Madison, Wis., July 1, 2021Wisconsin Hospital Association President and CEO Eric Borgerding issued the following statement in response to state Assembly and Senate passage of the state budget now on its way to Gov. Evers’ desk.

“Wisconsin’s hospitals are the state’s most important partner in providing access to the highest-quality lifesaving acute and primary care to millions of Wisconsinites.

Wisconsin hospitals are also grossly underfunded by the Medicaid program, reimbursed only 66% of the cost of delivering care to Medicaid patients. Because hospitals care for everyone who walks through their doors, they bear a significant loss from serving 1.2 million people in need of Medicaid coverage, forcing them to shift unreimbursed costs onto everyone else who receives care.

While hospitals face tremendous challenges from our Medicaid program, state lawmakers have responded over the last decade. Wisconsin’s hospitals are grateful for the support of the Legislature and the Governor for the Medicaid Disproportion Share Hospital (DSH) program. The state budget passed this week by the Legislature protects over $100 million in critical funding for our state’s hospitals for the next two years and beyond.

We thank the members of the Joint Finance Committee who worked closely with the Wisconsin Hospital Association and our members to improve and strengthen this critical hospital funding. We also appreciate the bipartisan support in the Assembly and the Senate earlier this week and thank Gov. Evers for proposing a similar DSH investment in his version of the budget in February.

With strong and bipartisan support for DSH funding at every step of the budget process, we now urge the Governor to sign this investment, which started at and is now returning to his desk, into law.”

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