With health cost unaffordability now a top issue with the voters and businesses across the state, and the primary election less than four months away, why haven’t the eight candidates for governor addressed cost prices in a serious way?
The seven Democrats in the race are all seeking more access to care, but they have been silent on the all-important cost issue.
Past weeks have brought to the fore two more articles on Wisconsin’s extraordinarily high health costs. The Health Care Cost Institute published a study showing Wisconsin with the third highest overall health costs in the country. Three of the 10 highest cost communities in the United States were in Janesville, Racine, and Green Bay.
The Center for Research on the Wisconsin Economy released a report on “Rising Health Costs” in Wisconsin that noted health costs are rising much faster than wages.
Those reports follow an earlier Rand Report that found Wisconsin hospital costs were fourth highest in the nation and highest in the Midwest.
Only Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, the state biggest business lobby, made a public comment, calling Wisconsin’s health costs “egregious.”
With help from Tom Hefty, retired CEO of Blue-Cross Wisconsin, here’s a run-down of the cost issues:
Wisconsin hospitals pay roughly the same for buildings and equipment as hospitals in other states.
Frequently blamed for high costs are the malpractice insurance premiums. Wisconsin malpractice costs are among the lowest in the county.
Another excuse has been the rising cost of salaries. But statistics show Wisconsin nursing pay significantly below the national average. The Lown Institute publishes a social responsibility index for hospitals and hospital systems. Wisconsin hospitals generally receive an “A” grade for outcomes; an average “B” grade for social responsibility; but a “D” grade for pay equity that compares starting pay in the hospital to executive compensation.
At the heart of the cost disparity, Wisconsin has experienced a frenzy of hospital and health system mergers during the tenures of Evers and Kaul. A staff report to the Evers group insurance board, which administers health benefits for state and local government employees, noted that the mergers and increasing concentration in the hospital markets may explain the price increases that always follow consolidations. Other national studies point to the same conclusion. They are motivated by gaining pricing power.
Eight out of nine Wisconsin hospital system mergers involved hospitals with their own health insurance subsidiaries. The attorney general has the power to review those mergers; unlike other states, he has not done so.
———
State and federal taxpayers have spent enormous money directly and indirectly on our most expensive in the world healthcare industrial complex.
———-
A recent example from the 7.1.2025 Wisconsin Earmark Transparency Report on the Joint Finance Committee’s Substitute Amendments to 2025 SB 45/AB 50:
Health Services (UW Hospital Uncompensated Care Supplement) (Motion #74)
2025-27 appropriation: $14,000,000 GPR
Beneficiary: University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics
Senate District: 26
Assembly District: 77
———-
Note the growth in Wisconsin healthcare $pending.
———
Healthcare cost explosions eat school district’s ability to spend more on teacher salaries…..
The curious WEAC Roys endorsement.