Madison— Republicans on the Legislature's budget committee Wednesday backed some but not all of Gov. Scott Walker's sweeping proposals to overhaul the state's long-term care system for elderly and disabled people and restructure Wisconsin's first-in-the-nation worker's compensation system.
The Joint Finance Committee voted 12-4 along party lines to clear the way for major changes to Family Care and IRIS, two programs that care for tens of thousands of vulnerable individuals outside nursing homes.
The motion by Republicans would add new protections but would still authorize the Walker administration to seek the go-ahead from federal officials to reshape the system.
In other action on Walker's budget bill, Republicans voted over Democratic objections to put new limits on the use of local room taxes; earmark taxpayer dollars for several private building projects; increase fraud penalties in the state's unemployment program; and require the state to study leasing buildings outside Milwaukee and Dane counties, the state's two most urban areas.
In the biggest change to Family Care, the proposal approved Wednesday would aim to combine both long-term care and ordinary medical care. The program would even seek to coordinate the state program with federal Medicare coverage — an effort that critics said would be difficult to achieve without the consent of patients.
Lynn Breedlove, a leader of the Wisconsin Long-Term Coalition, said he remained concerned that the proposal would shift the system to large out-of-state insurance companies and away from its current network of regional nonprofits that provide most of the care.