WisGOP's COVID 19 bill - a first look

I wanted to go over some of the provisions for GOP’s bill on COVID-19, which is supposed to be discussed in the State Legislature tomorrow.

The WisGOPs got rid of a section that tried to allow the Joint Finance Committee to go around Evers and cut spending on its own, because the public got wind of it and said "WHAT THE $#%^???" So the Evers Administration will be able to start work on how they would distribute federal money that is used to battle the crises caused by the COVID-19 breakout.

However, the bill does gives the Joint Finance Committee some extra oversight and veto power over how those federal funds might be used.

Under this bill, federal Child Care and Development Fund block grant funds received by the state under the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act of 2020 are credited to federal block grant appropriations and the purposes for the expenditure of those funds are subject to passive review by the Joint Committee on Finance.

On the consumer side, there is this interesting section which would cut down on returning certain products to stores.

This bill prohibits a retailer from accepting a return of food products, personal care products, cleaning products, and paper products during the public health emergency declared on March 12, 2020, by executive order 72, or during the 30 days immediately after the end of that public health emergency. The bill contains exceptions, allowing retailers to accept returns of food, personal care, cleaning, or paper products made within seven days of purchase and returns of adulterated or defective food, personal care, cleaning, or paper products. Under the bill, retailers may accept returns of other types of products.

Is that because the prices are being gouged higher today, but might be lower later? This might encourage keeping the product around (and related hoarding), then exchanging it at a higher price at a later time? Seems like a lot of work to do, and wouldn’t it be better to just go after price-gouging at the stores/wholesale level? (which seems to be happening, given the collapse in farm prices at the producer level)

Here are the unemployment measures, which starts the temporary reversal of a WisGOP policy that Evers has been requesting for over a year.

This bill suspends the application of the one-week waiting period for benefit years that began after March 12, 2020, and before February 7, 2021. The bill requires the Department of Workforce Development to seek the maximum amount of federal reimbursement for benefits that are, during this time period, payable for the first week of a claimant's benefit year as a result of the suspension.

So is this retroactive, and can people who have recently gotten unemployment after waiting one week file a new claim that gives them that 1 week back? Or is this only happening going forward?

There is also this odd provision that seems to be intended in keeping unemployment taxes low for Wisconsin employers as long as possible.

This bill requires DWD, when processing claims for UI benefits and evaluating work-share plans, to determine whether a claim or plan is related to the public health emergency declared by the governor under executive order 72. If a claim is so related, the bill provides that the regular benefits for that claim for weeks occurring after March 12, 2020, and before December 31, 2020, not be charged as is normally provided. Instead, the benefits for those weeks are, subject to numerous exceptions, to be charged to the balancing account of the unemployment reserve fund (pooled account financed by all employers who pay contributions that is used to pay benefits that are not chargeable to any employer's account) or, in the case of employers that do not pay contributions (taxes) but instead reimburse DWD for benefits directly (reimbursable employers), the benefits are to be paid in the manner specified under current law for certain other circumstances involving benefits chargeable to reimbursable employers.

The bill also requires the secretary of workforce development, to the extent permitted under federal law, to seek advances to the state's unemployment reserve fund from the federal government, so as to allow Schedule D of the unemployment insurance contribution (tax) rates to remain in effect through the end of calendar year 2021. Schedule D includes the lowest unemployment insurance contribution rates specified under current law, and is in effect for any calendar year whenever, as of the preceding June 30, the state's unemployment reserve fund has a cash balance of at least $1,200,000,000.

Also in the "oh, now we're doing this?" category is this provision.

This bill allows a state entity to waive any requirement that an individual appear in person during the public health emergency declared on March 12, 2020, by executive order 72, if the waiver assists in the state's response to the state of emergency or if the requirement may increase the public health risk.

They just decided to deal with this now? Evers had that in his proposed bill 3 weeks ago. Which makes it one of many no-brainer things that deserved action, but was sat on by the WisGOP Legislature for no reason other than pettiness.

A good part of the bill is that it formally matches the federal requirement of no-cost COVID-19 testing for consumers.

The bill requires every health insurance policy and every self-insured governmental health plan that generally covers testing for infectious disease to provide coverage of testing for COVID-19 without imposing any copayment or coinsurance before March 13, 2021. A health insurance policy is referred to in the bill as a disability insurance policy.

But when it comes to the health services to treat people afflicted with COVID-19, it isn’t as straightforward. There is an area that allows for high levels of reimbursement to providers that get patients that are outside of their network.

During the public health emergency declared by the governor or by the secretary of the federal Department of Health and Human Services in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the bill prohibits a defined network plan, including a health maintenance organization, or preferred provider plan from requiring an enrollee of the plan to pay more for a service, treatment, or supply provided by an out-of-network provider than if the service, treatment, or supply is provided by a provider that is participating in the plan's network. This prohibition applies to any service, treatment, or supply that is related to diagnosis or treatment for COVID-19 and any service, treatment, or supply that is provided by a provider that is not a participating provider because a participating provider is unavailable due to the public health emergency. For a service, treatment, or supply provided under those circumstances, the bill requires the plan to reimburse the out-of-network provider at 225 percent of the federal Medicare program rate. Also under those circumstances, any health care provider or facility that provides a service, treatment, or supply to an enrollee of a plan but is not a participating provider of that plan shall accept as payment in full any payment by a plan that is at least 225 percent of the federal Medicare program rate and may not charge the enrollee an amount that exceeds the amount the provider or facility is reimbursed by the plan.

But that merely goes over how much providers get, and Citizen Action of Wisconsin pointed out that there isn’t much in the bill in helping people pay for their treatment of COVID-19.

The Republican legislative plan does not include a mandate of free COVID-19 treatment for private health plans, which can average $10,000 to $20,000 dollars, more if the patient needs intensive care. It also fails to give the Governor the flexibility to fully leverage BadgerCare to expand health coverage during the emergency to uninsured Wisconsinites. In addition, the GOP plan does not limit the cancellation of health coverage during the pandemic, which will increase the ranks of the uninsured.

That's a mere overview. Feel free to look at the Plain English version from the Legislative Fiscal Bureau to see if there are other items involved.