More budget screw-ups, and more on Wis. health care

While I am enjoying the absurdity that is Mary Lazich's destined-to-fail redistricting and recall-repression moves, there have been some other important developments the last few days.

1. Hey, it's another Walker Administration budgeting foul-up! This time it was the Administration putting $45 million of Federal health funds into the budget that won't come to Wisconsin. Basically, the Walker boys thought there would be funds coming in from Washington that would have been as the result of a correction of disputed payments on disability programs. Turns out, that isn't going to happen, and the elderly will be screwed.

Wisconsin's Medicaid programs, which are paid for by the state and federal government, serve more than 1 million people.

The Republican Walker administration already is facing criticism from Democrats over other parts of their Medicaid savings proposal, which would shift hundreds of thousands of residents to lower-cost state plans or private plans. This latest blow will make it even more difficult to accomplish the goal of finding the needed savings to balance the state's budget.

Stephanie Smiley, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Health Services, said the agency had been unaware of the letter until contacted by a reporter. Smiley said the state didn't currently have a backup plan to cover that money.

"If what you sent us is in fact a denial of these waiver initiatives, DHS will need to find the additional $45 million in (state money). We do not yet have a proposal to find this savings," Smiley said.

Another Health Services spokeswoman, Beth Kaplan, later confirmed that the Walker administration no longer expected to receive the money in light of the Sebelius letter.

In other words, the Walker Administration relied on "phantom revenue" and rosy scenarios. Gee, we haven't seen that before, have we?

In fact, before all the recall fun and games, the Transportation and Elections Commission had an interesting hearing regarding a bill that would establish an elected Milwaukee County Comptroller. One of those testifying in favor was none other than Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele, who admitted that one of the reasons Milwaukee County was is such a budget bind was because over the previous several years overly optimistic assumptions on land sales, Transit TV ads, and other revenue projections didn't come through.

And who was the Exec whose Administration signed off on these phony numbers for budget years 2003-2011? You got, SCOTT WALKER. You can bet the Journal-Sentinel will skip the obvious reference Abele was making to Walker's budget lies in his time in Milwaukee, but those in the County sure know the truth (as evidenced by Barrett 62, Walker 38 last November).

2. Maybe it wasn't such good timing for Humana to whine about getting a waiver from having to actually cover people under Obamacare. Humana's 3rd Quarter earnings were announced today, and it was a blowout.

For the third quarter, Humana earned $444.7 million, or $2.67 per share. That compares with earnings of $393.2 million, or $2.32 per share, in the same quarter last year. Revenue climbed 11 percent to $9.3 billion.

Adjusted income was $2.54 per share, which easily beat Wall Street expectations. Analysts surveyed by FactSet expected, on average, earnings of $2.03 per share on $9.26 billion in revenue.

So given profits of nearly $150 million a month, I think Humana can afford a way to pay for coverage for a few more people and still be able to have up to 20% of premiums not go to actual care of the sick. Just a thought.

3. There'll be a lot more people out on the Wisconsin market too, because the DHS is out with their plan to cut $554 million out of Medicaid, mostly through increased out-of-pocket costs and throwing the working poor off of assistance and into the private market. Looks like Joint Finance will at least get a chance to review and discuss this in mid-November, and I'll guess there are a few things in this 126-page behemoth of details that should draw some interest.

The patterns of greed, incompetence, deception, and destruction continue from this administration and their friends in the health insurance industry. Fortunately, I think we'll be breaking the chain soon enough.

Memo to J-S Politi-crap.....WALKER IS GETTING A RAISE

Saw the Journal-Sentinel's Politi-"fact" try to spin Scott Walker's pay raise as something out of his control. RIIIIGHT. So Walker has the power to go ahead and decide to keep state worker base pay flat and centralize who gets raises and who doesn't, but when it comes to giving back his own pay raise? Well, then I guess his hands are just tied and there's nothing he can do.

Hey Politi-crap, WALKER CHOSE TO TAKE THE MONEY. He could have chosen not to take the money, and at least be consistent with his policies against state workers, (because, you know, we're "broke"). But HE DID NOT DO THAT.

That being said, I'll thank you for keeping this issue and its double-standard on the front burner, and thanks for reminding us in the thinking world of how paid off by the Bradley Foundation your publication has chosen to be. For my handful readers, let this pathetic spin-as-analysis by the J-S be a reminder to cancel the paper version of that oligarchial rag, if you haven't already, will ya? It's the only way they'll learn to write the truth.

Spooky health care corruption- and spookier job realities in Wisconsin

1. Here's more pay-to-play in this corrupt administration, as health insurers have convinced Walker donator and Insurance Commissioner Ted Nickel to ask for an Obamamcare waiver that would allow it to spend less than 80% of premiums on actual medical care. The complaint is that 6 of Wisconsin's insurers can't make it on less than 20% overhead.

They are: Humana Insurance Co., a unit of Humana Inc.; Golden Rule Insurance Co., a unit of UnitedHealth Group Inc.; Time Insurance Co., a unit of Assurant Health; Mega Life & Health Insurance Co., a unit of HealthMarkets Inc.; and American Republic Insurance Co. and its affiliate, World Insurance Co.

The companies spent from 65 cents to 72.9 cents of each dollar in premiums on medical care, according to the Office of the Commissioner of Insurance. Combined, they have about 35% of the market for individual insurance.

"When you are looking at 35% of the market, you want to avoid as much turbulence as possible," said J.P. Wieske, a spokesman for the insurance commissioner.

Wisconsin has the most competitive market in the country for health plans bought by individuals and families, according to an analysis released this month by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Consumers would not lack for other options if a health insurer left the Wisconsin market.

I thought Republicans were all about improvements through efficiency and competition? Guess that mentality ends when providing more service and competition threatens corporate profits, because after all, the goal of government is to protect profit over people's well-being (Wait, it's not supposed to work that way in a civilized society? Softie). So instead of demanding that they run their needed service in a more efficient and customer-friendly manner, these health insurance corporations should be allowed to shovel more blood money from citizens toward the salaries of bureaucrats that deny coverage. What a load of crap. As mentioned earlier, the complaints Dennis Smith and the Walker hacks have against Obamacare show that maybe it's a better plan than we thought.

And one of the Scummy 6 doubled-down on their hypocrisy, as Humana announced they had enough money around to potentially hire 130 more people in Wisconsin. In a stunner, Humana employees also gave generously to Scott Walker and Scott Fitzgerald in 2010, as well as Alberta Darling once she was up for recall, so you don't think these donations have anything to do with asking of a waiver for the 80% rule for Humana, do you? And now they can use these projected additional jobs as blackmail, saying "if you don't give us our waiver, we won't add these jobs." So much for public health "service." Sickening.

And of course, most of these projected jobs are in a GB service center (people who decide claims...and deny them), or in sales (trying to convince companies to take on their insurance). You think that's going to give Humana policy holders any kind of insurance break, allowing them to have more disposable income to grow our economy? Yeah, riiight. You know it's going right back into CEO pay and in the form of more donations to the Fitzwalkerstanis.

2. Then again, I think Scotty and co. will take any job creation they can. In addition to being 49th in the nation in job performance since the GOP budget was passed, Wisconsin reached another dubious jobs-related honor this week. The state with the biggest increase in unemployment claims last week (see the end of the report). HUZZAH! Guess that Brewer stimulus is ending, and given the NBA lockout, we know a few hundred seasonal Bucks jobs are going down the tubes for the rest of this year as well.

Somehow, I'm guessing these facts aren't making it to Walker's taxpayer-funded "results" website. But we'll make sure they're RECALLED.

Quick thoughts on the new state worker pay plan

Not that I'm surprised that a bureaucrat like me is looking at no pay raises for the next 2 years. I knew they'd treat us as second-class citizens and show no decency after cutting our take-home pay by 10% over last year, and the disrespect is almost humrous at this point.

I just wish Scott Walker and J.B Van Hollen and other public officials weren't getting $7,000 pay raises at the same time (see page 67), and other statewide officials were the others slated to be the only ones to get their salaries raised.

And I wish that when I was evaluated for any type of raise, it would be my boss in my department doing it, given that my boss might have some clue about what I do or don't do, and not leave it up to some Walker-appointed hack at OSER. But of course, this is a pattern of this administration as well- take away any idea of independent civil service, and replace them with flunkies who get rewarded for kissing the right ass.

If I wasn't confident that we only have a few more months of this transparent garbage, I'd be angry. But I'm not, as I know it'll make the revenge will be all the better.

More on Walker jobs failure- from his own DOR

Friday afternoon featured the release of the Wisconsin Department of Revenue's semi-annual state Economic Outlook. And as you may have heard, it featured awful news for the Walker boys, as the report indicate that as things stand after 9 months of the Fitzwalkerstan era, Wisconsin will add barely over half of Walker's vaunted 250,000 jobs in 4 years. But even those dismal projections are worth a second look, both to see how much damage has been done by the Walker Administration, and to see if even this Fall's figures are overly optimistic.

Because when you check what the same DOR predicted 5 1/2 months ago, the outlook was a lot rosier. In that report, the DOR expected 183,400 jobs in the next 4 years (check page 8 for the charts) , but in the Fall report, that job growth number dropped by more than 25%. Apparently even the DOR couldn't predict the severe damage that Tea Baggers and Fitzwalkerstanis could inflict on the economy in a matter of months. The Spring 2011 average projection of 2.77 million total jobs and 2.353 million private sector jobs has only been surpassed once, in the fluky big-gain month of June. Since then, the Waller budget has taken effect, and Wisconsin has been 49th for states in job growth in the 3 months since. We won't even be at that 2.77 million level by the end of 2011, let alone an average.

Now, the Fall report tries to account for that, dropping the numbers to 2.765 million total and 2.346 million private. And the 2012 job gains are lowered to 1.0% total and 1.3% private vs. 1.7% total and 2.1% private. In fact, the DOR now says average unemployment will go UP to 7.8% in 2012, which means we won't be any better off than we stand today, which is worse off than the 7.4% we had when Walker took office.

Those brutal figures might be too generous, if anything, given that most of 2011 has been below even those lowered figures, and little growth can be seen coming one. Eespecially as many local governments will institute drastic cuts over the next 4 months to combat the Walker Admin's stupid cuts to shared revenues and limits on levy increases. The DOR's own report indicates that state personal income increased by a huge 9.3% from January through March (while the state was still working under Jim Doyle's last budget), then Act 10 was passed, and it dropped to a 5.3% increase for April-June, then Walker's budget was passed and personal income dropped by 1.1% from July to September. This report indicates personal income growth will rebound and be up between 3.6 to 4.1% for the next 9 months, but given that we've swung from a Spring prediction of Q3 income growth of 3.1% to an actual decline, what makes you think that somehow this is going to come back so easily?

And then this will hit the budget, because the Legislative Fiscal Bureau used those nicer Spring assumptions when they published their revenue numbers for the Walker Budget, and they figured that revenues would increase around 3% for the upcoming year. LFB gets to revise those numbers for both revenues and expenses in 3 months, and you can bet that revenue increase is going to go down, and the unemployment and other social safety net expenses will go up, and our budget won't be close to "balanaced" any more.

You can tell the Walker folks know their empty job boasts have caught up to them, which might explain the surprising departure of his second DWD Secretary today. Sorry Scotty, but it's the reality that you created with your bad policies that have led to these brutal jobs numbers, not the messengers and cheerleaders hired to prop up things at the DWD. Unless you are truly that naive to think that what's holding the economy back in Wisconsin isn't a lack of take-home pay by the consumers who make up the vast majority of our business transactions, and that it's really all some kind of vague confidence game.

Then again, Scotty's never held a real job in the working world, so maybe that's why he still clings to these fairy tales of "job creators" and "low taxes" being the magic beans that sprout an economy (or he just thinks the Koch money's nice enough to keep saying that bullshit, one of the two). Those of us who actually have worked know better, and that's why Walker's tenure as governor is already more than half over.

Wisconsin's Number 2!...in job loss

This week's horrific Wisconsin jobs report showed 12,400 jobs lost in the state last month. 2/3 of these losses were in local government, reflecting the large amounts of teacher retirements and cutbacks resulting from Scott Walker's budget. (gee, who predicted that?)

But the jobs disaster goes much deeper than that. Since Walker's budget went into effect July 1, Wisconsin has lost 19,300 jobs, including 11,900 in the private sector. Especially bad in the face of the nation's increases of 287,000 total jobs and 352,000 private sector jobs. So the state is clearly going the wrong direction job-wise, but look at the numbers from all 50 states for a true Halloween fright.

Among all the states, Wisconsin has the not-so-coveted position of having the 2nd-most job losses by numbers and percentage in the country over the last 3 months.

Job losses - total June-September 2011
Georgia -20,800
Wisconsin -19,300
Illinois -16,100
Pennsylvania -15,600
New Jersey -11,000

Job losses by percentage June-September 2011
Rhode Island -1.22%
Wisconsin -0.69%
New Hampshire -0.57%
Georgia -0.54%
Delaware -0.41%
U.S. +0.22%

That brutal performance is recallable enough for Scotty, but there's even more to bring to the table on how bad a failure this Administration has been on the jobs front. I've frequently mentioned how Wisconsin weathered our economic disaster better than most places under Jim Doyle and the Dems. And even in Doyle and the Dems' final year, Wisconsin was close to the national trends.

Jan 2010 to Jan 2011 job growth
Wis. +0.93% private, +0.75% total
U.S. +1.22% private, +0.81% total

So yes, these job losses are all on Scott Walker and the WisGOP moves in the last 8 months. And while the 1st Quarter revenues held up surprisingly well, and are still within the budget's predictions, there is NO WAY that will continue with Wisconsin staying 49th in the country for jobs. Once the Brewer/Badger/Packer October stimulus effect goes away, watch for the budget deficits to open, and it will be the final straw to break the Walker Administration's back in Spring of 2012.

Two more on Walker's future "crisis" moves

First of all, here's Capper with his reminder of how Walker used real and fake budget deficits as an excuse to put in drastic, unneeded measures in Milwaukee County, often resulting in higher expenses and bigger problems.

Then here's James Rowen (via a former Milw. Co. supervisor) reminding people of Walker's "rosy scenarios" and inevitable deficits from his days in Milwaukee County.

Keep an eye on it, especially when you see the absurd targeting of the UW System in the biennial lapses. Extra kudos to the several state Dem legislators who want a hearing to figure out just why the UW was slashed while the Governor's Office has to lapse all of $1,700.