Robert Thornton received personalized hospital care for COVID-19 and pneumonia in his Belvidere, Ill., home in 2024 as part of a Medicare in-home care program that expired October 1. (Photo courtesy of OSF Healthcare)

The federal government shutdown is forcing a reckoning for two remote health care programs because they automatically expired Oct. 1.

The telehealth and in-home hospital care programs were both temporary — but increasingly popular — options for Medicare recipients. They allowed doctors and hospitals to bill Medicare for telehealth appointments and in-home visits from nurses to provide care that is generally only available in hospitals.

The shutdown has prevented Congress from extending them.

More than 4 million Medicare beneficiaries used telehealth services in the first half of the year, according to Brown University’s Center for Advancing Health Policy through Research.

As of last fall, 366 hospitals had participated in the hospital-at-home program, serving 31,000 patients, according to a federal report. The program, officially called Acute Hospital Care at Home, allows patients who would otherwise be hospitalized to get inpatient care at home with a combination of nurse visits, monitoring equipment and remote doctor visits.

The programs have their roots in the pandemic, when doctors and hospitals wanted to keep patients safe from the risks of travel and hospital stays. Both are for Medicare recipients, generally people over 65 or who are disabled. But since many private insurers follow federal guidelines, some physicians have stopped booking telemedicine appointments for non-Medicare patients, rather than risk a change in insurance coverage.

Alexis Wynn, who is in her mid-30s and covered by private insurance through her employer, tried to switch an in-person doctor appointment in Pennsylvania to a video visit last week. The office told her that “all telemedicine is uncovered by insurance as of Oct. 1” — so she had to cancel the routine appointment.

“It was just a follow-up appointment  to make sure the dosing of my medication was still accurate, nothing that was pertinent to being face-to-face,” Wynn said. Her health insurance company later told her it still covered telehealth visits.

There have been other reports of insurers turning down non-Medicare telehealth appointments, said Alexis Apple, director of federal affairs for the American Telemedicine Association, a trade group.

“It’s a misunderstanding,” Apple said. “I’m not really sure what’s happening, but it’s unfortunate and very scary. There’s so much uncertainty out there now, and we see insurance payers start to pull back.”

Both telehealth and home hospital services can be a lifeline for older people, especially in rural areas, where residents may struggle to travel long distances for health care in person.

“In rural America, it’s often telemedicine or no medicine at all,” said Dr. David Newman, chief medical officer of virtual care at Sanford Health in South Dakota, in a September statement supporting congressional action to make Medicare telehealth permanent. Bipartisan bills that would have allowed telehealth to continue stalled in committee earlier this year in the Senate and House.

There’s an exception for telehealth rural residents — but only if they travel to a brick-and-mortar health care facility to get the remote health care service.

“The patients have to go to a clinic to receive that telehealth visit from a provider in a different location,” Apple said. “It kind of defeats the purpose.”

According to the Brown University report, California had the highest rate of Medicare telehealth usage in the first six months of this year, with 26% of beneficiaries using at least one telehealth appointment, followed by 23% in Massachusetts and 21% in Hawaii.

There’s no reason for non-Medicare insurers to stop covering any telehealth visits during the shutdown, and even most Medicare Advantage programs will continue to cover telehealth, according to Tina Stow, a spokesperson for AHIP, a health industry trade association.

Nevertheless, at least some health care centers are refusing to take new telehealth appointments or are converting existing ones to office visits.

“This is causing a lot of confusion. We are still working with our members who are insurers and providers to get a gauge on what folks are doing — because at this point reports we’ve seen seem to suggest it is company by company, provider by provider,” said Sean Brown, a spokesperson for the Health Leadership Council, representing CEOs of health care firms and insurers.

The hospital-at-home program serves a smaller number of patients but its pause has caused more disruption: The federal government required patients to be discharged from the program or transferred to a brick-and-mortar hospital by Oct.1.

The Minnesota-based Mayo Clinic had 30 patients in the program in Arizona, Florida and Wisconsin — all of whom either had to be released from the program or sent to brick-and-mortar hospitals. One of Mayo’s hospitals in Florida was already over capacity and had no room for transfers, according to reporting by Becker’s Hospital Review.

In Massachusetts, which requires commercial insurers to follow Medicare guidelines, all insured patients had to leave the program. Mass General Brigham, which operates many hospitals in the state, has rejiggered its plans to create more home care without relying on the hospital-at-home program, according to the Becker’s report.

Congress was unable to avert a shutdown by late September, and some individual providers and patients were caught unawares.

Nurses on social media discussed losing home-care jobs or being reassigned overnight when the hospital-at-home program closed Oct. 1. They worried about patients being taken away from children at home, or placed in hallway beds at overcrowded emergency rooms because of the abrupt change.

“Management scheduled a random call this morning with a super vague title. Then drop the bomb on us,” wrote one poster in Texas. “So no job. Perfect!”

In a direct message, the poster, who didn’t want their name used for fear of getting in trouble at their hospital, told Stateline, “This obviously wasn’t ideal for the patients. One of them had four children and now could no longer be home with them. Some didn’t even get to have a bed in the hospital because there were none available and had to stay in the ER in a hallway bed.”

Parkland Health System in Dallas started tapering off its hospital-at-home program in September because of the impending shutdown, and the last patients were discharged from the program by Sept. 30 without returning to the hospital, spokesperson Wendi Hawthorne said.

“We are hopeful that Congress will renew this innovative model of care in the future,” Hawthorne said.

Likewise, OSF Healthcare in Peoria, Illinois, had started to wind down its hospital-at-home program “to avoid needing to return multiple patients to a very crowded facility,” said Jennifer Junis, president of OSF OnCall, which handles home hospital care.

There were only three patients in the program Sept. 30, all of whom were ready to be discharged without returning to the hospital, Junis said. Since the program’s start in 2020, it has helped 980 patients with home care through OSF’s Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria.

“It is unfortunate that we will not be able to benefit by treating qualifying patients at home, where they are most comfortable and recover faster,” Junis said. “Our digital hospital program has allowed us to free up beds for our sickest patients who need them most.”

Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at thenderson@stateline.org.

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We found no documentation confirming a Sept. 29 statement by U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., that 6 million people unknowingly received health insurance through the Affordable Care Act.

Johnson cited a report by Paragon Health Institute, a think tank aligned with the Trump administration. 

The report produced an estimate, not a count, claiming 6.4 million people were fraudulently enrolled in Obamacare. It said they were not income-eligible, including millions who “appear to be enrolled without their knowledge.”

The methodology was faulted by Blue Cross Blue Shield, the National Association of Benefits and Insurance Professionals and the American Hospital Association. 

Paragon stood by its work.

Fraud is much more common among brokers misappropriating patients’ identities than by patients, said KFF Obamacare program director Cynthia Cox and Justin Giovannelli of Georgetown University’s Center on Health Insurance Reforms.

Consumers are cautioned about offers to enroll them in Obamacare.

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

Sources

• U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson: Email
• Paragon Health Institute: The Greater Obamacare Enrollment Fraud: The Fraud Got Much Worse in 2025
• Politico: The think tank driving health policy on Capitol Hill — and dividing Republicans
• Washington Post: As GOP eyes ACA cuts, a conservative group highlights rampant fraud
• Paragon Health Institute: Answering the Critics: How Paragon Discovered Enrollment Fraud in the ACA Exchanges
• Blue Cross Blue Shield: The facts about the individual marketplace
• National Association of Benefits and Insurance Professionals: Facts Over Fear: NABIP Rebukes Paragon’s Misleading ACA Claims
• American Hospital Association: Setting the Record Straight: Separating Fact from Fiction on Health Insurance Marketplace Fraud
• U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: Consumer Fraud in the Health Insurance Marketplace

Do 6 million people receive Obamacare health insurance without knowing it? 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.

Tesla is an automaker that has its fingers in several other industries. One is insurance, which it has long promised to be the best in the business for its customers. According to authorities in California, not only is it not a leader, it’s actually so bad that it might lose its license to offer insurance altogether.

The California Department of Insurance (CDI) announced on October 3 that it’s taking enforcement action against Tesla Insurance Services, Inc. and Tesla Insurance Company, alongside State National Insurance Company, which underwrites Tesla’s policies in the state.

Regulators say the three companies failed to comply with California’s claims-handling laws over and over again. It accuses all three of “significant harm” to Tesla drivers who held policies with them.

Read: Tesla Owners Brace For Soaring Insurance Costs And Even Bans As EV Attacks Escalate

In plain terms, Tesla Insurance Services acts as the broker selling the policies, while Tesla Insurance Company and State National handle the underwriting and claims.

A Pattern of Misconduct

Together, the CDI says, they’ve developed a pattern of misconduct so severe that the state may suspend or revoke their licenses and impose monetary penalties of up to $10,000 per willful violation.

According to the department, Tesla’s alleged offenses include extensive delays in paying valid claims, unreasonable denials, and failures to conduct “thorough, fair, and objective investigations.”

The department also accuses Tesla of not informing policyholders of their right to have claims denials reviewed by the state.

Complaints on the Rise

This isn’t an issue that the state just started tracking, either. In 2022, it noted 21 justified complaints against State National Insurance Company, which accounted for 40 regulatory violations.

The next year, those figures grew to 63 and 195, respectively. In 2024, Tesla Insurance Services joined the fray, and together, complaints rose again to 291, along with 835 violations. 

So far in 2025, the department says it has received nearly 2,000 complaints, over 500 of which were justified, with more than 2,000 regulatory violations. Now, Tesla Insurance Services, Tesla Insurance Company, and State National have 15 days to respond to the accusations before they face a potential administrative hearing.

If the department prevails, the companies could be barred from transacting insurance business in California and hit with significant fines.

The U.S. Capitol on the evening of Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2025, just hours before a federal government shutdown. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — The vast majority of Americans, including Republicans and those who identify as strong supporters of President Donald Trump, want Congress to renew the enhanced tax credits for people who buy their health insurance from the Affordable Care Act Marketplace, according to a poll released Friday. 

More than 78% of people surveyed by the nonpartisan health organization KFF in late September said they want lawmakers to keep the enhanced credits. Their extension has become a major linchpin in debate about the government shutdown. 

When broken down by political party, 92% of Democrats, 82% of independents and 59% of Republicans supported renewing the credits.

Within the Republican Party, 57% of people who identified as supporting Trump’s Make America Great Again policies and 70% of GOP voters who identified as non-MAGA supporters want to see the tax credits extended, according to the poll.  

Spending bill held up over tax credit debate

The ACA tax credit expansion was created by Democrats in a coronavirus relief bill approved during the Biden administration and set to expire at the end of the year. 

Democrats have repeatedly called on Republicans to negotiate an extension of the enhanced tax credits and have held up a stopgap spending bill to force those talks to happen now, rather than later in the year. 

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said Thursday the discussion should happen during the next few months and that GOP lawmakers will press for “major reform.” 

“That’s not a simple issue. That’s going to take weeks to deliberate and discuss and debate, but that’s the beauty of the process. We have three months to do that. That is not an issue for today,” Johnson said. “Today the only issue is whether they’re going to vote to keep the government operating for the people.”

Democrats strongly disagree, saying a bipartisan accord must be struck before the open enrollment period for ACA plans begins on Nov. 1, when consumers will see large cost increases for next year. 

“We can’t accept an empty promise, which is, ‘Oh, we’ll deal with this later,’” Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said on a call with reporters Thursday. “The fact is that this crisis is in front of us now. People are getting this month their premium increases if the Senate does not act.”

Murray said she finds it “ironic” that Republican leaders are saying they’ll negotiate with Democrats on health care once the government reopens after they “refused to negotiate with us during that entire time when government was open.”

The House voted mostly along party lines in mid-September to approve a seven-week stopgap spending bill that has since stalled in the Senate, leading to the shutdown.

The upper chamber, where major legislation needs at least 60 votes to advance, is set to vote again Friday to try to advance Republicans’ short-term government funding bill, though it’s unlikely to move forward amid the stalemate.  

Many of those polled knew little about shutdown debate 

The KFF poll looked at public knowledge and understanding about the enhanced tax credits for ACA Marketplace health insurance plans, finding 61% of respondents knew nothing or only a little about the issue. 

Another 32% of those surveyed said they know some about the policy debate and 7% said they know a lot. 

The poll of 1,334 adults took place Sept. 23 to Sept. 29 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points for a full survey. Each political affiliation question has a margin of error of plus or minus 6 percentage points.

The government shutdown began on Oct. 1, just after the poll wrapped. 

Concern about the ramifications of letting the enhanced tax credits expire fluctuated when KFF asked the question in different ways, though those who said they were “very concerned” never dipped below a majority. 

Fifty-six percent were very concerned and 30% were somewhat concerned when told “health insurance would be unaffordable for many people who buy their own coverage” if the enhanced tax credits weren’t extended. 

The number of people who would be very or somewhat concerned was high among Republicans, 78%, and MAGA supporters, 76%. 

Respondents who were very concerned rose to 60% when told “about 4 million people will lose their health insurance coverage” if they do not keep receiving the enhanced credits. An additional 26% said they were somewhat concerned and 10% said they were not too concerned, with the rest of those polled saying they were not concerned at all. 

When broken down by political party, the number of people very or somewhat concerned remained high, with 76% of Republicans and 73% of MAGA supporters citing worry. 

Small business staff, self-employed people

Fifty-one percent of those polled said they were very concerned when told “millions of people who work at small businesses or who are self-employed would be directly impacted as many of them rely on the ACA marketplace.”

Another 33% said they were somewhat concerned, 11% said they were not too concerned and the remainder said they were not concerned at all. 

Seventy-five percent of Republicans and 72% of MAGA supporters responded they would be very or somewhat concerned when asked that question. 

The poll showed that Congress extending the enhanced tax credits as they exist now comes with some trepidation about the price tag. 

When asked how concerned people would be if they heard “it would require significant federal spending that would be largely paid for by taxpayers,” 27% said they would be very concerned, 36% somewhat concerned, 28% not too concerned and 8% not at all concerned. 

Forty-one percent of Republicans said they would be very concerned, with another 41% responding they would be somewhat concerned. An additional 15% said they would be not too concerned with the rest saying they were not concerned at all.

The offices of the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development, in Madison. The department administers the state unemployment insurance program. (Wisconsin Examiner photo)

A change to unemployment compensation that would penalize people who receive federal disability payments has made it into a draft bill to revise Wisconsin’s unemployment insurance law — despite vocal opposition from Democrats in the state Legislature.

For people who receive Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) income, the change would sharply reduce their jobless pay if they lose work. For many, it could wipe out their unemployment compensation entirely, according to Victor Forberger, a veteran unemployment insurance lawyer.

The SSDI provision is part of the agreed-upon draft legislation that was approved Wednesday by the Unemployment Insurance Advisory Council.

The council includes an equal number of management and labor representatives and was established in 1932 to give labor and management an equal voice in shaping the state’s unemployment insurance (UI) program. The council’s members negotiate and draft changes to the state’s UI laws every two years.

On Wednesday Forberger called the council’s 2025 draft bill “a terrible deal for workers.”

Less than a week ago, the Department of Workforce Development (DWD) walked back an earlier proposal to penalize SSDI recipients who apply for jobless pay. The return of a similar provision in the draft bill caught critics by surprise.

“I was pretty shocked when I heard about it this morning,” said state Rep. Christine Sinicki (D-Milwaukee), a vocal critic of the earlier proposal. “I thought it was put to rest.”

The SSDI unemployment pay ban

Since 2013, under a law enacted in then-Gov. Scott Walker’s first term, people who receive SSDI income are automatically disqualified from collecting unemployment insurance — despite the fact that many SSDI recipients hold part-time jobs and would otherwise qualify for jobless pay if they get laid off.

In July 2024 a federal judge ruled that 2013 law violated two federal laws: the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act. The ruling came in a lawsuit that a team of lawyers including Forberger filed on behalf of SSDI recipients who were denied unemployment compensation when they were thrown out of work.

This summer, the judge, William Conley, ordered DWD to stop disqualifying unemployment compensation applications simply because an applicant also receives SSDI.

In August, Conley ordered the department to reconsider the applications of people denied UI because of the ban since 2015 and to award them the jobless pay they would have qualified for without the ban. Conley also ordered DWD to repay applicants who had originally received jobless pay, then had it clawed back after the department belatedly found that they were also SSDI recipients.

Also in August, the joint labor-management advisory committee reviewed a dozen proposed changes in state unemployment insurance law requested by DWD.

One of those proposals was to repeal the 2013 state ban on unemployment pay for people on SSDI. The memo noted the court’s ruling invalidating the ban.

But that proposal also called for offsetting an SSDI recipient’s weekly unemployment pay by the weekly value of the SSDI income. The memo acknowledged that the proposal would probably eliminate unemployment compensation for most SSDI recipients who applied.

“In 2024, the average SSDI payment in Wisconsin was $1,500 per month,” the DWD proposal memo stated. “The average weekly SSDI payment for UI purposes is calculated at $346.20 per week. This weekly amount will in many cases fully reduce the UI benefit a SSDI recipient can receive.”

The memo concluded, “In summary, most SSDI claimants will not be able to receive UI benefits. While some may be able to receive UI benefits, it is expected that the weekly UI payment would be small.”

Offset proposal walked back — then returns

The proposal sparked backlash from Forberger and Democratic lawmakers. On Sept. 18, DWD submitted an amended version of the proposal to the advisory council.

The revision removed the offset provision entirely and called for simply repealing the ban on jobless pay for SSDI recipients.

The department noted in its amendment memo that the process of paying past unemployment insurance applicants under the court order had begun, and that those payments were being made without a deduction for SSDI income.

“The Department is amending its proposal to repeal the SSDI disqualification provision and remove the offset provision,” the Sept. 18 memo stated. “This will align with the effect of the court’s order that is now allowing claimants who receive SSDI to be eligible for the full amount of their weekly benefit without a reduction for any SSDI received.”

At the Unemployment Insurance Advisory Council’s meeting on Wednesday morning, the body approved a draft bill for updates to Wisconsin’s UI law on a unanimous vote.

The draft includes a repeal of the SSDI unemployment compensation ban. Despite DWD’s Sept. 18 memo, however, the draft includes language that claws back some of an SSDI recipient’s jobless pay.

“If a monthly social security disability insurance payment is issued to a claimant, the department shall reduce benefits otherwise payable to the claimant for a given week by one-half of the amount [of a] security disability insurance payment that is allocated for that week,” the draft bill states.

While the offset in the draft bill is half what the original DWD proposal called for, Forberger said Wednesday that even the 50% offset would likely mean no unemployment pay for many SSDI recipients.

Sinicki and state Sen. Kristin Dassler-Alfheim (D-Appleton) introduced a bill of their own earlier this month to repeal the ban.

“Receiving SSDI should not prevent working Wisconsinites from receiving unemployment insurance if they’re laid off,” Dassler-Alfheim told the Wisconsin Examiner on Wednesday. “That’s why Rep. Sinicki and I have proposed legislation to remove that ban from state statute, and I’m really hoping that we can see it across the finish line and put this problem to rest once and for all.”

The draft bill is the product of provisions worked out by each caucus — management and labor — in separate closed sessions. The Wisconsin Examiner contacted two senior representatives in the labor caucus of the council for comment Wednesday on the process, but received no response.

“I’m looking forward to finding out how this language got in there,” Sinicki told the Wisconsin Examiner Wednesday afternoon.

“If that language is in there, it is in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act and you know the courts have already said that. I’ve already said that,” Sinicki said. “And now they’re just going to end up right back in court with this. It makes no sense to me.”

Sinicki has long championed the advisory councils for unemployment insurance as well as for workers comp for negotiating legislation that represents the interests of both labor and management. She’s often chided Republican lawmakers who have authored and passed bills affecting either of those systems without going through the councils.

This time, “I’m struggling with it — I’ll be honest — because it is the agreed-upon bill,” Sinicki said of the unemployment insurance draft. “But first of all, as a Democrat and as somebody who prides herself in the fact that we take care of our most needy, I can’t vote for this.”

Sinicki said the legislation after it’s introduced is subject to being amended like any other bill, and that she would expect an amendment removing the offset proposal.

By tradition, the bill that comes from the advisory council is introduced under the names of the committee chair and the minority party ranking member on the Assembly’s labor committee — which is Sinicki.

Unless the draft is changed, however, “I will not be putting my name on this bill,” she said.

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A patient goes to a physical therapy session at Lake Charles Memorial Hospital in Lake Charles, La. Without congressional action, more than 7 million people who buy their health insurance on Affordable Care Act marketplaces will pay much higher premiums next year. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Without congressional action, more than 7 million people who buy their health insurance on Affordable Care Act marketplaces would pay much higher premiums next year. Close to 5 million of them wouldn’t be able to absorb the price hike – nor would they be able to afford to buy coverage anywhere else, according to a new analysis.

The study by the Urban Institute, a left-leaning research organization, estimates that in eight states (Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia) the number of people buying subsidized insurance from the marketplace would drop by at least half. Non-Hispanic Black people, non-Hispanic white people, and young adults would see the largest increases in the number of insured.

Enrollment in marketplace coverage surged from 11.4 million people in 2020 to 24.3 million this year, largely because of enhanced federal subsidies first made available by the American Rescue Plan Act in 2021 and later extended through the end of 2025 by the Inflation Reduction Act.

Unless Congress extends the subsidies, they will expire at the end of this year.

The Urban Institute projects that in 2026, the average premium paid by individuals or households with incomes below 250% of the federal poverty level (250% of the federal poverty level is $39,125 for an individual) would be $919, up from $169. Premiums would more than double, from $1,171 to $2,455, for people with incomes from 250% to 400% of the federal poverty level. And they would nearly double, from $4,436 to $8,471, for people with incomes above 400% of the federal poverty level.

Jessica Banthin, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute, said in an interview that the expiration of the tax credits would leave millions without access to any affordable health care options. She also noted that it likely would raise the cost of insurance for those who do remain on the marketplaces.

“People who are sicker will make the effort or find the money to stay enrolled,” Banthin said. “People who are healthier are more likely to leave the marketplace and either find another source of coverage or stay uninsured — they’re more likely to risk it.”

“And so what that means is the people remaining in the marketplace are a little bit sicker on average than they were before, and that means the risk pool is more costly, and premiums go up across the board.”

Last week, Democratic governors from 18 states sent a letter to congressional leaders of both parties, urging them to extend the subsidies.

“The timing couldn’t be more urgent. Insurers are already setting 2026 rates. If Congress acts quickly, states can lock in lower premiums and spare families a wave of sticker shock this fall,” the letter said. “If not, the damage will be felt for years.”

Congressional Republicans recognize the political peril in allowing the credits to expire less than a year before the midterm elections. Earlier this month, 10 GOP representatives introduced legislation that would extend the subsidies for one year. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a South Dakota Republican, told reporters last week that GOP leaders are open to addressing the issue of the expiring credits but not until later this year.

Unemployment benefits application (photo by Getty Images)

The state labor department has backed away from its controversial proposal to change state unemployment insurance law that critics say would have perpetuated discrimination against people with disabilities.

A newly amended proposal from the state Department of Workforce Development (DWD) calls for repealing Wisconsin’s ban on jobless pay for people who receive Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) income.

The proposal follows a federal court ruling that found the ban violates two federal laws protecting people with disabilities.

Until this week, however, DWD’s proposal to repeal the ban included an additional provision: While a person receiving SSDI payments would be eligible for unemployment insurance after losing a job, disability income would “offset” — cancel out — some or all of the individual’s unemployment compensation.

The SSDI proposal was one of a dozen changes to the state’s unemployment insurance law that DWD submitted to the joint labor-management Unemployment Insurance Advisory Council earlier this year. The council, a long-standing body with equal representation from business and labor, negotiates changes to the state’s unemployment insurance laws every two years.

On Thursday, DWD submitted an amended version of its SSDI proposal. The new version repeals the ban on jobless pay for SSDI recipients and omits the offset provision.

“This is wonderful news for everyone involved and for the state of Wisconsin in general, disabled or non-disabled,” said lawyer Victor Forberger.

Forberger has specialized in representing people whose unemployment insurance claims have been rejected. He was one of the lawyers who sued DWD in federal court in 2021 to overturn the state law banning jobless pay for SSDI recipients.

Jobless pay ban violates federal law

U.S. District Judge William Conley ruled in July 2024 that the jobless pay ban violated the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act.

Even after that ruling, DWD continued to deny unemployment claims made by people on SSDI. This July 14, Conley ordered DWD to stop disqualifying SSDI recipients from unemployment compensation.

In August, the judge ordered DWD to pay jobless benefits to eligible applicants who were denied because they received SSDI payments between Sept. 7, 2015 — when the SSDI-unemployment ban law was last revised — and July 30, 2025. Conley also ordered DWD to pay back people who had collected jobless pay but then ordered to pay back the money because they were on SSDI.

The federal Social Security Administration program allows and encourages disability insurance recipients to work part-time if they are able to.

During the administration of Gov. Scott Walker, however, DWD asserted in a  proposal that disability payment recipients who applied for unemployment insurance were probably “double-dipping” and committing “fraud.” The ban on unemployment pay for SSDI recipients was enacted in 2013, during Walker’s first term, and revised in 2015 during his second term.

DWD proposes unemployment insurance changes

Earlier this year DWD drafted 12 proposed revisions to Wisconsin’s unemployment insurance law for the joint labor-management Unemployment Insurance Advisory Council to consider.

The department’s SSDI proposal called for repealing the ban on jobless pay, but also called for offsetting an SSDI recipient’s unemployment compensation on the basis of the disability income.

When Forberger read the DWD proposal and saw the offset provision, he wrote about it on his blog about unemployment insurance policy and wrote to the labor caucus members of the advisory council urging them not to support it.

The offset provision was still part of DWD’s SSDI repeal recommendation when the department presented its proposals to the advisory council in August.

The offset provision surprised state Rep. Christine Sinicki (D-Milwaukee) when it came to her attention. Sinicki has often scolded lawmakers when they introduce bills to change the unemployment compensation system without sending them through the joint labor-management council.

“I’ve always been a stickler for, you vote yes on the agreed-upon bill [from the advisory council] because it was a compromise between both parties,” Sinicki told the Wisconsin Examiner on Thursday. But when she learned of the offset provision, “I made it very clear that I would not vote for any bill that had that in there.”

Sinicki along with Sen. Kristin Dassler-Alfheim (D-Appleton) have authored their own proposal to repeal the SSDI jobless pay ban after the court ordered DWD to stop enforcing it. Both said they opposed DWD’s offset proposal and that they were glad to see that the department scrapped it Thursday.

‘Discrimination. Full stop.’

“What’s happening right now is discrimination. Full stop,” Dassler-Alfheim said in a written statement to the Wisconsin Examiner. “That’s why the federal judge ruled against it, that’s why Representative Sinicki and I have proposed legislation to remove it from state statute, and I’m glad to see that DWD has put forth this amendment” removing the offset.

Three proposed budgets from Gov. Tony Evers included recommendations to end the SSDI jobless pay ban, but with an offset provision as well. Those largely went unnoticed at the time, and were removed along with hundreds of other Evers proposals by the Republican leaders of the Joint Finance Committee during budget deliberations.

It wasn’t clear Thursday what prompted DWD to remove the offset provision from its latest proposal. The department memo to the joint advisory council said that it was already complying with Conley’s order to process benefit claims for SSDI recipients and would do so for previously-denied claims without an offset.

Amending its proposed change in the law to remove the offset provision “will align with the effect of the court’s order that is now allowing claimants who receive SSDI to be eligible for the full amount of their weekly benefit without a reduction for any SSDI received,” the memo states.

Sinicki said that while she was outspoken about her opposition to the offset provision, she had not directly communicated that either to DWD or to members of the advisory council.

A spokesperson for Dassler-Alfheim said she also had not been in direct contact with DWD or the Evers administration about her opposition to the offset.

 

U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin | Photo by Shauneen Miranda/States Newsroom

WASHINGTON — A trio of Senate Democrats urged Republican lawmakers at a Tuesday press conference to extend and make permanent the enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits set to expire at the end of 2025.  

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, along with Sens. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, warned that the expiration of these credits would lead to “skyrocketing” costs for millions of enrollees unless the GOP-controlled Congress takes action. 

The credits are used by people who buy their own health insurance through the Affordable Care Act Marketplace.

Stopgap spending bill

The extension is among congressional Democrats’ broader health care demands in order to back any stopgap funding bill to avert a government shutdown before the next fiscal year begins Oct. 1. 

House GOP leadership did not negotiate with Democrats on the seven-week stopgap funding bill released on Tuesday.

Schumer, alongside House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York, said in a joint statement Tuesday that “the House Republican-only spending bill fails to meet the needs of the American people and does nothing to stop the looming healthcare crisis.” 

They added that “at a time when families are already being squeezed by higher costs, Republicans refuse to stop Americans from facing double-digit hikes in their health insurance premiums.” 

At the press conference, Baldwin called for legislation she and Shaheen introduced earlier this year that would make the enhanced premium tax credits permanent to be included in the stopgap government funding bill. 

“Time is of the essence — families and businesses are planning for next year, and we need to get this done,” Baldwin said. “The only question is whether Republicans will join us and stand for lower costs for families or not.” 

Shaheen said that “as we near the deadline for government funding, I hope that our colleagues here in Congress will join us, that they will act to extend these tax credits and to keep health insurance affordable for millions of Americans.” 

Premiums expected to soar without action

The enhanced premium tax credits, established by Democrats in 2021 as part of a massive COVID-19 relief package, were extended in 2022 through the Inflation Reduction Act. They are set to expire at the end of 2025.

Premiums, on average, for enrollees would soar by more than 75% if the credits expire, according to the nonpartisan health research organization KFF. 

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said Tuesday at a press conference that “Republicans have concerns” about the credits because they have no income cap and certain high-income people can qualify for them. He also said Congress has until the end of the year to decide what to do.

At the Democrats’ press conference, Schumer said President Donald Trump “has taken a meat ax to our health care system,” adding that “it’s vicious, it’s cruel, it’s mean” and pointing to some of the repercussions of the GOP’s mega tax and spending cut law on Medicaid recipients. 

Meanwhile, open enrollment begins in November, meaning Congress would have to act before the end of the calendar year to avoid premium spikes.  

A draft bill Democrats are circulating would repeal Wisconsin's ban on unemployment insurance for people who receive Social Security Disability Insurance payments. (Getty Images)

After a federal court decision rolled back a Wisconsin law that blocked disability payment recipients from collecting unemployment insurance, Democratic lawmakers have drafted legislation that repeals that law.

“Our job is to correct mistakes or ensure that someone’s rights aren’t taken from them. And when this statute originally passed, I think that’s exactly what it did,” said Sen. Kristin Dassler-Alfheim (D-Appleton) in a phone interview Tuesday after circulating the draft legislation earlier in the day.

“The good news is the court has come down and we now have the proper stance. Now, it’s our job to ensure that those rights aren’t infringed on again,” she said.

Dassler-Alfheim’s draft bill is co-authored by state Rep. Christine Sinicki (D-Milwaukee). It codifies a ruling in July by U.S. District Judge William Conley that ordered the Department of Workforce Development (DWD) to stop denying unemployment insurance applications from people who collect Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI).

Conley ruled a year ago that the 2013 Wisconsin law disqualifying Social Security Disability Insurance recipients from collecting unemployment insurance violated two federal laws: The Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act. The ruling came in response to a class-action lawsuit filed in 2021 opposing the state’s ban on jobless pay for people on SSDI.

Conley delayed imposing a remedy in his July 17, 2024, decision. While DWD never indicated plans to appeal the ruling, the department continued to enforce the 2013 law, blocking jobless pay for people on SSDI.

A year after his first decision, Conley ordered DWD to stop enforcing the law, and on Aug. 20, issued a follow-up order on behalf of two groups of people in the original lawsuit.

DWD must pay jobless benefits to applicants between Sept. 7, 2015 — when the SSDI-unemployment ban law was last revised — and July 30, 2025, who were denied because they received SSDI payments. Those applicants must demonstrate that they were eligible for unemployment insurance except for the SSDI ban, Conley wrote.

DWD must also pay back people who had originally been awarded jobless pay but were then required to return the money because they were on SSDI, the judge ordered.

Conley ruled that applicants are not eligible for state jobless pay for weeks in which they received Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, a federal program that was created at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

A first-term lawmaker, Dassler-Alfheim said her career in the insurance and financial industry attuned her to the issue that the SSDI ban on jobless pay raised.

“Being keenly aware when people have limitations on income is just something that I’ve always paid attention to,” Dassler-Alfheim said. “Anytime you’ve got restrictions on people . . . when they’re trying to work and something goes wrong, to not be able to give them the compensation — it’s just not right.”

The federal Social Security Administration program allows disability insurance recipients to work part-time if they are able to, and encourages them to do so under programs that ensure they do not lose their disability payments or their medical coverage under Medicaid.

When Wisconsin banned SSDI recipients from unemployment pay, however, DWD under the administration of former Gov. Scott Walker discounted the possibility that people enrolled in the federal disability program might be able to work. A DWD proposal at the time asserted that disability payment recipients who applied for unemployment insurance were probably “double-dipping” and committing “fraud.”

The law was originally enacted in 2013, then amended in 2015, also during the Walker administration. 

The law “really was discrimination,” Dassler-Alfheim said Tuesday. “There’s no reason that that should have taken place.”

DWD proposal could blunt ruling’s impact

Waiting in the wings, however, is a proposal from the current DWD staff that critics say would undo the impact of Conley’s decision.

The proposal is part of the package that the department has submitted to the state Unemployment Insurance Advisory Council — a joint labor-management body that for decades has negotiated and recommended changes to the state’s jobless pay law. DWD presented its proposals — 12 in all — to the council in August.

The department’s proposal on unemployment pay for SSDI recipients calls for offsetting an applicant’s jobless pay by the applicant’s SSDI payment, “to prevent the payment of duplicative government benefits for the replacement of lost earnings or income, regardless of an individual’s ability to work.” 

The recipient’s monthly SSDI payment would be divided into fractions allocated for each week of jobless pay, and the equivalent amount of that payment would be subtracted from the recipient’s weekly unemployment check.

For many SSDI recipients that would wipe out their jobless pay entirely, according to unemployment insurance lawyer Victor Forberger. 

For example, a person who gets $1,000 from SSDI each month and is awarded unemployment pay would have $250 deducted each week from their unemployment benefits. 

“Very few SSDI recipients have a weekly unemployment insurance benefit of more than $250,” Forberger said in an interview in July — meaning that they would probably not collect any jobless pay at all despite qualifying for it. 

In a statement Tuesday, DWD defended the proposal.

The administration of Gov. Tony Evers has three times proposed budgets that would end the ban on UI for SSDI recipients on the grounds that “denying unemployment insurance (UI) benefits to social security disability insurance (SSDI) recipients was discriminatory,” DWD’s statement said.

Those same proposals included offset provisions. DWD said that those proposals “mirrored the treatment [of] SSDI with the treatment of pensions and lump sum payments under UI law.” Those payments can similarly reduce an unemployment insurance award. 

Lawmakers on the state Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee threw all those changes out of the budget each time, however. 

Conley’s July 2024 opinion found barring jobless pay for SSDI recipients violated federal law, the DWD statement said. But, the department statement added, his ruling also “noted that offsets to the receipt of SSDI have been upheld by other courts.” 

Conley’s most recent orders blocked DWD from enforcing the SSDI unemployment insurance ban, “but did not order an offset,” said the DWD statement, calling the judge’s order “consistent with DWD’s policy position.”

“DWD has already begun processing payments for individuals who receive SSDI,” the statement said. “DWD will continue [to] meet the requirements of the court’s order and any legislation that is signed into law.”

Forberger said reducing jobless pay by the amount of a recipient’s SSDI payment would effectively nullify the court’s ruling, however. “It would perpetuate the discrimination,” he said. 

SSDI benefits are “a bare minimum and in some cases not even that,” Forberger said. People enrolled in SSDI and who also take jobs “need to do this work to support themselves.”

Dassler-Alfheim told the Wisconsin Examiner that she would oppose including the offset proposal in a UI revision bill. 

“If they lose that job that they have gone out of their way to get, even though they’re disabled, they certainly deserve to be compensated for their unemployment at the same rate, under the same scruples, as anybody else,” Dassler-Alfheim said.

“These are people that are doing exactly what society wants them to do — not sitting home on a disability check,” she added. “Why would we disincentivize by removing benefits if they were to lose their job for something they didn’t do?”

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Love’ em or hate’ em, electric vehicles are, on average, pricier to buy than their ICE counterparts. A new study suggests that they’re more expensive to insure as well – and we’re not talking about a few basis points. However, after digging into the details, the results are not as clear-cut as they seem.

More: Filing A $100K Insurance Claim For A Crash Works Better If You’re Actually In Your Porsche

The data in question comes from a study by Insurify. It leveraged over 97 million insurance quotes to determine the average rate for gas-powered and electric cars. Rates reflect full coverage on a 2020 model year or newer. In most cases, the quoted figures reflect a driver with a clean record and good or better credit. Overall, it says that EV owners pay 49 percent more to insure their cars.

Why Rates Run Higher

The explanation seems straightforward enough. EVs come with higher costs to start with, even when compared directly with gas-powered competitors and they’re typically more expensive to repair when they’re damaged. Parts are harder to come by and a damaged battery, for instance, can write off a car faster than an average engine failure.

On top of all this, keep in mind that EVs are often very new models with little to no aftermarket or junkyard support. It’s no wonder that insurance companies might build in a buffer for that risk.

Question Marks in the Data

Despite that, there are some questionable bits with the study. Some of the matchups mentioned raise eyebrows. For example, it directly compares the Tesla Model X to the Audi Q3 and the Mercedes A-Class goes up against the Tesla Model 3. These, however, aren’t really apples-to-apples comparisons, as some on Reddit pointed out. As one commenter put it, “Some of these comparisons make genuinely zero sense.”

What is important to note is the fact that ignoring certain factors like real-world repairability, warranty coverage, or depreciation curves, could tilt the figures against EVs quickly. In addition, each repair case is, to one degree or another, unique.

For example, while engine replacement typically isn’t as costly as a battery replacement, the true cost depends entirely on the car in question. On top of that, the federally mandated 8-year/100,000-mile EV battery warranty offered on every new EV reduces risk for owners, a factor that insurers might not fully weigh.

A Few Useful Takeaways

Even with the caveats, the study did highlight which EVs are cheapest to insure. Models like the Chevrolet Blazer, Nissan Leaf, Kia Niro EV, Hyundai Ioniq lineup, Ford F-150 Lightning, and the Subaru Solterra/Toyota bZ4X twins all made the list.

Still, whether the numbers are genuinely meaningful is up for debate. Insurance for EVs might trend higher for the time being, but with questionable methodology and comparisons, this study might say more about how we measure costs than it does about EV ownership. 

Credit: Insurify

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There are not tens of millions of unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. receiving federal health care benefits.

The unauthorized population reached a record 14 million in 2023, according to an August 2025 research estimate. 

Unauthorized immigrants are not eligible to enroll in federally funded health coverage. 

That includes Medicaid (low-income people), Medicare (age 65 and over) and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). And they aren’t eligible to buy coverage through the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) marketplaces.

Federal Medicaid can reimburse hospitals for providing emergency care to unauthorized immigrants, but that is not coverage for individuals.

Vice President JD Vance said Aug. 28 in La Crosse, Wisconsin, that health care benefits can’t be sustained “if you allow tens of millions of people” into the U.S. without authorization “and give them those benefits.”

White House spokespersons did not return requests for comment.

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

Sources

• Pew Research Center: U.S. Unauthorized Immigrant Population Reached a Record 14 Million in 2023
• Congressional Research Service: Noncitizens’ Access to Health Care
• Migration Policy Institute: Immigrants’ Eligibility for U.S. Public Benefits: A Primer
• KFF: Key Facts on Health Coverage of Immigrants
• Migration Policy Institute: Immigrants and the Use of Public Benefits in the United States
• HealthCare.gov: Health coverage for immigrants
• KFF: 5 Key Facts About Immigrants and Medicaid
• Right Side Broadcasting Network: Vice President JD Vance Delivers Remarks in La Crosse, WI – 8/28/25

Do tens of millions of unauthorized immigrants receive federal health benefits? 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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• A judge’s order promises compensation to potentially thousands of disabled workers who were denied unemployment benefits under a state law struck down as discriminatory.

• The invalidated law prevented recipients of Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) from collecting unemployment insurance.

• Two classes of workers may be eligible for compensation: those denied unemployment benefits after Sept. 7, 2015, and before July 30, 2025, under the invalidated law, and those who had to repay benefits they received during that period for the same reason.

A federal judge has ordered Wisconsin’s Department of Workforce Development to compensate disabled workers who were denied unemployment benefits under a state law struck down as discriminatory.

U.S. District Judge William Conley’s order promises relief to potentially thousands of workers affected by a 2013 Wisconsin law that banned recipients of federal disability aid from collecting unemployment compensation when they lost work. 

But many details remain to be ironed out, including how quickly the state will reprocess a decade’s worth of denied claims and whether any claims should draw priority.

“Some work needs to be done yet to put the order into practice, and counsels for the class are working diligently to get to that point,” said Paul Kinne, one of the attorneys representing plaintiffs.

Conley issued his order Wednesday following a hearing in which attorneys representing workers and the state discussed remedies for denials under a law that Conley ruled violated the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act. 

The overturned law prevented recipients of Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) — a monthly benefit for people with disabilities who have worked and paid into Social Security — from collecting unemployment insurance.

Republican lawmakers who approved the law claimed in 2013 that simultaneously collecting disability and unemployment benefits represented “double dipping.” But SSDI guidelines have long allowed and even encouraged recipients to supplement their income with part-time work, so long as their earnings remain below the threshold of “substantial gainful activity.” 

Conley’s order covers two classes: workers who were denied unemployment benefits after Sept. 7, 2015, and before July 30, 2025, due to receiving SSDI, and those who had to repay benefits they received during that period for the same reason.

Not every class member is automatically entitled to benefits, Kinne said, and it may take time to determine eligibility. That’s due to a variety of factors, including potential difficulties in retrieving and analyzing past claims data — and locating the claimants. Still, Kinne expects an  “overwhelming majority” of class members to be compensated.

In addition to receiving compensation for past denied claims, class members can file certifications for subsequent weeks in which they were told they were ineligible to file. These certifications should be submitted within 90 days of receiving notice from the department, the order said. 

The order also states that claimants who were charged with unemployment fraud for not properly disclosing their SSDI status will be eligible for benefits they had to repay. 

Class members who received federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) — aid for people who lost work during the COVID-19 pandemic but didn’t qualify for regular benefits — will not receive additional benefits for weeks in which they already received pandemic aid. PUA claims were paid at a higher rate than regular benefits, Conley’s order states, and federal law bans the collection of both.

The Department of Workforce Development will begin notifying affected workers by Oct. 1, the order said. The parties must still agree on the language for those notifications, which should inform affected workers about the outcome of the lawsuit and how to claim benefits to which they should be entitled.

“I was generally pleased with the order,” Kinne said. “There is now light at the end of the tunnel for disabled people to receive the unemployment compensation that they should have received in the past.” 

Wisconsin to compensate workers with disabilities for wrongfully denied unemployment claims 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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• A 2013 state law prevented recipients of federal Social Security Disability Insurance from collecting state unemployment insurance after losing part-time work.  

• A federal judge struck down the law, ruling that it had “disparate impact on disabled workers seeking unemployment insurance benefits.”

• A hearing will explore whether and how the state should compensate workers for past denied claims.

Wisconsin has stopped blocking laid-off workers who receive disability benefits from collecting unemployment insurance — a response to court rulings that the practice violated federal discrimination law. 

Now U.S. District Judge William Conley will consider whether and how the state should compensate workers for past denied claims. Attorneys representing the state and affected workers plan to propose remedies ahead of a hearing on Wednesday. 

“In my eyes, we deserve all of it,” James Trandel, a longtime seasonal worker who faced denials for years, told Wisconsin Watch. “The law should have never been.”

The state law in question prevented recipients of Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) — a monthly benefit for people with disabilities who have worked and paid into Social Security — from collecting unemployment insurance after losing work. 

In proposing the law under Gov. Scott Walker in 2013, Republican lawmakers claimed that simultaneously collecting disability and unemployment benefits represented “double dipping” that “may constitute fraud.”

That overlooked the fact that SSDI guidelines have long allowed and even encouraged people on disability to supplement their income with part-time work, so long as their earnings remain below the threshold of “substantial gainful activity.” 

Eight SSDI recipients, with help from attorneys, challenged the law in 2021 by filing a class action lawsuit.

Conley ruled in July 2024 that the law violated the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act, citing its “disparate impact on disabled workers seeking unemployment insurance benefits.”

But the ruling was not immediately implemented. The state’s Department of Workforce Development continued denying unemployment claims until Conley ordered it to stop in July.

DWD spokesperson Haley McCoy said the department did not oppose Conley’s order to stop enforcing the law he struck down, but she declined further comment due to pending litigation.

The lawsuit covers two classes: workers who were denied unemployment benefits after Sept. 7, 2015, due to receiving SSDI, and those who had to repay benefits they received for the same reason.

Conley will now consider who in those classes qualifies for benefits and how much they should get. 

Both parties will exchange proposals before Wednesday’s oral arguments to address such questions, said Victor Forberger, an attorney for the plaintiffs who has helped many SSDI recipients pursue their claims. The plaintiffs want the state to fairly compensate those who faced discriminatory denials, he added. 

The discussions may also involve how to address past claims for federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) — aid for people who lost their jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic but didn’t qualify for regular benefits. The state initially denied PUA claims from workers on disability, but it reversed course in mid-2020 following Wisconsin Watch and WPR’s reporting on the denials.

“No one’s asking to get paid benefits twice. They’re just asking to get paid to be treated just like everyone else,” Forberger said.

Fighting for future generations 

Trandel, who has used a wheelchair since a 1983 fall left his legs paralyzed, filed for unemployment for years during the off-seasons of his job as a gate chief for the Milwaukee Brewers, where he helps with tickets and security. He has since hit retirement age, now 67, allowing him to switch from SSDI to Social Security retirement benefits. The state allowed him to collect a couple of weeks of state unemployment pay for the first time this spring because he was no longer on SSDI.

Although Trandel managed to get by without the state fulfilling his past claims, he believes that compensating workers for past denials would offer a measure of justice.

But even if that doesn’t happen, he’s proud of what the lawsuit has accomplished so far. 

“If I get nothing, that’s fine,” Trandel said. “At least the law’s changed so the future generations won’t have to go through what we went through the last 12 years.”

Judy Fintz, a seasonal worker and a plaintiff in the lawsuit, hopes that allowing SSDI recipients to collect unemployment like others will eliminate one of the many barriers they face in interacting with a long-outdated system that’s undergoing an overhaul. 

Fintz spends the school year cleaning tables, windows and soda machines part time at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse dining hall. She applied for unemployment during the off months from school, when she relies on SSDI while her bills pile up. That experience was far from smooth, even outside of the denials. She faced the difficulties of having to file claims by phone rather than online due to a severe learning disability, and she said she was treated poorly.

“This should really change everything around,” Fintz said of the court proceedings. “We should be able to get (unemployment insurance) without issue, so we can pay our bills.”

Reentering the workforce

As they await the outcome of litigation, some SSDI recipients are looking for more work that accommodates their disabilities.

Eugene Wilson of Madison is one such person. He deals with anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder — conditions that make him easily overwhelmed by tasks and make repetitive work difficult.

Wilson found part-time work years ago before being laid off during the pandemic. He was denied regular unemployment and PUA during a process that took an additional toll on his mental health, he said.

He now receives about $1,500 a month in SSDI benefits and affords his apartment with the help of rental aid. He barely gets by.

He has tried for years to return to the workforce, but he rarely hears back after filing applications and sending thank-you messages. 

“It’s like nobody wants to hire anybody on disability,” Wilson said.

“I just want to get out there and do it and show people that people on disability can do this.”

Jessica Barrera of Eau Claire has a similar goal. Wisconsin Watch followed her in 2020 as she navigated life as a single mother who lost her job during the pandemic and depended in part on SSDI to survive. She spent six months fighting to receive her PUA claim after being denied regular unemployment insurance, initially unaware of the 2013 state law. 

“It really made me feel less than others,” Barrera said. 

That pushed her toward a new goal: “to be equal” by earning a degree and returning to the workforce full time. Barrera is just two semesters away from earning her bachelor’s degree in social work at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. She works part time as a peer and parent support specialist, supporting families with mental health challenges  — including those who face similar barriers to hers.

She lives with a rare disorder that makes her blood too thick, causing clots and severe fatigue that can make it hard to even get out of bed. Her current job gives her the flexibility to handle her frequent medical appointments and other challenges with the disease. Working full time will require finding an employer who understands her situation.

Barrera, who is not a plaintiff, encourages those seeking justice in court to stay hopeful and persistent.

“When I got the denial, had I just been like, ‘Well, I’m denied. I’m just out of luck’… Would we be where we are now?” Barrera said. “You have to sometimes be patient, but keep (up) the good fight.”

Wisconsin ends unemployment aid ban for workers with disabilities. Now they want compensation for past denials. 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.

On paper, the calculation seems simple enough: If well-trained drivers operate school buses equipped with safety devices that reduce traffic collisions, then insurance claims and premiums should likewise decrease.

In reality, insurance brokers say no single piece of technology or training technique is enough to warrant lower premiums on its own. But combined, these tools can help protect a fleet from liability in court.

“The biggest takeaway is it hopefully leads to less claims, which would ultimately drive down your cost,” said Kyle McClellan, a practice leader at NSM Insurance Brokers. “There’s not a direct correlation, like when you bundle your insurance together and you’re going to save 10 percent. But fewer claims leads to fewer dollars spent on insurance.”

While carrier insurance rates vary depending on fleet size, vehicle type, routes and loss history, rates have consistently trended upward nationwide.

Over the past year, the Consumer Price Index calculated motor vehicle insurance rising an average 6.4 percent. In one extreme case, the David School District in Oklahoma saw a 328-percent increase in insurance rates from 2020 to 2022, rising to $261,000 from $61,000 annually, per Education Week.

Rising rates often result in shopping around for better policies. When it comes to negotiating rates, McClellan said two pieces of school bus technology are particularly
attractive to providers: Cameras and telematics.

“Those allows us on the broker side to meet with school bus contractors, identify what they’re doing, how they’re doing certain things, and then go to the insurance market and tell them, here’s the reasons why you’d training fall by the wayside.

“Now they got the big screen in front of them and every time someone burps it records it, and they have to look at it instead of paying attention to what they’re doing on the road,” quipped school bus training expert Richard Fischer, who has owned Trans-Consult since 1977, after serving as a transportation and safety director in California.

Having been called as an expert witness too many times to count, Fischer said three questions often come up in court that can be addressed with training, studying driver manuals and simple record keeping: Did the driver have a duty? Did the driver previously breach this duty? What was done to correct the breach of duty?

State CDL driver manuals and the National School Transportation Specifications and Procedures manual updated by the National Congress on School Transportation don’t just lay out best practices, Fischer said. It is a driver’s job to know the manuals forward and backward.

“A driver-carrier has one duty to perform, and that’s to do everything possible to make sure that the drivers are safe to drive the bus and the kids are protected,” Fischer said.

In addition to training, he advised documenting hours and topics covered, with each driver documenting their own record in their own handwriting. A trainer writing records might implicate questions of falsified records. Most importantly though, Fischer said
don’t make excuses.

“Quit arguing the point we don’t have any money to do safety meetings or we’re short drivers, so we have to excel our training program,” Fischer said. “Everyone says we transport the most precious cargo in the world—then do it.”

Besides providing benefits on the road, many insurers favor having vehicles equipped with telematics and cameras for their benefits in court, particularly as an upward trend of high judgments increases financial risk.

Along with an increase in court-ordered “nuclear verdicts” that brokers say have resulted in increased insurance costs across the board, recent years have seen a trend of higher judgments in urban areas and lower judgments in rural areas impacting localized policy prices.

Regardless of who is at fault, Lisa Paul of Paul Consulting said juries are often poised to believe the little guy over a large company, a trend she has seen play out time and time again over a 32-year career in commercial insurance.

“Courts tend to rule against the big power unit, where people perceive there’s big dollars, whether that’s a school district or a large public company,” Paul said. “But the utilization of external facing cameras has been extremely helpful in improving the exoneration rates of accidents.”

A 2023 survey by the American Transportation Research Institute found driver-facing camera footage exonerated drivers in more cases than it provided evidence of negligence. Per legal experts surveyed, the presence of cameras seemed to drive settlements in nearly 75 percent of cases reviewed. Besides being useful in court, many commend telematics for catching both positive and negative behavior, providing opportunities for coaching and praise.

“It gives an opportunity to enhance and improve driver coaching of how the driver, the school bus operator themselves can improve their driving behavior based on how the vehicle is monitoring that during the course of transit,” Paul said.

Jeffrey Cassell, president of the School Bus Safety Company and a former director of safety for Laidlaw, credits certain camera systems, like National Express’ G-force activated DriveCam, with driving quick settlements.

“What happens is, if you’re liable, you admit to liability immediately and get to negotiating the amount and there’s no discovery. And if you’re not liable, you just get the video and send it to the plaintiff attorney,” Cassell said. “Attorneys don’t chase rainbows.”

While investing in technology and maintaining training helps avoid crashes, thus reducing insurance claims, the staunch safety advocate said keeping students safe should be motivation enough to follow best practices.

“Otherwise, it’s doing it for the wrong reason,” Cassell said. More than school bus technology and training, Cassell said loss records are ultimately the most important factor in obtaining a favorable insurance rate.

“Now if you then say to them, hang on a minute, we’ve just fitted extended stop arms, which should reduce the accidents, can we have a reduction in the premium? They’ll
say, of course you can, as soon as it shows up in your losses,” Cassell said. “If your losses go down, your premium will go down.”

Editor’s Note: As reprinted from the July 2025 issue of School Transportation News.

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