Study: BadgerCare expands health care coverage for low-income families

Wisconsin’s BadgerCare program is expanding health insurance coverage for families who have left welfare, says a just-published paper by scholars from the Robert M. La Follette School of Public Affairs and the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

“We find that BadgerCare means fewer poor families are going without health insurance,” says La Follette School Director Barbara Wolfe. “The program is working very well.

“This finding is especially significant because other states and the federal government are studying the program’s eligibility criteria, financing and benefit structure,” she adds.

Wolfe is the first author on a paper appearing in the November Journal of Health Economics. Her co-authors are Robert Haveman of the La Follette School, Thomas Kaplan of the Institute for Research on Poverty, and Yoonyoung Cho, who is now with the Korea Development Institute in Seoul. She received her Ph.D. in economics from UW–Madison in 2006.

Families on cash assistance receive health care coverage through Medicaid, Wolfe says, but as they move off cash assistance and their earnings increase, they quickly lose eligibility for Medicaid.

A 1997 federal initiative called the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), implemented as BadgerCare in Wisconsin, offers publicly financed coverage for children at higher income levels than does Medicaid.

In Wisconsin, initial eligibility is set at 185 percent of the federal poverty level, and enrollment can continue until a family’s income grows to 200 percent of the federal poverty level. In addition, BadgerCare covers parents, not just children.

“Wisconsin was one of only four states that initially expanded coverage to parents of eligible children,” Wolfe says. “BadgerCare is one of the country’s most extensive state reforms in response to SCHIP.”

BadgerCare started in July 1999. Six years later, research shows that BadgerCare is increasing the health insurance coverage of low-income families, which is what the program intended to do, Wolfe says.

“We conducted several analyses, all of which indicate that BadgerCare substantially increased public health care coverage for mother-only families leaving welfare,” Wolfe says. “For all adults leaving welfare, BadgerCare increased public health care coverage by 17 to 25 percent.”