How has the introduction of BadgerCare Plus affected access to health care in Wisconsin?
FRIEDSAM: BadgerCare Plus has significantly improved access, with over 90,000 new members—over 60,000 of them children—in its first 9 months. But we have to address a variety of disparities in costs and health outcomes. Although Wisconsin gets high marks for quality, it has very poor outcomes for minority populations and is among the highest in health disparities among states. For private insurers and employers, Wisconsin is also a high cost state. Medical care in six of our metropolitan areas is ranked among the highest priced regions in the country. Does BadgerCare Plus address these disparities? OLIVER: The fundamental question is whether a state first must walk the path to universal coverage before it can turn its attention to quality and efficiency. Which way does the causal arrow point? History and international experience suggests that coverage should come first in order to adequately tackle questions of efficiency. From a pragmatic standpoint, however, there is a need to deal w
