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.
"Let's be clear, this new plan is just the governor's proposal in sheep's clothing," Breedlove said. "Thousands of people expressed opposition to dismantling the current system, but the Legislature is doing it anyway."
Republican lawmakers on the Joint Finance Committee pushed back, saying that they had significantly improved the governor's plan by giving nonprofit providers at least a chance to stay in business; allowing for more input by elderly and disabled groups; and ensuring that qualifying individuals can still choose to receive a budget from taxpayers and then manage their care themselves.
The proposal would also leave in place a network of resource centers for those patients around the state and require that any final plan would receive approval from the budget committee. It would keep Walker's plan to find $14.3 million in cost saving through the changes in the last year of the two-year budget.
"There are several very significant departures from the governor's plan," said Rep. Dean Knudson (R-Hudson), who worked on the issue.
"I resent some of the tactics from the Democrats here, scaring people with disabilities and making them think they're not going to get those services," said Sen. Leah Vukmir of Wauwatosa, who also helped craft the GOP plan.
Lisa Pugh, a lobbyist for Disability Rights Wisconsin, said she was disappointed because those affected by the changes were guaranteed much more input by lawmakers.
"We were promised that stakeholders were going to be at the table," she said.
Family Care provides long-term care outside nursing homes to some 41,000 elderly and disabled people throughout Wisconsin using state and federal money. Lawmakers backed Walker's proposal to expand Family Care by Jan. 1, 2017, to the state's eight remaining counties without it, including Dane County.
There are nine nonprofit providers in Family Care serving different regions. Going forward there would be five regions with multiple providers in each.
Advocates for the elderly and disabled said the budget proposal could force vulnerable people into turmoil by eventually requiring them to change doctors, care workers who visit their homes, or even the group homes where they live.