Wisconsin Lawmakers Ask Trump To Address Federal Data Sharing Dispute Impacting Veterans
Lawmakers want to use data tool to help veterans connect to benefits.
Milwaukee VA Medical Center. (Public Domain).
More than a dozen Wisconsin lawmakers are calling on the Trump administration to allow for enhanced data sharing between federal agencies to help the state better identify veterans who are eligible for benefits.
The state lawmakers — 12 Republicans and one Democrat — signed a letter to President Donald Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. this week, asking the federal government to take action.
According to the letter, a federal data sharing dispute between the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs has prevented state officials from using a federal data sharing tool. The state wants to use that tool to identify veterans who are enrolled in the state Medicaid program who are also eligible for benefits through the Department of Veterans Affairs.
“This federal dispute limits states’ ability to recover Medicaid costs or coordinate care when a veteran is eligible for federal military-related benefits,” the letter reads.
The lawmakers say the data sharing would ensure veterans’ federal benefits take priority over state assistance. They argue it would provide savings for state taxpayers and allow veterans to access “comprehensive and more generous federal supports” available for veterans.
“There’s just a higher quality of care, outcomes and access with the VA, rather than Medicaid,” said state Sen. André Jacque, R-New Franken, who signed the letter to the administration. “But then, of course, there’s all the other supportive services … other vocational and educational services.”
In 2023, Jacque introduced a bill that would require the Wisconsin Department of Health Services to use the federal data tool to identify veterans or dependents receiving state benefits who are eligible for federal military-related benefit, and encourage those individuals to apply for federal benefits. That bill failed to pass in the state Senate.
Jacque said county veteran service officers told him veterans are often hesitant to look into federal benefits on their own, and there’s only so much outreach they can do at the local level. He said the state already uses the federal tool to identify overlapping services, but this would allow it to be used to help veterans receive benefits they earned through their service.
In his correspondence with state health officials at the time, however, Jacque said he learned the U.S. Department of Defense ended its data sharing agreement with the federal agency that administers Medicaid and Medicare in 2017. Until that issue is resolved, the state health department told him it would not be able to anticipate any savings from the 2023 bill.
He said the idea came from a program Washington state created to identify veterans in its Medicaid program who were eligible for federal benefits and referred them to providers.
According to a 2019 brief from the Washington State Health Authority, the initiative resulted in more than $100 million in cost savings for the state since it was launched in 2004 and created an average per-veteran savings of roughly $371 per month.
In conversations with Washington state officials, Jacque was told the federal data sharing issues have become an obstacle in recent years, making it more difficult to coordinate benefits.
“This is something that is a tool that has been used very effectively in other states to not only deal with overlapping services — and it’s resulted in substantial savings in other states before there was this data dispute — but it also allowed for better management of veterans services at the local level,” Jacque said.
Jacque said he hopes federal officials act on the issue.
“Part of the goal of this letter is to find a way to connect veterans with the benefits that they’ve earned,” he said.
But the effort comes following reports last month that the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs planned to cut 80,000 jobs. The Trump administration’s broader federal layoffs have also drawn criticism from some veterans groups. According to Pew Research Center, veterans made up about a quarter of the federal workforce as of September 2024.
Wisconsin lawmakers ask Trump administration to address data sharing dispute between military, health agency was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.
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