How Wisconsin might be left with a Big Beautiful Tax Shift

After the House passed GOP Tax Scam 2.0 and its related budget cuts, state officials have been looking at what the bill would mean for Wisconsin. And among the changes are some big adjustments and new burdens in the food assistance program.

If implemented, the changes could upend food assistance for more than 12% of Wisconsin’s current recipients, Wisconsin Medicaid Director Bill Hanna said. Most affected would be people between 55 and 64 who previously weren’t required to work to receive the benefits, also known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or food stamps.

Families with children who age 7 and older would also be newly subject to work requirements under the proposal narrowly passed by the U.S. House early Thursday. Households with children ages 18 and under are currently exempt.

The bill would also end exemptions for about 2,300 Wisconsinites who lack job options in rural counties, such as Adams, Marquette and Menominee, a largely tribal county, along with others in northern Wisconsin.

It also means large amounts of paperwork and new job duties for state employees, without the Feds paying for the extra work they would require. Which pushes those costs onto state taxpayers.

The changes could cost state taxpayers as much as $314 million starting in 2027, Hanna said. Much of that is due to a new provision fining states for even small errors of as little as a few dollars in calculating the amount of benefits individual recipients get.

The state would also have to pick up more of the costs of administering the program and documenting that recipients are working or volunteering. The proposed changes would also eliminate $12 million in annual education programing aimed at helping recipients eat healthy and stay active.

But I thought we were Making America Healthy Again? Oh wait, that’s by the standards brought to you by supplement companies and other new age BS that paid hucksters like RFK Jr and Internet influencers are promoting.

The state of Wisconsin is also looking at more changes and extra costs for its Medicaid programs, as much of the "savings" from the Big Beuatiful Pile of Garbage not only comes from kicking people off of ther health care coverage, but also because it would keep the state from using as many federal tax dollars to pay for services.

The changes would go into effect by the end of 2026, a timeline that was sped up after some House conservatives pushed for the requirements to go into effect sooner. The bill originally called for work requirements to start in 2029.

If passed, the measures would present recipients with more barriers to remaining covered and could result in millions of Americans losing coverage. Under the original bill, the House GOP's Medicaid provisions are expected to reduce spending by $625 billion but cause 7.6 million people to be uninsured by 2034, according to preliminary estimates from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Those numbers, though, could change after Republicans moved up the work requirement timetable…..

The bill also would limit how states raise money for their Medicaid programs through what are called "provider taxes," or taxes on hospitals and nursing homes.

Like other states, Wisconsin uses its provider tax revenue to draw down extra matching dollars from the federal government. It pays the money back to hospitals and nursing homes to supplement the reimbursements they receive for care provided to Medicaid patients.

Under the GOP legislation, the state would be prohibited from implementing any new provider taxes on hospitals and nursing homes or increasing existing tax rates on those providers, said Jennifer Tolbert, director of state health policy and data at [Kaiser Family Foundation].

One of the biggest hits to Americans would come from a significant jump in out-of-pocket costs for people who get their health insurance on the Obamacare exchanges, as the Big Beautiful Tax Scam reverses what helped a lot of Americans get insured in recent years.

The extended subsidies were passed via the American Rescue Plan Act during the pandemic, and covered plans in 2021 and 2022. The Inflation Reduction Act extended the benefit until the end of 2025….

Since the extended tax credits have been in place, the enrollment in the ACA marketplace grew from 12 million in 2021 to a record 24.2 million in 2025, according to a February report by the Commonwealth Fund.

Based on 2025’s enrollment figures, there's been a 63.5% increase in enrollment for Obamacare exchange policies in Wisconsin over the last 4 years, as Medicaid enrollments dropped post-COVID.

The premium credits and Obamacare exchanges are especially important here since Republicans have refused to expand Medicaid, so people making anything above the poverty line are limited to getting insurance either through their job (good luck with that on lower-wage gigs), or through Obamacare, or not getting insured at all.

If those tax breaks go away, it’s going to cost a lot of people in Wisconsin quite a bit more to keep their insurance.

If we go back to earlier thresholds, those who earn more than four times the federal poverty level — $62,000 for an individual or $128,600 for a family of four with 2026 coverage — would lose eligibility for subsidies and would have to pay the full cost for their health plans, according to KFF.

Researchers at KFF anticipate that between the potential lapse of the credits coupled with the proposals, enrollment could shrink by one-third, leaving about 8 million uninsured in the U.S.

One change in the House GOP tax bill would increase by 4.5% the share of people’s income that they pay for premiums after tax credits in 2026, according to Gideon Lukens, senior fellow at the CBPP. It would also increase the maximum out-of-pocket limit by 4.5% in 2026, he said.

So large numbers of Wisconsinites will be paying more for health insurance, and state taxpayers will be on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars in unfunded, poor-bashing mandates. That's before we account for the lack of economic activity that'll result from the lack of stability or lack of funds available for other things, and the likely increase in interest rates that come from the exploding deficits in the next few years.

So what are us non-rich in Wisconsin getting out of this Tax Scam, again?