MADISON, Wis. — This week marks the ninth anniversary of the day Rebecca Kleefisch and Scott Walker refused to expand BadgerCare and turned down billions of dollars in investments for health care in Wisconsin.
The Walker-Kleefisch administration was notorious for championing policies that hurt Wisconsinites for their own political gain.
Expanding BadgerCare at the time Kleefisch was in office would have:
- Made 82,000 Wisconsinites eligible for care,
- Saved the state $643 million,
- Decreased the uninsured population by sixteen percent.
As if blocking access to affordable health care wasn’t enough, Kleefisch also supported a lawsuit that Walker authorized, which would have ended protections for 2.5 million Wisconsinites with pre-existing conditions. And while Kleefisch railed against expanding affordable health care for all Wisconsinites, she benefited greatly from her husband’s government-run health care plan.
Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Ben Wikler released the following statement:
“Nine years ago, Rebecca Kleefisch and Scott Walker decided to put partisan political spite above health care for Wisconsinites. Today, their failure on BadgerCare expansion still blocks 90,000 people from affordable health care. And for what? All because Kleefisch and Walker couldn’t stand that the check was signed by a Democratic president. Republicans will do anything to make sure Democrats fail, even if it comes at the expense of Wisconsinites.
“We can’t trust Rebecca Kleefisch with our health care. Her radical agenda for our state includes stripping away Wisconsinites’ right to make their own personal reproductive health care decisions, repealing the Affordable Care Act—which would result in more than a million Wisconsinites losing their health insurance—and continuing to reject BadgerCare expansion, which means Wisconsinites’ taxes go to pay for insurance in other states because we refuse to accept $1.6 billion in federal dollars. . We’ve already watched Walker and Kleefisch turn up their noses at high-speed trains built for Wisconsin. Let’s not let Kleefisch give away our taxpayer money and our health care too.”
