The BadgerCare Plus Core Plan will begin wait-listing applicants after Friday, Oct. 9, Gov. Jim Doyle announced Monday at St. Mary's Hospital. Doyle promised a transition plan for wait-listed applicants.
The Core Plan provides access to basic health-care services to uninsured, childless adults under age 64. The program began enrollment last June, and according to Doyle, 60,000 applications have been received since then.
Doyle said he expects over 70,000 applications by the end of the week. The state presently can afford to cover 54,000 people.
Although Doyle and the Department of Health Services are trying to recruit as many eligible people as possible for the program before Friday, they devised a bare-bones plan for those on the waiting list.
Doyle described the transition program as ""a basic plan"" that gives waiting list applicants limited access to some health services.
""It will protect those people, it will protect the hospitals and it will protect the rest of us from increasing health costs,"" he said.
He admitted that the program is not comparable to the Core Plan. Those covered will receive access to doctors and some prescription medications but will still have to pay premiums.
""The fact that we have to implement a waiting list is not surprising ... the fact that we have to apply a waiting list three months after the first application is,"" Doyle said in reaction to the overwhelming number of applicants to the program.
Doyle insisted the high demand is indicative of the need for action in Washington D.C. He said Wisconsin has done all it can to provide health services to the uninsured yet people are still ""falling through the cracks.""
However, Doyle remains optimistic that the success of the Core Plan will inspire other states to set up similar programs of their own.
""We have set an example for other states who have said that government just can't afford to expand health coverage. It can be done, and it must be done to protect the health of individuals and families of this state.""
