Wisconsin expands postpartum Medicaid for up to a year, after near-unanimous vote

Wisconsin lawmakers on Thursday approved expanded postpartum Medicaid coverage for new mothers, a move that would extend coverage for up to a year after childbirth and, once signed, leave Arkansas as the only state that has not expanded such benefits, the Associated Press reported.

The Assembly’s action came as Wisconsin’s two-year legislative session neared its end, during a period of last-minute negotiations, according to the AP. The measures advanced after being approved by the state Senate earlier, setting up the next step with Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, who is expected to sign the bills next week.

The postpartum Medicaid change is designed to extend coverage from the current two-month period to a full year after giving birth for low-income mothers who make more than the poverty level, the AP reported. Wisconsin Democrats and even most Republicans had pushed for the expansion for years, the report said, and the effort had been blocked for a time by Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos.

Late Wednesday, Vos relented, and the Assembly passed the Medicaid expansion measure on Thursday. The AP said the bill drew bipartisan support, passing 95-1.

The bill is expected to land with Evers following Thursday’s Assembly vote, and the AP said the change would have a national impact by singling out Arkansas as the remaining state without expanded postpartum Medicaid for new mothers. The AP described Wisconsin as having one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the country.

The AP said Arkansas, while lacking the postpartum expansion, previously passed significant maternal-health legislation. Under that earlier Wisconsin law, pregnant women can temporarily receive Medicaid coverage while their eligibility is being processed, and Medicaid covers doula services and remote monitoring of vitals; however, Democrats and some Republicans said the previous legislation did not include postpartum extension.

In Arkansas, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders called for a maternal health package after opposing the postpartum extension and said other coverage options were available, the AP reported. In Wisconsin, the Medicaid expansion and the separate breast cancer screening legislation were also moving in a legislative window that included Republican and Evers efforts to negotiate a broader package involving tax cuts and school spending, according to the AP’s account of the session’s endgame.

Alongside the postpartum Medicaid measure, the Wisconsin Assembly unanimously passed a bill requiring insurance coverage for additional cancer screenings for women with dense breast tissue, the AP reported. The AP said Republican lawmakers also shared stories about how breast cancer affected loved ones as they backed the screening bill.

Democratic Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer helped lead the push for both bills and announced on Wednesday that she was pregnant and that her mother had breast cancer, according to the AP. Neubauer said Democrats would “stop at nothing to get a vote on these bills,” and she described Thursday’s passage as “an incredible win for women and the people of Wisconsin.”

With the Medicaid and dense-breast screening bills now cleared by the Assembly and the Senate, other high-profile legislation was still at risk of failing as the session ended, the AP said. Among the items described as potentially ending: negotiations over continued funding for WisconsinEye, a nonprofit state version of C-SPAN, and the nearly 40-year-old land conservation program that faced extinction as lawmakers had not agreed on funding beyond June 30.

Sources reported by the AP included contributions from Todd Richmond in Madison and Isabella Volmert in Lansing.