Wisconsin's BadgerCare program offers innovative approach for family coverage

Wisconsin's BadgerCare program is viewed by many as a model for how other states could pursue comprehensive health insurance coverage for lower income families. The program provides health insurance to working families - both children and their parents - and seeks to eliminate barriers to successful employment by providing a transition for families from welfare to private insurance. BadgerCare's success is founded on its family coverage approach, its single point of entry and administrative seamlessness, and the political commitment to the program from Governor Tommy G. Thompson. In 1999 and 2000, New York, New Jersey, and the Clinton administration recognized the importance of a family-based approach to children's coverage by proposing, and in the states' case, implementing some variation of the Wisconsin model. Other states have indicated interest in covering families and look to the flexibility of the Health Care Financing Administration's (HCFA) recent ruling on 1115 demonstration projects to cover parents using the enhanced State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) match. This case study details the BadgerCare program and its impact on the uninsured in Wisconsin, including how the program approaches enrolling families, how family coverage is financed, how the program partners with private insurance, and what cost-sharing obligations exist.