Women in Wisconsin will soon be eligible to receive expanded Medicaid coverage for up to a year after giving birth after the Wisconsin Assembly passed a measure on Thursday, following near-unanimous approval in a late-session push to break a long-running impasse. The action, after the Senate already approved the plan, is expected to move next to Democratic Gov. Tony Evers for a signature next week, setting up an outcome supporters say will leave Arkansas as the only state without expanded postpartum Medicaid coverage.
The Assembly vote came after years of attempts by Wisconsin Democrats—and even some Republicans—to expand Medicaid for new mothers. The bill had been blocked for a time by Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, who had argued he opposed expanding welfare programs, but Vos relented late Wednesday, according to the Associated Press.
The Assembly also cleared another health measure Thursday that would require insurance to cover additional cancer screenings for women with dense breast tissue. The cancer-screening bill passed 95-1, after state Republicans and Democrats reached agreement on the measure alongside the Medicaid proposal.
Because both bills already received approval in the Wisconsin Senate, the legislation now depends on Gov. Evers. The governor is expected to sign the measures next week, with the postpartum Medicaid expansion set to replace the current two-month postpartum coverage period rather than extending coverage beyond it.
Supporters framed the Medicaid change as an increase in time on coverage for low-income mothers who make more than the poverty level. Under the expansion, those mothers could remain on the state’s Medicaid program for a full year after giving birth, instead of the current two-month window, according to the Associated Press report.
Democrats and some Republicans also pointed to Wisconsin’s maternal health record as context for the proposal. The article said Wisconsin has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the country, while noting that the state passed other maternal healthcare steps last year, including a rule allowing pregnant women to temporarily receive Medicaid coverage while eligibility is processed and coverage for doula services and remote monitoring of vitals.
Arkansas, by contrast, did not pass postpartum Medicaid expansion legislation that would match Wisconsin’s approach. The report said Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders had called for a maternal health package in Arkansas after opposing a postpartum extension, saying there were other coverage options, while still leaving Wisconsin’s move to broaden postpartum coverage positioned against the remaining gap between the two states.
The Medicaid and breast cancer screening votes broke what the report described as a logjam during the flurry of last-minute negotiations near the end of Wisconsin’s two-year legislative session. The Wisconsin Republicans and Evers administration were also attempting to negotiate a package involving tax cuts, school spending and other measures that the report said would draw on the state’s estimated $2.5 billion budget surplus.
Greta Neubauer, the Democratic Assembly minority leader, led the push for passage of both the Medicaid and breast cancer screening measures, and the report said Neubauer announced this week she was pregnant and that her mother had breast cancer, adding that Democrats would “stop at nothing to get a vote on these bills.” The report said she called the expected passage of the measures “an incredible win for women and the people of Wisconsin,” while Republican lawmakers also shared stories about relatives affected by breast cancer as part of the campaign for the screening bill.
While the two health packages cleared, the Associated Press report said several other high-profile bills were poised to die as lawmakers did not reach agreement before the session’s end. Among them, Republicans had not agreed on how to fund the continued operation of WisconsinEye, described as a nonprofit state version of C-SPAN, and the nearly 40-year-old land conservation program faced extinction as lawmakers had yet to agree on continued funding beyond June 30.