Vital Signs: Budget repair bill gives Walker free hand to revamp, cut Medicaid programs

[54anickel]

http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/health_med_fit/vital_signs/article_979fd798-385c-11e0-b233-001cc4c03286.html?sourcetrack=moreArticle

Lost in all the sound and fury over labor issues in Gov. Scott Walker's budget repair bill is a clause that would give the administration sweeping new powers to revamp and even gut Medicaid programs.

Walker has put the legislation on a fast track and hopes to get it approved by the Republican-controlled legislature during this week's special session.

Over the weekend, public health advocates started raising the alarm, and this afternoon the non-partisan agency in charge of analyzing the controversial bill sent a memo to Democratic Rep. Peter Barca that would seem to confirm complaints that the Medicaid provision, buried deep in the budget-repair bill, would give the Walker administration unprecedented power to revamp the state's BadgerCare programs without following the legislative processes, public vetting, and even state laws normally required.

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"It undermines the constitutional balance of power between the executive and legislative branches by abrogating the law-writing function of the Legislature," Riemer notes.

[CatholicEdHead]

1. Walker has a de facto dicatorship right now

and that is how it is coming across by racing all these extreme bills in as soon as he and the GOP Legislature took office. No real debate just push, push push. :puke: