Four Health Care Questions For Wisconsin Political Candidates

Hospital waiting area. (Public Domain)

There are many important health care issues candidates for governor, attorney general and the Legislature should be debating before the Nov. 3 elections. Consider just four of them.

Immunizations

The Department of Health Services reported 166 cases of measles in Wisconsin last week and said 99% of those with the disease had not been vaccinated. Fewer Wisconsin parents, especially in counties like Vernon, are having their children vaccinated.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends a 95% community vaccination rate to prevent measles outbreaks. Guidelines call for children to be vaccinated after their first birthday, and again around age 5.

The CDC estimates that 84.8% of Wisconsin’s kindergartners had both doses in the 2023-24 school year. Only Alaska ranked lower.

In 2023, the most recent year with available data, 81.6% of Wisconsin’s 2-year-olds had at least one dose of the measles vaccine, according to DHS. That’s down from 88.2% in 2013.

Question for candidates: Are current immunization laws enough, or do they need reform?

Health care worker shortage

Gov. Tony Evers’ task force on the shortage of health care workers, especially in rural areas, recommended many changes in 2024. One of them, allowing advanced practice nurses, became law Sept. 1.

In February, Ann Zenk, the Wisconsin Hospital Association vice president of workforce and clinic practice, called the shortage “a race against time.” The organization warned of a looming silver tsunami as older physicians retire.

“Health care demand is projected to rise 10% by 2040 while our working-age population continues to shrink. We’re growing the workforce, but not fast enough to meet the needs of an aging population,” Zenk said. “Residents 65 and older, who use health care at more than twice the rate of working-age adults and five times the rate of those younger than 16, represent the fastest-growing segment of the population. 93% of adults 65 and older have at least one chronic condition, and 79% have two or more…An increase in health care demand is unavoidable.”

Question for candidates: Do you support the recommendations of the WHA and governor’s task force?

High hospital rates

Three studies have found that Wisconsin hospital rates are among the highest in the nation.

An April 6 report by the Center for Research on the Wisconsin Economy found that “Wisconsin hospitals now charge the fourth-highest prices in the nation — and the highest in the Midwest — at 321% of Medicare rates.” Also, ”69% of Wisconsin employers say rising health care costs have already forced them to cut hiring, slash investment, reduce compensation, or raise prices,” and “the same procedure can cost vastly different amounts across Wisconsin hospitals. Median negotiated rates for a diagnostic colonoscopy, for example, range from around $1,469 at Marshfield/Sanford to more than $4,600 at Froedtert Milwaukee.”

An August report by the Center concluded that Wisconsin hospital prices are about 26% higher than in Illinois. “Advocate Health operates hospitals on both sides of the Illinois-Wisconsin border. Within this single system…Wisconsin hospitals are paid about 23% more for inpatient services than the system’s Illinois hospitals.”

A 2024 RAND report ranked Wisconsin “fifth among states with the highest hospital prices.”

Studies have linked higher costs to hospital mergers, which have occurred as Wisconsin hospitals have been bought by out-of-state systems. State officials have not challenged those mergers.

Question to candidates: Other states have limited hospital charges to 200% of Medicare rates. Should Wisconsin join them?

Racial disparity in infant mortality

Although the America’s Health Report ranked Wisconsin 21st in health outcomes nationally, the Capi Times found that Wisconsin is “worst in the nation when it comes to the rate at which Black babies die before reaching age 1.”

“In 2024, the most recent year for which the Wisconsin Department of Health Services has publicized data, the state had an infant mortality rate of 12.5 deaths for every 1,000 live births among Black babies. For white babies, that rate was 4.8,” the Cap Times reported. “Between 2015 and 2024, nearly 850 Black babies died in Wisconsin before turning 1, according to state data. Over the first half of that decade, nearly 25% of the deaths of Black infants were caused by being born…too early and too small to survive.”

Question to candidates: How can that disparity be closed?

And, candidates for Wisconsin’s eight U.S. House seats, where do you stand on cuts coming in January in Wisconsin’s Medicaid program?

Steven Walters started covering the Capitol in 1988. Contact him at stevenscotwalters@gmail.com.