Real People, Real Pain, Real Stories (Hour 2)

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You're listening to Mornings with Pat Kratlow powered by Up North News.

Now, for my Lake WSOTA studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Kratlow.

Good morning, it's 7 0 6.

Nice to have you here back up north on this Thursday morning, May 29th, a very short three-day work week for yours truly after Memorial Day on Monday.

And I will be off tomorrow for a grandson graduating high school.

doesn't feel real to me either, but Todd Alba will be here pinch hitting tomorrow.

Coming up yet this hour, we'll talk to Jeremy Gratured from Citizen Action, who brings along another guest to talk about Medicaid cuts and the real life impact on real Wisconsin families if the Trump budget were to go through as passed by the US House.

Now it still has to get through the US Senate where folks like Ron Johnson said yesterday at a Milwaukee Press Club event that he would not support the bill in its current form.

But it appears that Ron Johnson, then either before or after the Milwaukee Press Club event, went and spoke to the student body and medical staff and doctors at the Medical College of Wisconsin.

At least I haven't seen a new story on it, but I've seen some messages on the text line from Matt in Germantown, and I'm seeing some chatter on Reddit as well, including a link of a recording of the Ron Johnson visit.

And so we're going to talk more about how he was not really given a break by the audience, who actually laughed at him a couple of times talking about his mistrust of doctors and still pushing Iver Mecton, you know, horse dewormer as a cure for COVID.

So that's so among the topics we'll get into.

But first off, we've got to get to a forecast, which is going to be just glorious for the weekend.

So with Parker Olson standing by in Madison, Greg Bucket Radio Park, let's go to

meteorologist Brittany Merleau for more about that forecast.

It is a cloudy cool one up here this morning so far, Brittany.

Yes, it sure is.

Temperatures across the state right now ranging from about 45 degrees in Ashland to 55 degrees all across the Fox Valley, mostly cloudy for most of us across the state.

Even some spots near the state line far south.

You're looking at foggy conditions, even some mist.

Some sunny sprinkles are still occasional into the central areas of the state and their spots of sunshine far north into Hayward Superior area.

And what we're looking at today is spots of sunshine, still clouds hanging out out there, and of course more chances for rain.

Some scattered showers and storms could spark up later on this afternoon, probably from about two o'clock to about six or so.

We have those chances.

highs today will get a little bit more mild upper sixties far south to mid seventies far north.

But we're also looking at some patchy wildfire smoke starting to make its way into the area tonight, especially far north.

We're going to see those winds start to get a little feisty tomorrow.

They're going to be breezy around 30 miles per hour as that wildfire smoke starts to move in here a little bit, but a little bit warmer tomorrow, low to mid seventies.

The cold front does sag through the state, which could spark up some more showers and storms midday than as we go into the weekend.

and much drier conditions and warmer too.

Saturday is a little crisper, mid-60s to mid-70s, but as we go into Sunday, we're gonna be into the upper 70s, hitting the mid-80s into next week.

Isn't that just thinking about how you said it was gonna be crisper?

And crisp is one of those, can you either mean like cool and crisp out, or it can be like bacon that you've cooked a little too long.

And you're definitely thinking it's gonna be the latter.

We're gonna be like crispy bacon by the end

of this hot

spell coming up.

Yeah, we are summer is really going to surge in here I mean the humidity is gonna be into the mid 60s with dew points by the weekend So we're gonna start to feel muggy and sticky and then next week.

It's gonna be pretty oppressive and gross out there

Oppressive

and gross.

Can you

for Monday's forecast?

Just make it all food related like

yeah,

it's gonna be oppressive and gross like a hot steamer making rice, you know, like I don't know

I'm

better at hot buttons.

I'm sorry.

I'm better at

hot buttons.

Okay.

I just, I just mentioned bacon and like everything's bacon.

So

yeah, but Brittany is that mind of, oh, yes.

He could do it.

Oh yeah.

Totally improv queen.

Yes.

I've said this before and I'll say it again.

The way you sprinkle the word flirting with.

Yes.

Into the forecast.

I've never heard that before and it makes, it makes the weather so much nicer to listen to about.

It is.

Oh, thank you.

We do.

You know, you said sprinkled and it made me think of that joke where it's every time a meteorologist says sprinkles are in the forecast, there's a guy holding a donut outside of a window.

Oh, it's funny.

That's a new joke to us.

That's funny.

I like that.

Weather humor.

It's the best.

Thank you, Brittany.

We'll talk to you later.

All right.

What a win for the Brewers yesterday afternoon.

Once again, a walk-off win in the 10th inning, sweeping all three games from the Boston Red Sox, and the Brewers now have a four-game winning streak going after that 6-5 final.

Caleb Durbin had a sack fly in the 10th inning that allowed a speedy South Freelik to beat the throw home.

So that is now the Brewers' second four-game winning streak of the season.

And because of it, the Brewers are back at 528 wins.

88 losses, third place in the NL Central.

Six and a half games back of the Cubs.

The Brewers are off today.

They are traveling to Philadelphia for the weekend.

They're going to have their work cut out for them.

The Phillies have the second best record in baseball right now and have won nine of their last 10 games, but...

You can catch that series between the Brewers and the Phillies on several civic media radio stations, including Richland Center, Oshkosh, Racine Kenosha, Park Falls, and Hayward.

Head over to civicmedia.us to learn more.

If you follow the NBA playoffs, the Minnesota Timberwolves were eliminated yesterday by the Oklahoma City Thunder.

All right, so this next discussion about Ron Johnson at the Medical College of Wisconsin was prompted first off by Matt from Germantown on the text line, who also said he would be willing to call in and talk about it.

So, you know, Matt, if you're still willing to, you know the number here, 855-75 Civic, 855-752-4842.

I'm gonna start with this theme thread rather on Reddit.

and look at Matt's comments as well, but somebody posts there just want to say how proud I am of the Medical College of Wisconsin student body.

and medical staff and doctors in attendance at this Q&A with Ron Johnson answering live questions from medical students and professionals.

Very surprised he actually agreed to do this in person for not giving him a break regarding his stance on the COVID vaccine being dangerous, his support for funding cuts, and his rhetoric claiming we shouldn't trust

doctors.

This person says that he's been laughed at en masse multiple times and is stumbling over his answers and provides a link to the recording.

And as I was looking through some of the comments, it included one that particularly got a laugh out of the crowd.

He told a room of medical professionals, quote, personally for me and a lot of people I know, we no longer trust doctors.

He said that to a group of

medical students, doctors and staff.

So Matt mentioned as well that he said that the lead crisis is best handled at the local level and doesn't think the federal government should help.

Which I guess that same logic carries over into natural disasters because you're at a point where something overwhelms a local area, a tornado, a hurricane, an earthquake.

a city full of lead paint or lead pipes, which again, is not just a problem in Milwaukee, it's in communities throughout the state.

Milwaukee's the biggest city, so you hear more about it there.

But again, saying, well, everybody pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and there should be, everybody should have to fix themselves locally.

Do you know what Florida would still look like right now after Hurricane Andrew, which was what, 30 years ago, if that was the case?

or any other place for that matter.

The whole notion of this country coming together with its pooled resources and helping one another in a time of need is as American as it gets of helping out our neighbor when their house burns down and not saying, oh, tough for you.

Hope things get better.

But Matt from Germantown goes on to say, Ron Johnson argued, no one trusts medical people anymore saying that it's their fault, not his, and that we should all work with Robert Kennedy Jr.

rather than ridiculing him in order to restore trust in our medical system.

He also, according to Matt's text says this line, quote, I've never heard of a poor person creating jobs.

Wow.

I've never heard of a poor person creating jobs.

Apparently, Steve Jobs, no pun intended, was already a billionaire when he created Apple.

And every other thing you want to list that created gobs of jobs started with somebody who apparently was not one of the pours, Mr. Bach.

I'm not poor.

I will never claim to be poor, and I feel lucky for that.

being poor is a heavy implication, but I am a business owner and I have created jobs.

I'm not rich.

I'm not super rich.

I'm not a millionaire at all.

And while I don't have to worry about my bills on a day to day basis, I'm not Ron Johnson wealthy.

And his statement is both stupid and

wrong.

Well, it's just repugnant on so many levels and it's it's somewhat ironic given that he was not so much born into money as Married into it and a family business that he did not start I'm not gonna take any credit away from him for anything he might have done to help it grow but Don't don't again Give us this line of baloney that no jobs have been created by poor people

It's just ridiculous on its face.

And then, of course, he went on to once again criticize the medical community for, again, not embracing horse dewormer Ivor Mekton as a cure for COVID.

Earlier, Ron Johnson told a Milwaukee Press Club event, I should say earlier or later.

I'm not sure which part of the day he did these in.

He did not rule out running for a fourth term.

He said he was simply a guy from Oshkosh trying to save the country.

I would remind people that the whole reason he ran for this third term, even though he promised he was only going to serve two terms, was he had to take care of a particular constituency.

Do you remember, Greg, what that was?

The vaccinated injured.

Yes.

The vaccine

injured.

The vaccine injured.

My goodness.

Yes, Parker.

This went over my head.

Oh, boy.

Yeah.

Oh, you

missed that originally?

I missed that

originally, yeah.

Yes.

Okay.

So, yeah, this was a morning event at the Medical College of Wisconsin where he said this and then wound him up to go to tell the Milwaukee Press Club later on that he, he does not enjoy being a senator, he said, but he also said never say never when it comes to the prospect of a fourth term.

Again, he wouldn't have won the third term had it not been for billionaires

putting tens of millions of dollars into wildly racist ads about Mandela Barnes.

That is the only reason he won.

Those billionaires dragged his carcass across the finish line.

This is a guy who has never been above 50% approval.

He's always been underwater in terms of public approval and yet he's won each of his three elections by, you know, criticizing the other

people, those people, you people enough that he's able to stay in office, pretend to be holier than thou, and have the audacity to go talk to a group of medical professionals, lecture them, and say nobody trusts them, says one of the foremost conspiracy theorists, not just in the Senate, but in the country.

And I don't doubt that someday the tinfoil hat

will be given a name in honor of Ron Johnson called the, you know, the Johnson tinfoil hat or something like that for what he's doing.

But there's there's the story based on a couple of different folks mad on the text line and from another thread online about what Ron Johnson had to say in Milwaukee yesterday.

Now he'll head back home to Florida.

We'll pause here and thank you very much for joining us on this Thursday as we do all these weekday mornings across the Civic Media Radio Network.

I'm Pat

Crightlow.

Stay up to date on the latest news and information for your local community and Wisconsin by signing up for our free email newsletter.

Visit civicmedia.us slash email to get started.

Welcome back on this Thursday morning, May 29th, live from Chippewa Falls.

I'm Pat Critello.

Parker Olson is in Madison.

Greg Bach is at Radio Park in Racine, where Greg Bach will later be joining Jane Mattenair for a little show they like to call Mattenair on Air with all kinds of good guests and fun things for your entertainment, listening entertainment, which today includes

Well, that'd be Brittany Merleau, of course, joining you on this Thursday morning.

What else you got?

We got at 9 30 every Thursday.

He's here to talk about all the law in the news, the host of amicus, a law review, Mr. James Santel, former US attorney, practicing attorney currently, and just all around good man, tie enthusiasts.

So he'll be here at 9 30 talking about that.

He's here every Thursday.

And then at

10 30, we will have sports writer from the journal Sentinel J R Radcliffe here to break down all the news in sports.

And I think we're going to be talking significantly about this resurgence in the brewers, which we're really, really liking.

And I'm going to ask him a question.

I asked our other guy, Paul Newton last week, which is.

is the shine coming off of Pat Murphy.

So he'll

be on at

10 30.

And yes, as you mentioned, Brittany Merleau will be here and she'll be on at 10 20 with weather and wine, expounding upon the, uh, the weather reports she gave us just earlier.

But yeah.

And then of course this shouldn't be a thing at the end of the show.

I'm

sorry.

Weather

and wine.

That's what

I was

thinking.

Yeah, we call that because it's Brittany Merlot.

We call the

weather and whiner.

I see.

Let me give the Robert De Niro finger wag.

You, you see what you did there and the hot buttons are still in play.

Whether in in hindsight, were there any hot buttons you didn't play during last hour's rant that you wish you could have?

Really couldn't make pigeon mama work.

That's a new one.

That's

but I

would say let me see here them.

I think the only one I didn't get to use was But I'm not gonna play that for long because I don't want to get hit with some sort of No,

you

don't you have to let that go.

Yeah,

and I

think I think I think I got through

Well, the only one is like, you know, this one is

no

swearing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We got them all.

We got them all.

Good

job.

All right.

Well done.

Well, yeah.

Thank you.

We say all this again and in wishing Greg Bach all the best in his new endeavors, which only means he's, you know, doing, doing more elsewhere in the building.

Well said

WBA.

Where are you?

He will still work in the building Parker Olson will be doing this full time from six a.m.

Onward Greg Bach Joining us on Friday mornings and of course still every weekday morning for Matt and air on air Mm-hmm, but we we say all this mostly because it makes him really uncomfortable Makes him feel like we're shoring him out the door when we are most decidedly not doing that

That's fine as long as I get a breakfast sandwich on the way out.

I'm good

You get breakfast sandwiches down there.

No.

No, I mean I get I get them from places who sell them But they're not like there's not like a hot fresh breakfast.

Could you pat?

Could you imagine if there was a breakfast buffet here?

Oh my god.

Oh, yeah, I'd be so happy

Oh, but now now I get to tell that story again

And again, apologies for folks that have heard it before, but my first radio job out of college was at what used to be WA QE up on Rice Lake.

And I was a one man newsroom up there and the station manager said, you're now going to be doing a talk show.

You're going to be doing it from heckles big steer, which was inside Cedar Mall in Rice Lake.

And he said, you're going to drive down after the 730 news and you're going to host a talk show there at eight o'clock from the breakfast counter.

Like, do I have to?

And that's a lot of work and all that.

And he's like, it'll be fun.

You're going to make.

you're going to have a good guest and you're going to get breakfast out of the deal.

I'm like, okay, fine.

One month later, the boss calls me and waves a piece of paper.

What is this?

I go,

I

don't know.

He says, it's a bill for a whole bunch of breakfasts from big steer.

And I said, yeah, you said I could get breakfast out of the deal.

He's like,

I meant you could get yourself breakfast out of the deal.

I'm like, no, this is now part of the deal.

If I'm doing a morning talk show where I got to drive to the other side of town quickly by eight o'clock, I'm getting breakfast at the end of it.

Let me ask you, so you only got one breakfast.

No, no, no.

I got, I got a month's worth of breakfast when the bill came.

Okay.

So my point is, so this was what the night, the eighties, right?

This would be 1986.

Yes.

1986.

So if we're talking about breakfast in 1986 up in up North.

Yes.

What was the bill like 14 bucks?

It was pretty

low.

Comparatively.

Yes.

I mean, it was

cheapskate.

No, he wasn't.

He just, he was, he was surprised to see it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I just

want to imagine with a big cigar, what's this in front of me?

Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no.

And I will, I will never say an unkind word about my first boss there because I, this happened, you know, after I'd been at the station for, you know, six months or so, he hired me right out of college.

I worked for four weeks and then was out for two months with a burst appendix with

complications, needed

three surgeries.

So two paychecks, you know, two biweekly paychecks as I'm looking at my second ever paycheck and I'm seeing how much they take out for health insurance, which again was like.

almost 100% coverage, not 80, 20 coverage, like 100% coverage.

And I'm looking at this and I'm going, I'm young, I'm healthy, I don't need health insurance.

I made a mental note to cancel it on the following Monday.

On that Sunday, I got sick as a dog and eventually had the first of three surgeries and a hospital bill that, again, by 1986 standards, this was huge, $20,000 would have completely bankrupt us.

I paid $25 for the cable TV that was in my hospital room That was it kids that back then boys and girls was when we took care of our employees and that

Station manager, he could have said, you know, this isn't working out.

We're letting you go or whatever.

He kept my paychecks coming those two months while I was out and then eventually gave me a show with free breakfast.

Little did he know, which who knew it would lead to now something here where I'm doing a breakfast show, but I'm making my own damn breakfast every morning.

But still it

works.

Cause I just

love, I love the idea of like, I'm going to cancel health insurance on Monday.

I got a tummy ache.

It was.

I shudder at what might have happened otherwise.

So again, my eternal thanks to the good bosses out there who take care of their people.

Still ahead, we're going to have Sean O'Malley on Markets and Money, Joseph Pecky's coming up as well, another check-in with meteorologist Brittany Merleau.

Remember to sign up for our newsletters at UpNorthNewsWI.com.

More after the Midwest Farm Report here on the Civic Media Radio Network.

I'm Pat Critello.

We've talked about what's coming up on mat and air on air here at 9 o'clock right after this show on the Civic Media radio network I need to tell you what else is happening across the network later on Todd Alba later on today from 2 to 4 coming up in the 2 o'clock hour He will have as a special guest Wisconsin Lieutenant Governor Sarah Rodriguez and then on the Maggie Dawn show coming up at 4 o'clock chef Greg Leon

on the no taxes on tips provision in the Trump tax bill and why that really doesn't help nearly as many people as you might think.

Also Jeremy Janine from Urban Milwaukee will be along as well and Dr. Yoshiko Herrera from UW Madison, a professor of political science will join Maggie Dawn.

Then on Nightlight with Pete Schwabba starting at six during the seven o'clock hour.

Author Laura Enright will be the guest.

Learn more about all of this, all of the shows, all of the stations, and much more.

Head over to CivicMedia.us where you can also listen back to past episodes of all of our shows, including this one.

Let's turn to the prospect of those Medicaid and SNAP benefit cuts coming in the Trump plan that, again, every Wisconsin House Republican voted for, including

Derek Van Orden from the Third District in Western and Central Wisconsin, who weeks earlier had this strong reaction when told about how the Republican tax bill would be kicking all kinds of people off their benefits or threatening them.

Here's what he said.

I want to clear the air

and I'm going to dispel some things.

If you're receiving benefits from the federal government lawfully as an American citizen,

your benefits are not going to be reduced by a nickel.

Okay, I'm going to say it again.

If you're an American citizen that is lawfully receiving benefits from the federal government, your benefits will not be reduced by a nickel.

Write that down, okay?

I was raised in abject rural poverty by a single mother.

We're on welfare, food stamps, we had a stamp, stick it on a card, go to the grocery store.

I had subsidized lunches and government cheese.

I was the hungry child.

that my colleagues are talking about, okay?

Things have changed.

And the same people that told you during the last budgetary cycle that Republicans are gonna cut Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, WIC, SNAP, they lied to you.

They lied openly to the American public.

They're the same people that lied to you and are fear mongering with hungry children.

those most in need in our country and it's unacceptable and it's despicable.

This should be a non-partisan committee.

They're lying.

I'm over it.

Stop it.

That would be Derek Van Orden again and he said many times since then, since the bill has passed, that anybody who claims their benefits are cut are liars.

Well, since that time, obviously, there's a line that's been forming of people who would like to remind you who's the one telling the fib in this case.

There's also a new ad campaign coming out from Protect Our Jobs to talk about how the Trump tax plan bill that Van Orden supported is also going to repeal clean energy investments that are going to kill something close to 2,000 jobs in his district.

There's a lot to discuss here with real people who are going to feel real pain if this budget plan that Van Orden and Trump support were to pass as is.

Jeremy Granger from Citizen Action joins us now along with Sarah Ring.

Jeremy, good morning.

How are you?

Yeah, good morning, Pat.

Yeah, I'm doing well.

How are you?

I'm doing all right.

Thanks.

Now, and Sarah, where are you?

Are you in Eau Claire?

Where are you?

Hi, thanks.

I'm in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.

Okay.

And in Eau Claire, Wisconsin is where Congressman Van Orden has an office.

It is staffed by Brian Westrate, former chair of the Eau Claire County Republican Party, and is now an official on the taxpayer paid side of staffing that office.

And there have been plenty of folks and groups that have wanted to speak with the Congressman or the Congressman staff

and express their concerns about what would happen if this bill were to pass as is.

Jeremy, can you tell us a bit more about your most recent visit and interaction with the congressman's office?

Yeah, thank you, Pat.

Yeah, we, you know, I live in Eau Claire as well.

And I, you know, I served six years on the city council here up until a year ago.

And so very, you know, concerned for my community and for, you know, folks across.

you know, Wisconsin and in my role as the Northwestern organizer for Citizen Action of Wisconsin.

And, you know, we've held, you know, we've been trying to engage with, you know, Representative Ann Orton and we even did our own town hall about Medicaid specifically a couple months ago.

And we had a lot of folks sharing their stories there.

So we wanted to, you know, we set up a meeting with his staff last week at the Eau Claire office and

It's really, you know, it's right in downtown Eau Claire.

So anyone can, you know, draw by at least try to try to talk to Brian Westrade or the other staff there.

And it's a, you know, we want to make sure we, you know, we were hoping to catch him before the vote, but ended up being the day after it was this last Friday.

And, you know, Brian Westrade knew nothing about what had just passed.

And that seems to be kind of the theme in that office is they just want to be

quote unquote a sponge for what people have to say and don't really know anything about what's going on in Washington and they and hopefully they pass it along to Representative van Orden, but you know under the the bill that you know Representative van Orden was the deciding vote for the budget reconciliation bill that you know is now going to the Senate that is really one of the biggest

Well, I think it is the biggest redistribution of wealth, you know, proposed in American history that really is about cutting taxes for the wealthy and cutting Medicaid as the main way of doing that.

And, you know, 13, about 13.3 million people would be, would lose Medicaid according to the Congressional Budget Office, including 11,000 in Representative Van Orden's district.

We wanted to be there right away the day after the vote to say, hey, you promised that you weren't going to be cutting our Medicaid for folks.

And he was yet the deciding vote on that, 214 to 214.

So we wanted to make sure that we were there with folks that would be impacted, including Sarah who's with us.

extremely disappointing, but the Senate will be taking this up and then maybe changing it.

If that's the case, it would go back to the House and we expect him to change his vote to a no vote.

You would think.

Sarah, you wanted to share your story.

Do you mind sharing it with our listeners of the ways that Medicaid through BadgerCare and other SNAP or whatever other benefits might impact you from this bill?

What did you want to say to the congressman's office?

Yeah, thanks Pat.

So, as Jeremy said, I shared my story with the Van Orden staffer about how, despite what Van Orden is saying publicly, these are cuts to Medicaid and the program and will impact people like my sister, Carrie, who is dependent on Medicaid.

So if I could just, like, I brought...

The little printout, this is what I shared at the meeting and just to give some context, this is my sister Carrie.

She's standing here with her parents, our parents.

My father, who is a disabled Vietnam veteran and our mother, who has been a caregiver for my sister for the last 44 years of her life and to my other siblings as well.

And

it appears she's in a wheelchair here, right?

She's in a wheelchair.

So she's been, since birth, she was born shortly after birth.

She suffered brain damage from multiple infections.

So she's permanently, developmentally disabled, intellectually disabled, will be that way her whole life.

Medicaid is a lifesaver for my sister and our family because we can keep her in her home and in her community.

Because of the program iris and that is a Medicaid funded program through Wisconsin That allows us to hire and pay Care workers we trust to come into my parents home and give my sister Carrie the personal care that she needs and the supportive care that she needs I don't know if you could tell from the photo, but my parents are aging They are in their upper 70s.

They can't physically handle the

my sister um and you know transfers and you know it's hard for people to imagine I think sometimes the level of care that is needed for someone like my sister so I usually say to people imagine if you're caring for you know a 12 month old infant or a baby all the things you do for that baby we do many of the same things for my sister and what I would like to say is you know we we have

Lots of issues already with the system.

We are overstressed already and the things in this bill, the provisions in this bill and the cuts that will result to Medicaid are going to impact my sister and thousands in Wisconsin like her who are disabled.

We, for example, the caregiver shortage has left us in our family.

All of our siblings are filling in the care for my sister.

it's a really precarious situation right now with, you know, if one of us gets sick in the family, my parents don't have care for my sister.

And the end result would be, you know, if one of us cannot step in, one of the family members cannot step in, she would go to an institution like a nursing home where we know her

Her her care would degrade her well-being would degrade and we know because we have tried it over the years We've tried many different situations and that's what happens She she doesn't get that one-on-one care that she needs So this bill, you know, I can talk more specifically about parts of the bill and why it makes it harder for people like my sister in Wisconsin and what cuts would do but essentially

For our family it would like we mean carry going to an institution and

And in doing so not the bill goes a step further that not only either cutting services or if they're not direct cuts there are so many new reporting requirements aka red tape that people would lose their benefits, but the bill goes on to

For states to eliminate their own services for disabled adults older adults and children there are some folks that say well It's not a cut because it would be you know We're just giving it back to the states and the states would have that power but so the states don't have that kind of financing and The the states would also be prohibited for example from any new you know

taxes on health care providers, for example, to finance their share of Medicaid finance costs.

Jeremy, in the short time here before the break, Sarah obviously told wanted to tell her story.

She got to tell it here.

What is it that you hope folks hearing this will do now that the bill is over in the Senate?

Yeah, I mean, obviously, Senator Ron Johnson is is, you know, going to be

a deciding vote potentially in the US Senate.

And Senator Tammy Baldwin has been very much against this.

So getting calls into Senator Ron Johnson's office and also really doubling down on any US House representatives would be big because this is very likely to come back to them.

I think one of the big things that I think will touch everybody in Wisconsin is that if this were to pass about 400

Million dollars less would be coming into the state of Wisconsin to to Medicaid and coming to our you know hospitals and clinics and Nursing homes.

So like and we've had hospital closures here in the Chippewa Valley.

Oh, we know

that

We

know that

so well.

We know that so well.

And that's exactly what these these cuts would do.

It is impossible, as Van Orden would say, to make all these cuts where it would only impact people who are, say, undocumented immigrants.

It's just not possible.

I'm Pat Crightlow.

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Welcome back, it's 7.52 on this Thursday morning, May 29th.

We'll be talking to Chad Holmes, Sean O'Malley,

and Joseph Peckie, all coming up in the next hour.

Continuing our conversation here with Jeremy Granger from Citizen Action of Wisconsin and Sarah Ring, talking about the real impact of these Medicaid cuts.

And Jeremy, the point I was making right before the break, again, responding to Derek Van Orden.

And it's, again, not just Derek Van Orden, every Wisconsin Republican voted for this.

Derek Van Orden's just been especially vocal of calling people liars if they say these are actual benefit cuts.

And Jeremy, I know that Citizen Action

has been doing a good job of telling people that sometimes a cut isn't called a cut.

Sometimes it's such a massive reduction in funding that you can't just say that this is going after undocumented immigrants who are getting benefits when Jeremy, that number is infinitesimally small.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, they're really the focus of this has been trying to pass costs onto the state.

and a lot of states might not be able to fill in the gap and just putting more hoops in the way for people to just barrier for folks to be able to continue to stay on Medicaid or apply or they want to make it so you have to reapply or recheck in every six months as opposed to once a year and then just more work requirements for larger

numbers of people.

So it's, you know, the idea is that, you know, there's, there's some effect on the amount of people that are accessing it.

And that's how they save the money.

Right.

And Sarah, I'm sure you can say a thing or two about reporting requirements or paperwork or the hoops that have to be jumped through to somehow prove eligibility without the need for your sister or parents to, you know,

work 80 hours a month or whatever ridiculous requirement they would put in play.

Yeah definitely and I'm just learning about all the the paperwork because as my parents are aging a lot of my siblings and I are taking over that responsibility for my sister but there's already as has been stated there's we have to prove over and over again

monthly, quarterly, yearly that my sister is indeed disabled and is eligible to participate in the IRIS program.

There's also right now the once a year to prove that you're eligible for Medicaid and that's maybe 25% of the paperwork that goes into

keeping care for my sister.

And she has family that does that for her, but many other people do not have family that can jump through all these additional hoops that are going to be required if this bill becomes law.

And another thing just quick on that community engagement requirements.

Yeah, the states are gonna have to take on the cost of implementing those requirements.

And that means less money going to

care for people and more money going into, you know, administering the program to determine who's working, who can still get Medicaid benefits, and who's exempt.

And supposedly people like my sister would be exempt, but that doesn't mean she doesn't still have to prove that she is exempt multiple times a year, according to this bill.

And again, I don't say this to be flippant, but there isn't any medical indication that your sister is going to suddenly not be disabled next month, correct?

Correct.

This is permanent in the rest of her life.

It's brain

damage.

And yet month after month, if you don't file that statement that says, yep, still disabled,

then you get your benefits cut where again a politician can say well we didn't cut their benefits they just didn't meet the reporting requirements it's on them and uh Jeremy that's that's a heck of a way to to run something that currently provides compassion care and coverage to people

yeah and like it doesn't seem like representative in order to really at least wants to understand cause and effect of what his actions you know can do to the community and you know when we have

1.2 million Wisconsinites on Medicaid and so like a fifth of the state's population it's you know the impact could be very very huge I mean there's a hundred and fifty two hundred fifty three thousand people you know a fifth of the population of the you know just the third congressional district that would be impacted so that's eleven thousand people that would lose

other coverage.

It seems like the kind of thing he'd learn if he had, you know, town halls and could hear directly from people or meet with people more often in his office.

But that's a topic for another day.

Jeremy, thank you so much.

On behalf of Citizen Action, Sarah Ring, thank you for joining us from Eau Claire to tell us your family's personal story.

You didn't have to do that.

We appreciate your willingness to share and wish you guys all the best as this bill makes its way through and hopefully get some serious modifications.

But thank you for the time today.

Thanks pal.

Thanks Sarah.

Thank you Pat.

Yep.

Thank you both.

Good to have you here.

7 58 now, which means that there we have less than two minutes left in the the Greg Bach era of mornings with Pac right low.

And so we we thought it would be time for a valid victory where we're again where Greg is like Miss America giving up her crown and putting it on on Parker.

We give Greg just a few final moments here to wag his finger at the camera and say

First of all, I'm not wearing a swimsuit on this thing.

All

right.

Not

where I thought that was going.

Even though maybe we talked about

that.

Yes.

Okay.

No, man.

I mean, I'm going to be around and we're going to still have a good time, but it's been a blast being here for two, now three hours with you, Pat and sharing good discussions, great laughs and honestly learning quite a bit.

Here's the thing that Greg's not telling you.

He didn't have to do.

This was supposed to be this temporary thing.

Hey, Greg, you're going to be doing this thing over here.

But by the way, there's this new guy coming out at 6 AM.

Can you be his training wheels for a while?

And he was training wheels for a very long while.

And that's a debt I could never repay to

have you

here to laugh with and to take us through things and to put up with everything that's up here in the upper left corner of your TV screen.

down there and we're seeing.

So thank you for that.

Very.

Thank you, friend.

I appreciate that.

They're very kind of you.

And it's been, like I said, it's been very, very informative and very fun and very just, I've learned a lot and I appreciate everything you've, uh, everything you've done for me.

So.

So Parker, no pressure, right?

You guys

have such a relationship here.

I feel like I'm breaking

you up.

Parker, we got to go.

We'll, we'll cover all this news.

Greg's back in an hour for Matt Nair on air.

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