Wisconsin Assembly Approves Bills Regarding Public Health Insurance and Unemployment Insurance

Thursday, April 27th, 2023 -- 11:00 AM

(By Anya van Wagtendonk, Wisconsin Public Radio) Access to public health insurance and unemployment insurance in Wisconsin would be tightened under a slate of bills approved largely along party lines in the state Assembly on Tuesday.

According to Anya van Wagtendonk with the Wisconsin Public Radio, Republican lawmakers approved the legislation they say is aimed at addressing the state's workforce shortage. They argued that at a time of record unemployment, 2.5 percent in March, no employers should struggle to fill jobs.

Democrats argued that people who can work but don't are facing a different crisis: lack of access to child care, housing and transportation. They called on their colleagues to address those issues instead of unemployment insurance.

The bills passed on Tuesday included five Republicans who say it will restrict people from using unemployment insurance instead of working. Republicans also approved legislation to stop communities from using public dollars to fund guaranteed income programs; collect data on how state workforce development projects operate and disenroll people from BadgerCare, the state's public health insurance program for low-income people.

The bills were passed after hours of impassioned debate with Democrats, who argued that these changes to public programs would harm low-income people and the working poor by making it harder to access needed benefits.

The legislation next heads to the GOP-controlled Senate, which is also expected to approve them. Gov. Tony Evers has vetoed similar bills passed during prior legislative sessions, and is likely to do the same with these.

The bills were re-introduced earlier this month, after Wisconsin voters overwhelmingly approved a nonbinding advisory referendum supporting the idea that "able-bodied, childless adults" must be required to look for work if they receive public benefits.

Asked by reporters why GOP leaders would bring forward bills unlikely to be signed, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, cited the results of that election. "Hopefully Gov. Evers looks at the results of what happened around the state, and realizes that he should have probably signed them before and that most of these bills should be bipartisan," Vos said.

Put together, the unemployment insurance bills would add reasons for which someone could be denied unemployment payments, create a reporting process for when a person turns down or no-shows an interview or job offer and expand the system to check for fraud and abuse.

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