health Director of Community Health Improvement, “ABC remains eager to engage in Dane County’s 2024 CHNA process.”

The message asked for updates on the CHNA “process and timeline” and mentioned that ABC for Health was “preparing a report with recommendations to provide input, from the perspective of our clients, to inform Dane County’s CHNA process.”

In her Aug. 14 reply, Jones invited Peterson to “share your report with us.” She wrote that “we have also held our own community input sessions and survey and have analyzed a lot of quantitative and qualitative data.”

Peterson followed up with an email Aug. 16 that included a half-dozen questions about the data being collected, when and where community meetings had been conducted, whether more community meetings were planned and the timeline for completing the assessment document.

“ABC for Health is eager to continue engagement with the Dane County CHNA process,” Peterson wrote. “Please keep us posted about future community input sessions and meetings.”

Correspondence ends

There was no further response, and “the Dane County hospitals quietly released the CHNA report in late 2024, without ABC’s input that we maintain failed to take into account the perspective of the many communities we represent,” the complaint to the IRS states.

“Unsurprisingly, this report ignored access to health care coverage issues. The report lacks any recommendations to improve financial assistance policies, practices, and processes to equitably serve populations negatively affected by health disparities. It fails to address the impact of medical debt on Dane County patients,” the complaint states.

“It lacks broad community input and instead reflects a hospital-driven marketing piece that ignores and sidesteps Affordable Care Act requirements. ABC was largely shunned despite our multiple efforts over the past 2 years to provide client-based input.”

ABC for Health released its report shortly after Peterson learned that the CNHA report was published. Its critique was unsparing.

“Dane County hospitals must do more to justify extensive tax breaks and better serve patients impacted by health disparities,” the report states. “In 2023, Dane County hospitals spent an average of only 0.7% of their gross patient revenues on charity care. The national average is 2.3%.”

ABC for Health bases its calculations for Dane County charity care on Wisconsin Hospital Association data, and the national average on a 2022 Wall Street Journal report.

Peterson sent a letter reiterating ABC for Health’s concerns and the organization’s complaint about its lack of input in the CNHA report to UW Health’s CEO, Alan Kaplan, in January. He said there was no response.

ABC for Health also invited Kaplan and other hospital leaders to the ABC for Health event Thursday. The invitations were ignored or declined, Peterson said.

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President Donald Trump announces a proposed shift of Education Department programs to the Small Business Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services during a press availability in the Oval Office on March 21, 2025. (Source: White House livestream) 

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Friday that the U.S. Small Business Administration would handle the student loan portfolio for the slated-for-elimination Education Department, and that the Department of Health and Human Services would handle special education services and nutrition programs.

The announcement — which raises myriad questions over the logistics to carry out these transfers of authority — came a day after Trump signed a sweeping executive order that directs Education Secretary Linda McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure” of the department to the extent she is permitted to by law.

“I do want to say that I’ve decided that the SBA, the Small Business Administration, headed by Kelly Loeffler — terrific person — will handle all of the student loan portfolio,” Trump said Friday morning.

The White House did not provide advance notice of the announcement, which Trump made at the opening of an Oval Office appearance with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

The Education Department manages student loans for millions of Americans, with a portfolio of more than $1.6 trillion, according to the White House.

In his executive order, Trump said the federal student aid program is “roughly the size of one of the Nation’s largest banks, Wells Fargo,” adding that “although Wells Fargo has more than 200,000 employees, the Department of Education has fewer than 1,500 in its Office of Federal Student Aid.”

‘Everything else’ to HHS

Meanwhile, Trump also said that the Department of Health and Human Services “will be handling special needs and all of the nutrition programs and everything else.”

It is unclear what nutrition programs Trump was referencing, as the U.S. Department of Agriculture manages school meal and other major nutrition programs.

One of the Education Department’s core functions includes supporting students with special needs. The department is also tasked with carrying out the federal guarantee of a free public education for children with disabilities Congress approved in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA.

Trump added that the transfers will “work out very well.”

“Those two elements will be taken out of the Department of Education,” he said Friday. “And then all we have to do is get the students to get guidance from the people that love them and cherish them, including their parents, by the way, who will be totally involved in their education, along with the boards and the governors and the states.”

Trump’s Thursday order also directs McMahon to “return authority over education to the States and local communities while ensuring the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely.”

SBA, HHS heads welcome extra programs

Asked for clarification on the announcement, a White House spokesperson on Friday referred States Newsroom to comments from White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and heads of the Small Business Administration and Health and Human Services Department.

Leavitt noted the move was consistent with Trump’s promise to return education policy decisions to states.

“President Trump is doing everything within his executive authority to dismantle the Department of Education and return education back to the states while safeguarding critical functions for students and families such as student loans, special needs programs, and nutrition programs,” Leavitt said. “The President has always said Congress has a role to play in this effort, and we expect them to help the President deliver.”

Loeffler and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said their agencies were prepared to take on the Education Department programs.

“As the government’s largest guarantor of business loans, the SBA stands ready to deploy its resources and expertise on behalf of America’s taxpayers and students,” Loeffler said.

Kennedy, on the social media platform X, said his department was “fully prepared to take on the responsibility of supporting individuals with special needs and overseeing nutrition programs that were run by @usedgov.”

The Education Department directed States Newsroom to McMahon’s remarks on Fox News on Friday, where she said the department was discussing with other federal agencies where its programs may end up, noting she had a “good conversation” with Loeffler and that the two are “going to work on the strategic plan together.” 

U.S. President Donald Trump stands with Secretary of Education Linda McMahon after signing an executive order to reduce the size and scope of the Education Department during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House on March 20, 2025 in Washington, D.C.  (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — In a sweeping executive order signed Thursday, President Donald Trump called on Education Secretary Linda McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure” of the U.S. Education Department.

Trump signed the order at a major White House ceremony, flanked by children seated at desks. It directs McMahon to “return authority over education to the States and local communities while ensuring the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely.”

Trump spoke to an audience packed with top GOP state officials, and he cited Republican Govs. Greg Abbott of Texas, Mike Braun of Indiana, Ron DeSantis of Florida, Bill Lee of Tennessee, Kim Reynolds of Iowa, Jeff Landry of Louisiana, Brad Little of Idaho, Jim Pillen of Nebraska and Mike DeWine of Ohio.

Deena Bishop, commissioner of Alaska’s Department of Education and Early Development, was slated to attend, though she was not cited by Trump.

“After 45 years, the United States spends more money in education by far than any other country and spends, likewise, by far, more money per pupil than any country, and it’s not even close, but yet we rank near the bottom of the list in terms of success,” Trump said at the brief ceremony. 

GOP Reps. Tim Walberg of Michigan and Virginia Foxx of North Carolina, the respective current and former chairs of the House Committee on Education and Workforce, were also in attendance. 

The children each signed their own individual executive orders, proudly displaying them alongside Trump. 

The order, which is sure to draw legal challenges, “also directs that programs or activities receiving any remaining Department of Education funds will not advance DEI or gender ideology,” referring to diversity, equity and inclusion.

Widespread reports ahead of the signing drew intense blowback from leading education groups, labor unions and congressional Democrats.

Rep. Bobby Scott, ranking member of the House Committee on Education and Workforce, noted that the department “was founded in part to guarantee the enforcement of students’ civil rights” in a statement Thursday.

“Legality aside, dismantling (the department) will exacerbate existing disparities, reduce accountability, and put low-income students, students of color, students with disabilities, rural students, and English as a Second Language (ESL) students at risk,” the Virginia Democrat added. 

Title I, IDEA funds 

The department’s many responsibilities include administering federal student aid, carrying out civil rights investigations, providing Title I funding for low-income school districts and guaranteeing a free public education for children with disabilities via the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA.

Following the signing, McMahon clarified in a statement that “closing the Department does not mean cutting off funds from those who depend on them — we will continue to support K-12 students, students with special needs, college student borrowers, and others who rely on essential programs.”

“We’re going to follow the law and eliminate the bureaucracy responsibly by working through Congress to ensure a lawful and orderly transition,” McMahon said. 

 

Trump’s long-held campaign promise to move education “back to the states” comes despite much of the funding and oversight of schools already occurring at the state and local levels. The department also legally cannot dictate the curriculum of schools across the country.

Congress has the sole authority to shut down the department, and any bill to completely close the agency would face extreme difficulties getting through the narrowly GOP-controlled Senate, with at least 60 senators needed to advance past the filibuster.

However, it could be possible for the administration to take significant actions short of closure, such as moving some Education Department functions to other agencies.

The agency has an annual budget of $79 billion in discretionary spending, or funds appropriated yearly by Congress. 

Layoffs, buyouts

The department has already witnessed mass layoffs, contract cuts, staff buyouts and major policy changes in the weeks since Trump took office.

Earlier in March, the department announced that more than 1,300 employees would be cut through a “reduction in force” process — sparking concerns across the country over how the mass layoffs would impact the agency’s abilities to carry out its core functions.

 

The department had 4,133 employees when Trump took office, but the cuts brought the total number of workers remaining down to roughly 2,183.

A group of 21 Democratic attorneys general quickly sued over that effort and asked a federal court in Massachusetts to block the department from implementing the “reduction in force” action and Trump’s “directive to dismantle the Department of Education.”

Lawsuit incoming

Opponents of the closure said it’s one more example of how Trump and billionaire Elon Musk, head of the temporary U.S. DOGE Service, are seeking to destroy the federal government as they reduce the workforce and spending.

“Donald Trump and Elon Musk have aimed their wrecking ball at public schools and the futures of the 50 million students in rural, suburban, and urban communities across America, by dismantling public education to pay for tax handouts for billionaires,” said Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, in a Wednesday night statement.

“Now, Trump is at it again with his latest effort to gut the Department of Education programs that support every student across the nation,” added Pringle, who leads the largest labor union in the country.

“If successful, Trump’s continued actions will hurt all students by sending class sizes soaring, cutting job training programs, making higher education more expensive and out of reach for middle class families, taking away special education services for students with disabilities, and gutting student civil rights protections,” she said.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, one of the largest teachers unions in the country, kept her response to reports of the forthcoming order succinct.

“See you in court,” she said. 

The Lyndon Baines Johnson Department of Education Building pictured on Nov. 25, 2024. (Photo by Shauneen Miranda/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — A group of 21 Democratic attorneys general sued the Trump administration Thursday over the U.S. Education Department’s efforts this week to cut more than 1,300 employees.

The complaint asks the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts to block the department from implementing the “reduction in force,” or RIF, action and President Donald Trump’s “directive to dismantle the Department of Education.”

Attorneys general in Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington state and Wisconsin signed onto the suit.

The group said the RIF is “equivalent to incapacitating key, statutorily-mandated functions of the Department, causing immense damage” to their states and educational systems.

Leaders at the 45-year-old agency said Tuesday they would be cutting a substantial number of the agency’s staff, prompting concerns over how the department could carry out its responsibilities when roughly halving its workforce.

The attorneys general argued that the “massive RIF is not supported by any actual reasoning or specific determinations about how to eliminate purported waste in the Department — rather, the RIF is part and parcel of President Trump’s and Secretary (Linda) McMahon’s opposition to the Department of Education’s entire existence.”

Democratic Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes told reporters in Phoenix Thursday morning that the Department of Education cuts would be devastating to Arizona’s public school students, but especially to those who live in rural areas and who have learning disabilities.

“This is part of a deliberate effort to dismantle public education in this country,” Mayes said. “It is going to hurt students, families and schools, especially in rural areas that rely on federal support. And let us be clear, there is absolutely no way that the Department of Education can perform its legal obligations with half the workforce.” 

Madi Biedermann, a spokesperson for the department, said in a written statement to States Newsroom that the agency’s RIF “was implemented carefully and in compliance with all applicable regulations and laws,” and “they are strategic, internal-facing cuts that will not directly impact students and families.”

Some of the department’s core functions include administering federal student aid, enforcing civil rights cases, providing Title I funding for low-income school districts and guaranteeing a free public education for children with disabilities via the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA.

Biedermann said the cuts would not impact employees working on the student aid application, student loan servicing and Elementary and Secondary Education Act, or ESEA, Title funds. No workers in the Office of Special Education Programs or the Rehabilitation Services Administration who serve children with disabilities were impacted, she wrote.

She said the department’s Office for Civil Rights “will continue to investigate complaints and vigorously enforce federal civil rights laws.”

But according to an analysis by the nonprofit Education Reform Now, which advocates for more resources for education, based on data from the union representing Education Department workers, the layoffs make huge cuts to the Office for Civil Rights, Office of Federal Student Aid and Institute of Education Sciences, among other units.

Closing the department

Shortly after the announcement of the layoffs, McMahon confirmed to Fox News that the cuts were the first step on the road to shutting down the department.

McMahon said Trump’s “directive to me, clearly, is to shut down the Department of Education” and saw the layoffs as the first step toward eliminating what she sees as “bureaucratic bloat.”

Trump campaigned on a promise to shutter the agency in his quest to move education “back to the states” — despite much of the funding and oversight already occurring at the state and local levels.

The department has also been a major target of Trump and billionaire White House adviser Elon Musk’s efforts to slash federal government spending and eliminate what they see as waste. 

Arizona Mirror reporter Caitlin Sievers contributed to this report. 

If you happen to own a Lucid Air equipped with the optional all-weather floor mats, you might want to brace yourself for some unexpected news. The carmaker is issuing a recall notice, as there’s a chance these floor mats could shift out of position and interfere with the throttle pedal, raising the risk of an accident.

Read: Lucid Tries To Snag Tesla Owners Fed Up With Musk With Up To $4K Off

Sound familiar? It’s eerily reminiscent of Toyota’s infamous floor mat debacle from over a decade ago, where improperly secured mats were blamed for a series of unintended acceleration incidents.

According to Lucid, its Model -00 all-weather floor mats are only secured in place by small nibs on the underside, rather than any proper anchors. This means they’re prone to slipping forward, and this can lead to unintended acceleration. That doesn’t just put occupants inside a Lucid at risk, but could also endanger other road users.

How Did This All Happen?

Lucid first became aware of a potential issue in August last year when a sales associate was driving an Air with the floor mats in Europe suspected the mat had slipped forward and caused the accelerator to stick. The company later became aware of 13 other cases of the floor mats moving, but there were no reports of it interfering with the accelerator.

However, on February 27, 2025, a U.S. customer reported an issue: while accelerating, the throttle pedal didn’t return to its normal position after being released. Lucid determined that the potential for the floor mat to shift and interfere with the pedal posed an unreasonable safety risk.

As a result, the company has stopped selling the problematic all-weather floor mats and now only offers mats that feature holes to attach to anchors in the carpet, as you’ll find in most vehicles.

Owners of Lucid Air models with the affected mats are being instructed to remove them and will receive a full refund for their purchase. If you’re unsure whether your mats are the faulty ones or the newer, anchor-secured type, simply take your vehicle to a Lucid facility for a free inspection.

Oneida Community Health Center in Hobart, Wisconsin. | Photo by Jason Kerzinski for Wisconsin Examiner

As Congress mulls potentially massive cuts to federal Medicaid funding, health centers that serve Native American communities, such as the Oneida Community Health Center near Green Bay, Wisconsin, are bracing for catastrophe.

That’s because more than 40% of the about 15,000 patients the center serves are enrolled in Medicaid. Cuts to the program would be detrimental to those patients and the facility, said Debra Danforth, the director of the Oneida Comprehensive Health Division and a citizen of the Oneida Nation.

“It would be a tremendous hit,” she said.

The facility provides a range of services to most of the Oneida Nation’s 17,000 people, including ambulatory care, internal medicine, family practice, and obstetrics. The tribe is one of two in Wisconsin that have an “open-door policy,” Danforth said, which means that the facility is open to members of any federally recognized tribe.

But Danforth and many other tribal health officials say Medicaid cuts would cause service reductions at health facilities that serve Native Americans.

Indian Country has a unique relationship to Medicaid, because the program helps tribes cover chronic funding shortfalls from the Indian Health Service, the federal agency responsible for providing health care to Native Americans.

Medicaid has accounted for about two-thirds of third-party revenue for tribal health providers, creating financial stability and helping facilities pay operational costs. More than a million Native Americans enrolled in Medicaid or the closely related Children’s Health Insurance Program also rely on the insurance to pay for care outside of tribal health facilities without going into significant medical debt. Tribal leaders are calling on Congress to exempt tribes from cuts and are preparing to fight to preserve their access.

“Medicaid is one of the ways in which the federal government meets its trust and treaty obligations to provide health care to us,” said Liz Malerba, director of policy and legislative affairs for the United South and Eastern Tribes Sovereignty Protection Fund, a nonprofit policy advocacy organization for 33 tribes spanning from Texas to Maine. Malerba is a citizen of the Mohegan Tribe.

“So we view any disruption or cut to Medicaid as an abrogation of that responsibility,” she said.

Tribes face an arduous task in providing care to a population that experiences severe health disparities, a high incidence of chronic illness, and, at least in western states, a life expectancy of 64 years — the lowest of any demographic group in the U.S. Yet, in recent years, some tribes have expanded access to care for their communities by adding health services and providers, enabled in part by Medicaid reimbursements.

During the last two fiscal years, five urban Indian organizations in Montana saw funding growth of nearly $3 million, said Lisa James, director of development for the Montana Consortium for Urban Indian Health, during a webinar in February organized by the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families and the National Council of Urban Indian Health.

The increased revenue was “instrumental,” James said, allowing clinics in the state to add services that previously had not been available unless referred out for, including behavioral health services. Clinics were also able to expand operating hours and staffing.

Montana’s five urban Indian clinics, in Missoula, Helena, Butte, Great Falls, and Billings, serve 30,000 people, including some who are not Native American or enrolled in a tribe. The clinics provide a wide range of services, including primary care, dental care, disease prevention, health education, and substance use prevention.

James said Medicaid cuts would require Montana’s urban Indian health organizations to cut services and limit their ability to address health disparities.

American Indian and Alaska Native people under age 65 are more likely to be uninsured than white people under 65, but 30% rely on Medicaid compared with 15% of their white counterparts, according to KFF data for 2017 to 2021. More than 40% of American Indian and Alaska Native children are enrolled in Medicaid or CHIP, which provides health insurance to kids whose families are not eligible for Medicaid. KFF is a health information nonprofit that includes KFF Health News.

A Georgetown Center for Children and Families report from January found the share of residents enrolled in Medicaid was higher in counties with a significant Native American presence. The proportion on Medicaid in small-town or rural counties that are mostly within tribal statistical areas, tribal subdivisions, reservations, and other Native-designated lands was 28.7%, compared with 22.7% in other small-town or rural counties. About 50% of children in those Native areas were enrolled in Medicaid.

The federal government has already exempted tribes from some of Trump’s executive orders. In late February, Department of Health and Human Services acting general counsel Sean Keveney clarified that tribal health programs would not be affected by an executive order that diversity, equity, and inclusion government programs be terminated, but that the Indian Health Service is expected to discontinue diversity and inclusion hiring efforts established under an Obama-era rule.

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also rescinded the layoffs of more than 900 IHS employees in February just hours after they’d received termination notices. During Kennedy’s Senate confirmation hearings, he said he would appoint a Native American as an assistant HHS secretary. The National Indian Health Board, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that advocates for tribes, in December endorsed elevating the director of the Indian Health Service to assistant secretary of HHS.

Jessica Schubel, a senior health care official in Joe Biden’s White House, said exemptions won’t be enough.

“Just because Native Americans are exempt doesn’t mean that they won’t feel the impact of cuts that are made throughout the rest of the program,” she said.

State leaders are also calling for federal Medicaid spending to be spared because cuts to the program would shift costs onto their budgets. Without sustained federal funding, which can cover more than 70% of costs, state lawmakers face decisions such as whether to change eligibility requirements to slim Medicaid rolls, which could cause some Native Americans to lose their health coverage.

Tribal leaders noted that state governments do not have the same responsibility to them as the federal government, yet they face large variations in how they interact with Medicaid depending on their state programs.

President Donald Trump has made seemingly conflicting statements about Medicaid cuts, saying in an interview on Fox News in February that Medicaid and Medicare wouldn’t be touched. In a social media post the same week, Trump expressed strong support for a House budget resolution that would likely require Medicaid cuts.

The budget proposal, which the House approved in late February, requires lawmakers to cut spending to offset tax breaks. The House Committee on Energy and Commerce, which oversees spending on Medicaid and Medicare, is instructed to slash $880 billion over the next decade. The possibility of cuts to the program that, together with CHIP, provides insurance to 79 million people has drawn opposition from national and state organizations.

The federal government reimburses IHS and tribal health facilities 100% of billed costs for American Indian and Alaska Native patients, shielding state budgets from the costs.

Because Medicaid is already a stopgap fix for Native American health programs, tribal leaders said it won’t be a matter of replacing the money but operating with less.

“When you’re talking about somewhere between 30% to 60% of a facility’s budget is made up by Medicaid dollars, that’s a very difficult hole to try and backfill,” said Winn Davis, congressional relations director for the National Indian Health Board.

Congress isn’t required to consult tribes during the budget process, Davis added. Only after changes are made by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and state agencies are tribes able to engage with them on implementation.

The amount the federal government spends funding the Native American health system is a much smaller portion of its budget than Medicaid. The IHS projected billing Medicaid about $1.3 billion this fiscal year, which represents less than half of 1% of overall federal spending on Medicaid.

“We are saving more lives,” Malerba said of the additional services Medicaid covers in tribal health care. “It brings us closer to a level of 21st century care that we should all have access to but don’t always.”

This article was published with the support of the Journalism & Women Symposium (JAWS) Health Journalism Fellowship, assisted by grants from The Commonwealth Fund.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

This article first appeared on KFF Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Remember the good old days when radio head units were a one-size-fits-all affair, and dealers or aftermarket suppliers could quickly and easily upgrade your car’s stereo with a screwdriver and a bit of elbow grease? The gradual replacement of single and double-DIN head units for proprietary layouts, screens, and software was heralded as progress. But when car manufacturers decide they no longer want to include a feature, it leaves frustrated owners without an option.

That’s what happened when General Motors decided to drop Apple CarPlay and Android Auto for its Ultium EV platform. Naturally, customers were a little miffed, but one dealer came to the rescue, offering to install an aftermarket solution that allows screen mirroring.

Read: Why GM’s Software Boss Thinks Ultifi Can Beat Apple CarPlay

But now GM has stopped it, according to The Drive. The dealer claims GM instructed them to stop offering the kit. Additionally, the manufacturer of the kit pulled the product from its website, claiming it was no longer viable to keep selling it.

Mirroring Dreams

Back in 2023, General Motors made the controversial decision to drop Android Auto and Apple CarPlay support from its new-generation EVs. Instead, it would offer its own smartphone-compatible software solution: Ultifi.

At the time, GM defended the move, saying that it helped the company offer a more “deeply integrated experience that you can create with the vehicle” by building a system from the ground up. The future of autonomy, as well as other features such as battery preconditioning, were all listed as reasons why GM’s own tech was the way forward.

As is often the case, the aftermarket seemingly came to the rescue when White Automotive and Media Services (WAMS) developed a kit that allowed OEM-like integration of the two most popular screen mirroring apps.

The only catch was that the WAMS kit wasn’t something a hobbyist or casual user could install. Instead, it required a specialist touch. A single dealership, LaFontaine Chevrolet in Plymouth, Michigan, was tapped to offer the professional install.

The Unsurprising Block

As you can easily guess, GM wasn’t very pleased with the situation. The company launched an investigation into the kit, and a company spokesperson said: “Aftermarket services that introduce features not originally designed, thoroughly tested, and approved by GM may cause unintended issues for customers. These issues could affect critical safety features and may also void portions of the vehicle’s warranty.”

It all sounds like this was a specialist piece of kit that, at best, modified and, at worst, wholly bypassed GM’s proprietary software. And with the amount of data that cars can collect nowadays, there’s also a question mark over just how protected one’s personal info is after the installation of a third-party device. As we’ve reported many times, though, that’s also a big issue for automakers themselves and how they use owners’ data, so it’s kinda the kettle calling the pot black.

Are We At The Mercy Of Automakers?

With the WAMS system only offered by one dealership and the complexity of the kit precluding DIY installers, it can be assumed that with the only distribution channel shut down, WAMS couldn’t see a future in the product.

However, it’s another stark reminder that as cars become more tech-laden, we’re increasingly at the behest of the manufacturers who can decide to end support for key selling points at any time. Not to mention putting already installed features behind a paywall despite the hardware already being there. Sure, they might call them subscriptions, but milking their customers trying to cash in for a software update by any other name still smells fishy.

(Photo by Drew Angerer | Getty Images)

Wisconsin voters will weigh in on a constitutional amendment to enshrine the state’s photo ID requirement to vote in the state Constitution in the April 1 election. 

On ballots this spring, voters will be asked “shall section 1m of article III of the constitution be created to require that voters present valid photographic identification verifying their identity in order to vote in any election, subject to exceptions which may be established by law?”

If approved, the state Constitution would be changed to include the provision that “no qualified elector may cast a ballot in any election unless the elector presents valid photographic identification that verifies the elector’s identity and that is issued by this state, the federal government, a federally recognized American Indian tribe or band in this state, or a college or university in this state.” 

The provision would give the Legislature the authority to determine which types of ID qualify as acceptable. Current law includes state issued driver’s licenses and photo IDs, U.S. Passports, military IDs and unexpired university IDs (expired student IDs are allowed if proof of current enrollment such as a tuition receipt or course schedule is provided). 

In several recent elections, Wisconsin Republicans have put constitutional referenda on the ballot in an effort to make policy changes without needing Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ signature. 

Wisconsin has had a state law requiring voters to have an acceptable photo ID to register to vote and cast a ballot since 2011. During debate over the law, Republican lawmakers discussed its potential to help the party win elections by suppressing the vote of minority and college-aged people who tend to vote for Democrats. 

Democrats and voting rights groups said the law amounted to a “poll tax.” A 2017 study found that the law kept 17,000 people from the polls in the 2016 election. 

Since its passage, a number of court decisions have adjusted the law, leading the state to ease restrictions and costs for obtaining a photo ID — particularly for people who can’t afford a high cost or don’t have proper documents such as a birth certificate. 

Republicans in Wisconsin and across the country have increasingly focused on photo ID requirements for voting since conspiracy theories about election administration emerged following the 2020 presidential campaign. 

The process to amend the state constitution requires that a proposal pass the Legislature in two consecutive sessions and then be approved by the state’s voters in a referendum. 

If passed, the amendment would change little for Wisconsin voters because the existing law has been on the books in its current form for nearly a decade. When the amendment was proposed, Republicans said its goal was to protect the photo ID law from being struck down by the courts. 

“I cannot say for certain how the Wisconsin Supreme Court would rule on voter ID laws, but I’m also not willing to risk the Wisconsin Supreme Court declaring voter ID laws unconstitutional,” Sen. Van Wanggaard said at a public hearing on the proposal. 

But Democrats say it’s unnecessary to amend the constitution to add something that’s already in state law and accuse Republicans of including the referendum on the ballot in this election in an effort to increase Republican turnout in the contested races for state Supreme Court and superintendent of schools. 

“It’s my feeling, and it’s a feeling of most people, that you don’t legislate via changing the constitution,” Rep. Lee Snodgrass (D-Appleton) said at a March 17 panel on the referendum. “I think that there is pretty wide evidence that this is hitting the ballots for political reasons. I think that the majority party is afraid of what happens if we get into the majority and if we decide that existing law needs to be amended or changed or overturned entirely.”

Snodgrass added that  “we are essentially wasting everybody’s time by adding this to the ballot. And I think we’ve had five of these now already. So it’s a pattern, and it’s politically motivated.”

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The Lucid Air is undeniably one of the finest EVs on the market today. However, its premium price tag is enough to send many buyers looking for a less wallet-punishing alternative. Fortunately, there’s a way to make it more attainable: leasing. For as little as $510 per month with $0 down over 36 months, the entry-level Air Pure becomes a much more reasonable option for those craving a luxury all-electric sedan.

Lucid’s Incentives and Bonuses

Lucid is offering a slew of bonuses and incentives to convince customers to lease the Air Pure. For example, the American automaker has a $2,000 Conquest Credit available to current owners or lessees of a number of all-electric, hybrid, and gas-powered cars.

Read: Lucid Introduces Its Most Affordable Car Yet, The $77,400 Air Pure RWD

These include models from brands like Tesla, Acura, Audi, BMW, Cadillac, Genesis, Infiniti, Jaguar, Land Rover, Lexus, Mercedes-Benz, Maserati, Porsche, Volvo, Alfa Romeo, Bentley, Aston Martin, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Ineos, Rolls-Royce, McLaren, Mini, and Lotus.

In addition, those who select a Lucid Air Pure from the existing inventory at a sales studio will receive an additional $2,000 on-site bonus. Buyers can also make easy use of Lucid’s Referral Program and get a further $500 discount on an Air Pure if they use the referral code of an existing owner.

The single most generous offer is the Studio Select Discount, valued at $3,000. This is only available for certain inventory at select sales studios in the US, and may be hard to find for some.

The Fine Print and What You Need to Know

As noted by LeaseHackr that discovered this deal, Lucid’s online lease calculator might show a $3,500 downpayment, but that’s effectively erased if you stack the referral bonus and Studio Select Discount. With these incentives, it’s possible to lease the Lucid Air Pure for just $510 per month before taxes for 36 months—making it feel a little less like you’re splurging on a high-end tech gadget and more like you’re making a fairly smart financial move.

More: You Can Buy A New 470 HP Family Car With A 0-60 In 3.5 Seconds For $32K

These incentives, combined with the $7,500 federal EV tax credit, can effectively reduce the cost of an Air Pure from $69,900 to $52,470. It must be noted, though, that the $510 per month figure doesn’t include estimated upfront taxes, registration, and other fees.

Wisconsin 7th District Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany (left) and 8th District Republican U.S. Rep. Tony Wied held an over-the-phone town hall Monday evening. (Tiffany image: Official congressional photo; Wied image: WisEye screenshot. Wisconsin Examiner photo illustration.)

U.S Rep. Tony Wied defended President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk’s work inside the Trump administration Monday evening during his first town hall, which was hosted by phone. 

Wied, who represents Green Bay and other parts of northeast Wisconsin, scheduled the call after GOP congressional leaders told members to avoid in-person town halls. The guidance came after several lawmakers, including Wisconsin U.S. Reps. Glenn Grothman and Scott Fitzgerald, were met with backlash at in-person town halls because of Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) project.

The call lasted a little less than an hour. Wied was joined by U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, who helped answer questions from callers. 

A few poll questions were asked during the call, with participants answering using their keypad. The first question was “Do you believe the federal government spends too much taxpayer money?” The results were shared on the call, with 43% of callers answering “yes” and 57% answering “no.” Another question asked was, “Do you believe men should be allowed to participate in women’s sports?” No results were shared. 

While Wied wasn’t met with the pushback his colleagues had, perhaps because of the controlled nature of a telecall, a handful of callers expressed worries about the potential for cuts to a number of federal programs and asked where Wied stood on the issues. He mostly defended the actions of Trump, Republicans and Musk. 

A nurse practitioner asked Wied about his position on Medicaid and Medicare. Questions about Medicaid cuts have been circulating and creating anxiety among many Wisconsinites who rely on the program. Trump has said he won’t cut the programs — or Social Security — but a recent report from the Congressional Budget Office found that lawmakers can’t meet their goal of cutting $880 billion without significant cuts to Medicaid. 

“A lot of my patients rely on [Medicaid and Medicare]. My parents are on Medicaid, and I’m sure both of your parents are also on Medicare. What are your plans as far as trying to save it?” the caller asked. “Lots of rumors going around that there’s going to be $800 billion that will need to be cut over the next decade, and while Trump says that he won’t be touching Medicare or Medicaid, there’s serious concerns about where that money will come from.”

Wied and Tiffany said they want to protect Medicaid, but lawmakers will be looking for savings, including by potentially establishing work requirements for the program and keeping “illegal immigrants” from accessing the program.

Tiffany said there are too many able-bodied adults on Medicaid and rhetorically asked if “we want them getting help there from the federal government, from you, the taxpayer?” He implied that people should get a job so they can get insurance through their employer. “The second thing is illegal immigrants.” 

Medicaid is funded partially with federal funds and partially with state funds, and approximately two-thirds of Medicaid recipients are working. Undocumented immigrants are already not eligible for federal Medicaid, though some states have expanded access using state funds, including California, which recently expanded its Medicaid program to cover all residents regardless of immigration status. 

Tiffany said that “if we have too many people that are on the program via waste, fraud and abuse, it jeopardizes the program. What we want to do is protect and save Medicaid for the future so people can count on it.” 

Wied said the government needs to be “prudent” and looking at the programs is part of getting rid of “bureaucratic waste, fraud and abuse,” and said Musk is helping with that. 

“[Musk is] somebody that has a lot of experience working on big budgets and finding efficiencies, and his job is only to identify, then it comes down to the elected officials to make the decisions and ultimately do what they need to do again, to make sure that we keep these programs,” Wied said. 

Another caller asked lawmakers whether they have a “red line” for where their support of Trump and Musk ends. 

Wied said Musk is “designated as a special government employee” and “there’s no evidence that he or the team has unlawfully accessed or used any sensitive data.” 

“If there is, I would certainly be concerned and make sure that I push back, but you know, the whole role of the Department of Government Efficiency is to streamline the government’s outdated and bloated systems,” Wied said. 

Musk’s DOGE team has been seeking access to databases that store personal information of millions of Americans. The administration has also been muddying who is in charge of DOGE and downplaying Musk’s role by appointing a new “acting administrator,” though Trump recently said Musk is in charge of DOGE.

“Trump is in charge, he’s our president. He’s making the decisions. Elon Musk has not fired anybody,” Wied said. The comment is in line with what Musk has reportedly told other Republicans. 

A Green Bay caller had concerns about benefits for veterans, given the Trump administration’s goal of cutting over 80,000 Department of Veterans Affairs employees, who provide health care and other services for millions of veterans.

“My son served in Afghanistan twice and uses the VA insurance. Our clinic here in Green Bay is awesome. I’ve been there a couple times with him, and he gets his surgery done there,” the caller said. “What are you going to do with 83,000 jobs that are cut in the VA, and where are the people that I love when they have their health care?”

The caller also added that tax cuts for the rich are “not worth it if it means hurting our veterans for they have served our country.” 

Wied said he would “make sure that we continue to fund that at the appropriate level, so that people have the best care possible within the VA system.” 

Some callers were supportive of Trump. 

“There’s a lot of waste in government,” said one. “We have to cut back. We just have to — on the waste. I see people who are alcoholics, get early Social Security disability. I’ve worked with people who are overweight and get out and take early disability. I don’t think people realize the numbers of abuse and it takes from our Medicare, Medicaid, it takes from all of us.”

The caller added, “I’m middle class. I’ve worked hard all my life. We have to give President Trump a chance.”

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As Congress considers cuts to Medicaid, advocates warn that proposals will hike state costs or reduce services for people with no other resources. (Getty Images)

Of the laundry list of proposed Medicaid cuts circulating on Capitol Hill, policy watchers say some stand out as the most likely to be implemented because they’ve either been tried before, frequently embraced, or both.

Advocates argue that none of the ideas will actually help the program do a better job of its central mission: make it possible for poor and low-income people to get either primary or long-term health care. Instead, they contend, the outcome would be to transfer the costs to states unwilling to cut services or kick people off the rolls who have no other health care resources.

Broad outlines of the proposed Medicaid wish list for Congressional Republicans were outlined in a U.S. House memo that Politico published in mid-January, along with 50 pages of details. The memo is the basis for a summary of those proposed cuts from policy analysts and advocates at the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families.

Among the proposals that have garnered the most attention and concern are:

• Instituting work requirements for Medicaid recipients.
• Capping the current federal contribution to a state’s Medicaid budget, also known as turning Medicaid funds into a state block grant.
• Lowering the federal government’s minimum share of the cost of Medicaid, currently 50%.
• Ending the increased federal government match for states that have adopted Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act (ACA)

Additional proposals would make other changes to how the federal matching rate is calculated or applied and reverse several Biden administration rules that made Medicaid enrollment easier and broadened access to benefits, according to the Georgetown summary.

Medicaid is funded by a combination of federal and state money. Proposals that lower the federal share would require states to pick up a larger share of the cost to avoid reducing coverage.

“The scale of the cuts Congress is contemplating is so large it really will cause fiscal peril for the state,” says Tamara Jackson of the Wisconsin Board for People with Developmental Disabilities.

Medicaid work requirements

The congressional proposals include imposing work requirements for “able-bodied” people as a condition of receiving Medicaid.

The congressional memo specifies that work requirements would not include “pregnant women, primary caregivers of dependents, individuals with disabilities or health-related barriers to employment, and full-time students.” It pegs the savings from a work requirement at $100 billion over 10 years.

According to KFF, a nonpartisan, nonprofit health policy research organization, however, more than two-thirds of Medicaid recipients are working, and those who aren’t would largely fall into the groups the memo says would be exempt.

The first Trump administration approved state Medicaid program waivers that included work requirements, while the Biden administration withdrew its approval. Among them was a requirement in Wisconsin dating from the administration of former Gov. Scott Walker.

The GOP majority in the Wisconsin Legislature passed a bill in 2022 that included a Medicaid work-requirement variation, but it was vetoed by Gov. Tony Evers.

According to KFF, a Congressional Budget Office analysis of a 2023 U.S. House proposal to institute Medicaid work requirements found that while it would save the federal government $109 billion, it would also increase the number of uninsured people by 600,000 without increasing employment. An Arkansas work requirement instituted in 2018 but later found unlawful by a federal court led 18,000 people to lose coverage.

“What we know is, even though people are working or would be technically subject to exemptions, there are very significant administrative burdens on enrollees to prove that or be found ineligible,” says Richelle Andrae, associate director of government relations for the Wisconsin Primary Health Care Association. The organization represents federally qualified health centers that serve low-income patients, including those on BadgerCare Plus and those who are uninsured.

“More time-sensitive paperwork and steps that are hard for people to understand or do and lots of people trying to complete administrative tasks at the same time are a recipe for mistakes, by individuals and government agencies that must do the work,” says Jackson. “That is how policies like work requirements and more frequent eligibility checks save money. Eligible people lose coverage or struggle to get in.”

Block grants

Currently Medicaid pays states at least 50% of all Medicaid costs, with states paying the balance.

In President Donald Trump’s first term, his administration attempted to replace that long-standing guarantee with a block grant — a fixed amount of money per Medicaid beneficiary in the state, regardless of the actual cost.

That per-patient cap on federal funds “would instead radically restructure Medicaid financing,” according to the Georgetown summary.

The cost would be felt across the board, from long-term care in nursing homes or in the community home care to primary health care through BadgerCare Plus, health care providers say, to the detriment of patients.

“Whatever the proposals are that are at the federal level — changing the formula, [per-patient] caps, at the end of the day they they’re all aimed at reducing funding for the Medicaid program, and it really is a vital lifeline for long-term care services and support,” says Lisa Davison, executive director of LeadingAge Wisconsin. The organization represents nursing homes and assisted living providers in the nonprofit, publicly owned and for profit sectors.

Reducing support would send some patients who now have Medicaid coverage back into the pool of uninsured people, says Patricia Sarvela, chief development officer for Partnership Community Health Center, a federally qualified health center in the Fox Valley that serves uninsured people as well as BadgerCare recipients.

Lacking health insurance, people are likely to put off addressing symptoms until their condition worsens enough for them to go to the emergency room, Sarvela says.

Directly or indirectly, taxpayers will likely wind up having to cover the cost of that care, however. “There might be short-term federal savings but ultimately at the end of the day it’s going to cost the taxpayers a lot more because patients will then not have health insurance,” Sarvela says.

Changes to federal match

Several proposed changes relate to the amount of the federal Medicaid match or how it’s calculated.

A proposal published by the Paragon Institute in July 2024 calls for reducing the federal match below 50% of the costs. The Paragon Institute has close ties to the Heritage Foundation, which produced Project 2025, the 900-page document that, although disavowed by Trump last year, has been echoed in numerous actions since he took office.

In 10 states the federal match is at the minimum and would likely be lowered, the Georgetown summary says, adding: “These states would likely have to make deep cuts to their Medicaid programs in response.”

The states are California, Colorado, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Washington and Wyoming.

Other states receive a higher federal match; Wisconsin gets 60% of its costs covered. It’s not clear whether those states’ matches would also be reduced under the proposal or other Medicaid reduction proposals.

Medicaid expansion

Another likely cut would be to reduce the additional federal match for Medicaid recipients whose incomes are between 100% and 138% of the federal poverty line.

The additional match was included in the Affordable Care Act, enacted in 2010. Originally Medicaid expansion was mandatory under the act, but a subsequent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that upheld the ACA made Medicaid expansion voluntary.

States that have accepted the expansion got a 90% federal match for the added beneficiaries. The Congressional memo proposes ending the higher match, and some states that have expanded are already considering ending expansion if that happens.

Wisconsin never accepted Medicaid expansion, however, so that change would not directly affect the state. Although Evers first ran in 2018 on a vow to accept Medicaid expansion after Walker rejected it, he’s been blocked from doing so by the GOP majority in the Legislature.

As he has with every budget he’s proposed since taking office, Evers has included accepting Medicaid expansion in his 2025-27 budget proposal.

In an interview with the Wisconsin Examiner last month after a visit with constituents in Port Washington to promote his budget, Evers said he didn’t consider leaving out Medicaid expansion, despite predictions that it would be pulled back by Republicans.

“First of all, we don’t know if it’s going to go away,” Evers said. Under the current 90% match, he said, Wisconsin would get about $2 billion in additional federal money every two years and the additional people covered in the state “would get better health insurance, so it’s a win-win-win.”

Evers acknowledged that in the current Congress, there’s a risk for sharp reductions in Medicaid.

If that happens, “it would be disastrous,” Evers said. “We have lots of people on Medicaid in the state of Wisconsin.”

Among states, Wisconsin’s Medicaid profile is “pretty average,” he added.

“There are places in the country where Medicaid is a huge, huge player, and if they would get rid of Medicaid, our health care system would implode. There’s just no question about that. That’s the thing that concerns me.”

This story is Part Three in a series.

Read Part One: Wisconsin patients, families are wary as Congress prepares for Medicaid surgery

Read Part Two: How Medicaid fuels an economic engine for caregivers, family members and patients

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Max Glass-Hui uses an electronic communication device, picking words that the device then speaks to his mother, Tiffany Glass. (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)

Max Glass-Hui is an energetic 14-year-old who romps through the modest home on Madison’s West Side where he lives with his mother.

Born with Down syndrome and diagnosed as autistic, Max can read words and understand what’s spoken to him, but he doesn’t talk. Instead, he communicates with an electronic device about the size of an iPad, pressing words that the machine then speaks on his behalf. “Good-bye,” he tells his mother through the machine one recent morning, as she sits with him in his bedroom.

Tiffany Glass smiles affably, acknowledges her son’s assertion of independence, and steps out of the room.

Their interaction isn’t so different from those any number of parents and children have every day. For this parent and this child, however, it might have seemed unimaginable a generation ago.

Not so long ago, a child like Max was likely to spend his life inside the walls of an institution. Changes in social attitudes, medical ethics, and state and federal policy have made it possible for him to grow up and thrive at home.

One of those policies, says Tiffany Glass, is Medicaid — and without it, she believes Max’s life would have been much worse.

“His medical problems would not have been treated as effectively,” she says. “His quality of life would have been absolutely terrible. He would have been much more excluded from our community than he is now.”

Medicaid is the state-federal health insurance plan launched in the 1960s to provide health care for people living in poverty. In Wisconsin, it’s  best known as BadgerCare Plus, which covers primary health care and hospital care for people living below the federal poverty guideline. But Medicaid touches hundreds of thousands of other Wisconsin residents as well.

More than half of Wisconsin’s nursing home residents are covered by Medicaid after spending down most of their other personal savings and assets. Other Medicaid programs provide long-term skilled care to people living in their own homes or in the community — people who are frail and elderly, but also people living with disabilities.

“I’m not sure people are aware of the lifeline Medicaid is to so many people,” says Kim Marheine, state ombudsman for the Wisconsin Board on Aging and Long Term Care. “Without Medicaid some of these people have no place to go for services.”

Congress is currently rewriting the federal budget in ways that patients, families, health care providers and advocates fear will upend the program dramatically, ending coverage for millions who have few or no alternatives.

Washington budget battle

The Republican majority in the U.S. House wants to find $4.5 trillion in federal funds to pay for renewing tax cuts enacted in 2017 during President Donald Trump’s first term. On Feb. 25, the House, voting along party lines, cleared the way for a budget resolution that carves $880 billion over 10 years from programs under the purview of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

The text of the bill doesn’t doesn’t specify where those cuts come from — a point Republicans have emphasized to rebut claims that the vote was an attack on people’s health care. Nevertheless, Medicaid “is expected to bear much of the cuts,” according to KFF, a nonpartisan, nonprofit health news and research organization.

“What is in the jurisdiction of that committee? Well, the largest dollar amount is Medicaid,” said U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Black Earth) at a press conference in Madison Feb. 19. Advocates dismiss Republican denials, treating Medicaid cuts as a foregone conclusion and holding GOP lawmakers responsible.

“The draconian cuts to Medicaid that every single Wisconsin Republican voted for are an absolute wrecking ball,” says Joe Zepecki of Protect Our Care, a national advocacy group for the Affordable Care Act, Medicare and Medicaid. In that wrecking ball’s path, he says, are the state budget, tens of thousands of Wisconsin businesses that bill Medicaid, and more than a million state residents whose health care Medicaid covers.

Medicaid is funded jointly by federal and state governments. Federal law guarantees that the U.S. will pay at least half of the program’s cost, with the state paying for the rest. Wisconsin has a 60% federal contribution; the remaining 40% comes out of the state budget.

For fiscal year 2023, Wisconsin’s Medicaid expenditures totaled $12.5 billion, according to the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission, a Congressional agency. The federal government paid just under $8.2 billion of that; Wisconsin paid the remainder, about $4.4 billion.

A Medicaid reduction on the scale that the budget resolution requires “will leave enormous shortfalls for the state heading into the next two years, all so Trump and his MAGA majorities can deliver another tax cut to huge corporations and CEOs like Elon Musk,” Zepecki says. “The federal money disappearing doesn’t mean the needs disappear, which is likely to force everyone else to pay even higher costs for their own health care.”

1 in 5 Wisconsin residents

According to the January 2025 enrollment numbers from the Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS), about 1.3 million Wisconsin residents rely on Medicaid for day-to-day health care, long-term care or both — more than 1 out of 5 state residents.

They include more than 900,000 Wisconsinites who are enrolled in BadgerCare Plus. The health insurance plan for people up to age 65 covers doctor’s office visits, preventive care, surgery, hospital stays including childbirth, and other day-to-day health care needs for families living below the federal poverty guidelines. Children are covered in families with incomes up to 300% of the federal guideline; BadgerCare covers one-third of Wisconsin’s children.

Medicaid also covers alcoholism treatment, substance abuse treatment and other forms of care for mental health. “Medicaid is one of the largest payers of mental health care in the state,” says Tamara Jackson, policy analyst for the Wisconsin Board for People with Developmental Disabilities. It is the major funder of county mental health services, whether provided directly by a county agency or in partnership with a community agency, according to the Wiscons Counties Association.

Covering mental health is more than simply covering the cost of medications that may be prescribed. “Depression and anxiety medications are most effective in combination with the use of counseling services,” says Sheng Lee Yang, an Appleton clinical social worker. But if patients prescribed a medication aren’t able to get counseling as well, “their symptoms are only being treated at a 50% rate. That’s not real effective.”

Medicaid is part of health care all across Wisconsin. A study from Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families released in January found that residents of rural counties in the U.S. are more likely to rely on Medicaid for their health coverage than urban residents. In 27 northern and central Wisconsin rural counties, the share of children on Medicaid is higher than the state average, the study found.

Medicaid’s reach doesn’t stop there, however. Through nearly 20 different programs, Medicaid covers the health care of more than 260,000 additional Wisconsin residents.

For about 10,800 frail, elderly people who could not otherwise afford nursing home care, Medicaid pays the cost — about 60% of the state’s nursing home population.

Medicaid has also expanded beyond primary health care or nursing home care. Programs launched over the last several decades now allow eligible people who need long-term care to get the same services through Medicaid at home or in the community that they would receive in a nursing home.

To join those programs states apply to the federal government with proposals that would waive standard Medicaid rules. The idea is that if someone who needs long-term care can remain at home or in another homelike setting, the overall cost of care will be far lower than in a nursing home, stretching the Medicaid dollar farther.

More than 43,000 frail elderly or disabled adults in Wisconsin receive long-term care at home or in the community — in assisted living, for instance — under Medicaid waivers. Family Care began piloting in individual Wisconsin counties about 25 years ago as a nursing home alternative. It has since gone statewide, joined by allied programs that allow people to customize their care plans.

For elderly relatives who needed the intensive level of care offered by a nursing home, Family Care “gave them a tremendous alternative to skilled nursing care,” says Janet Zander, the advocacy and public policy coordinator for the Greater Wisconsin Agency on Aging Resources.

“A lot of work Wisconsin has been doing, and other states as well, has been shifting how we provide care to people’s homes,” says Jackson.

Care at home instead of an institution

Beth Barton’s daughter, Maggie, was born 25 years ago with cerebral palsy. She doesn’t talk and is not able to move about on her own, and for her whole life she’s needed complex medical care, Barton says.

One of Medicaid’s earliest waiver programs is named for Katie Beckett, a child from Iowa whose story led the Reagan administration in the 1980s to authorize long-term health care at home for children with disabilities instead of only in a hospital or nursing home. In Wisconsin, there are about 13,500 children enrolled in the state’s Katie Beckett waiver program.

When Maggie was a child, the Katie Beckett waiver enabled the Barton family to care for her at home. The family’s health care comes through the company plan where Beth Barton’s husband works. Medicaid served as a secondary insurer for Maggie, covering insurance copayments and for her care that the family insurance didn’t pay for.

Growing up, Maggie was able to attend Lakeland School, a public Walworth County school for children with disabilities. School “was difficult” her mother says, but it also provided rewarding interaction for her daughter. The school’s therapeutic pool became part of Maggie’s daily routine, where “she could be free,” Barton says, able to enjoy sensory experiences outside her wheelchair.

After Maggie turned 18, she was enrolled in IRIS — a Medicaid-funded long-term care program. While Family Care works though contracts with managed care providers, IRIS, a more recent variation, allows people to make their own arrangements for services, including home health care and personal care.

IRIS Medicaid funding helps pay for a social worker who visits four times a year and respite care when Barton can’t be at home. It also covers home modifications, such as an accessibility ramp.

Without the support Medicaid has provided throughout Maggie’s life, Barton believes her daughter might well have ended up in an institution. She’s not optimistic about that option.

“Her unique needs are best met one-one,” Barton says. “If we didn’t have private duty nursing, if we didn’t have Medicaid to meet those needs, I honestly don’t think she’d be with us.”

Children’s long-term support

Another Medicaid waiver covers certain purchases children with disabilities need as they grow up.

Danielle Bauer’s 3-year-old son, Henry, was born with Down syndrome and has also been diagnosed with autism. The family lives in Wausau, and Wisconsin’s Children’s Long-term Support waiver helped cover the cost of a sensory chair that offers Henry “a quiet retreat to prevent meltdowns,” Bauer says. The family also got coverage for a specialized high chair that will grow with him as he gets older.

“It has made a huge difference in his quality of life,” Bauer says of her son. “He is capable of so much more, but without these supports, families don’t have resources to help kids like him.”

Until Jessica Seawright’s son was born nine years ago, she and her husband had no inkling their child would have a disability, let alone a serious one. Because of a chromosome abnormality, he has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair.

“We didn’t have anything show up in terms of prenatal testing,” Seawright says. “This came out of the blue.”

The Children’s Long-term Support waiver helped the family purchase a wheel-chair van to transport their son. It also helped cover the cost of widening a doorway in their home on the South Side of Milwaukee so he can get into the bathroom using his chair.

Seawright is a social worker and therapist. Her employer provides the family’s primary insurance, with the couple paying about $300 a month toward the premium as well as covering their own medical and dental copayments.

The Katie Beckett waiver has made it possible for Medicaid, through BadgerCare, to pick up her son’s medical costs, Seawright says. He often has to go to the emergency room and has other complex medical needs. He has recurring seizures, and he has trouble swallowing and needs a gastric tube. He’s been prescribed various medications and formula supplements as well.

Without that support, she says it’s likely that the family would burn through the $5,000 annual cap on their out-of-pocket health care costs.

“We would be making really tough choices — what can we afford out of pocket each year? It would be a question of how often we pay for foot braces when he outgrows them,” Seaward says — along with the medications, supplements and formula he needs.

“It’s not that we don’t want to pay for our fair share, but with the cost of his care it’s not possible to keep up with,” she says.

Moving past ‘a dark part of our history’

Tiffany Glass is a University of Wisconsin research scientist, studying why children with Down syndrome often have trouble eating, drinking and swallowing. She was in the process of deciding what direction she wanted her research career to take when her son Max was born; his diagnosis pointed the way.

“Up until the mid-1980s in the United states, a lot of children with Down syndrome and other disabilities were institutionalized, because their communities didn’t have the resources to accommodate them,” Glass says.  

UW medical ethicist Dr. Norman Fost wrote in a 2020 journal article that as recently as the late 1970s it wasn’t unheard of for parents to allow newborns with Down syndrome to die without medical intervention.  

“It’s a really dark part of our history,” Glass says.

Medicaid changed that for Max — supporting him for his medical care, communication (it has paid in the past for an electronic tablet that speaks for him), and activities of daily living.

“He needs help with all of those things,” Glass says. “It adds up to needing skilled care 24 hours a day, seven days a week. For his whole life he’s required that type of care, and he probably always will.”

In addition to providing resources for Max’s care at home, Medicaid has also enabled Glass to pursue her scientific calling. Without it, her research career might have stopped before it started, she says.

Regular child care centers are unlikely to take someone whose disabilities are as severe as his, she has found, but the children’s long-term support waiver has covered the cost of respite care.

“That has allowed me to work outside the home for a decade as a research scientist,” says Glass. “If Medicaid hadn’t been there, I probably would not have been able to develop my research career. I would have had to stay home — to the detriment of scientific research.”

Now, however, she and countless others who have come to rely on the program — adults and children, people with disabilities and caregivers for elderly relatives — have grown anxious about whether they will still be able to count on the care that Medicaid has made possible.  

“Those arrangements are still very fragile,” Glass says. “We’re all very worried that if funding for Medicaid is reduced or eliminated, that could have really terrible implications for our families.”

This story is Part One in a series. 

This report was updated to correct the spelling of Max’s last name. 

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While Peter Rawlinson recently stepped down as Lucid’s chief executive, the engineer and businessman won’t be leaving empty-handed. He will still take home a very generous salary in his new role as an advisor to the Chairman of the Board. In fact, he’ll be earning $120,000 per month, receiving a $2 million stock grant, as well as a company car.

Despite Lucid posting a $2.7 billion net loss in 2024, the company remains financially secure thanks to the deep pockets of its majority owner, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. Over the next two years, Rawlinson will collect his $120,000 monthly salary and receive stock grants in equal installments on February 21, 2026, August 21, 2026, and February 21, 2027. Lucid will also continue covering his health insurance premiums.

Read: Service Nightmares Leave Lucid Owner Considering Ditching $100K EV

Rawlinson is no stranger to getting healthy pay packages from Lucid, Auto News notes. In 2023, it was revealed that during the previous year, he walked away with a base salary of $575,000, stock options that, at the time, were valued at $372,928,375, and $5,504,378 in stock option gains. However, that doesn’t tell the full story.

In 2021, Rawlinson received a one-time stock grant that was determined and approved by Lucid’s Board of Directors. A significant portion of this grant vested during 2022 after Lucid hit several market capitalization milestones, hence why he walked away with so much money.

Who’s Running Lucid Now?

With Rawlinson stepping down, Chief Operating Officer Marc Winterhoff has taken over as interim CEO while the board searches for a permanent replacement. While leaving his post as CEO, Rawlinson said he decided now was the right time to step aside because the new Gravity SUV has just launched. Its arrival marks a significant milestone for the company and has allowed Lucid to increase production estimates for this year to 20,000, roughly double the number of vehicles it built in 2024.

Lucid may have entered the electric vehicle market relatively late, especially compared to the class-leading, when it comes to experience and sales, Tesla, Lucid has managed to roll out a pretty competitive first product in the form of the Air sedan. However, while the EV itself has been praised by those who have driven it, one customer is seriously considering ditching his car.

A Good Car, But Poor Support

The owner, who posted his story on Reddit under the alias MtrCityMadMan, purchased an Air GT in June 2022. He states that he has been very satisfied with the car so far, as it is “a pleasure to drive” and its range is “fantastic”. However, he says that Lucid’s customer service leaves a lot to be desired and, due to the very unpleasant experience, is thinking about getting rid of it despite its positive attributes.

More: A Lucid Air For $50,000 Could Be A Deal Too Good To Ignore

His troubles began when he accidentally damaged the fairing of a side view mirror in his garage, which he admits was entirely his own fault. After contacting Lucid, he was told he would have to come to the service center to have the mirror fixed – which wouldn’t be much of an issue if it didn’t necessitate a 2.5-hour drive. Nevertheless, even though he was annoyed, he understood that the company had chosen a “strategic location”, as he put it, and so decided to make the trip.

In theory, it was a pretty straightforward job that should be completed fairly quickly. The technicians at the service center told him that it would take one to two hours, and he didn’t complain. That estimate, though, turned out to be overly optimistic.

“I sat in a McDonald’s for over 5 hours,” he wrote on his post on Reddit. “No updates and when I’d call they didn’t have any timeline. What should have been a morning repair (left early and planned on being back midday) turned into a 12 hour day. Barely an apology.”

Bumper Issues: Same Story, New Repair

The next issue was when he had to fix the Air’s bumper that had been tagged by another vehicle. It wasn’t a serious damage, but he likes to keep his cars in perfect condition – which is perfectly fine. What isn’t is the fact that he had to drive 2.5 hours again, as there is no certified Lucid shop in his city, leave the car there for at least three days, and then, if all went well and the technicians fixed the bumper on time, travel again to retrieve it. He concedes that he could use a flatbed and save himself the trouble, but it would cost him $1,500, which he decided was too much.

More: Rivian Owner’s Quality And Service Nightmares Expose The Pain Of Being A ‘Beta Tester’

With the bumper fixed, the man was able to enjoy his Air once more. Yet, another issue popped up, and this time it was the car’s fault (although dealing with the shop was, again, problematic). “Two weeks ago car starts throwing all sorts of warnings,” he explains. “Text customer service (24/7), call customer service. Nothing. I didn’t get a call back for 5 hours (when it was 11:30pm local time). Never got a text. Luckily, car was drivable.

“Local service finally reached out and said they’d like to pick up the car and bring it to center to see what’s up, and to replace battery since my deg is larger than expected. Cool. I’ve now called 3 more times to report more issues, left messages and specifically asked for a call back. Nothing. I’ve texted. Nothing.”

The Takeaway: Customer Service Is Key

That was last straw: “I can deal with a lot, but I think I’m done with this brand. I love the car but can’t trust the service that I may need in the future,” he wrote. He nevertheless had a word of advice: “To any Lucid execs that may end up reading this – you have to do better. Build quality is great but customer service builds loyal customers.”

More: Lucid CEO Says “The Market Sucks” For Cheap $25,000 EVs

What’s more, this man isn’t the only one that is dissatisfied with Lucid. Another Air owner wrote: “I am going through the mirror thing now. Exact same thing bumping it against the garage. They are requiring a full replacement at $3000+… insanity. The mirror works, it turns in and out.”

It’s Not Just One Person

Another had an explanation why the shop was so far away: “It costs over $200K to become a certified repair shop which is at the expense of the body shop. Why would they spend that type of money when hardly any cars are on the road? The ROI would be an extremely long one and many body shops probably don’t want to drop that cash if Lucid can’t prove that it’s going to be more than a niche player.”

Not everyone had a negative experience though. One owner, who lives close to a Lucid service center, states that “they have been fantastic, like far better than any experience I have had with previous ICE cars.”

In any case, it’s clear that since its range is expanding, with the 800 hp, $95,000 Gravity SUV joining the Air and other models set to follow in the future, Lucid must ensure that owners are satisfied not only by its cars, but by the brand’s customer service too. After all, people who are willing to spend close to, or more than, $100k on a car, expect only the best – and Lucid has been found lacking by customers who may not be returning to the brand but choose a rival automaker’s model for their next purchase.