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ACA policy experts look Kind(ly) on congressman’s lonely vote to keep ‘Cadillac Health Tax’
Since its inception, one provision of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has been especially unpopular across the board, including with unions who otherwise backed former President Barack Obama’s landmark law to expand health care coverage. To help pay for the ACA, the law included a 40 percent excise tax on the value of employer-sponsored health […]
New legal threat to ACA sparks call for state to step in
Facing a new legal threat to the 9-year-old Affordable Care Act, some Wisconsin lawmakers want the state to step in with new patient health care protections they fear could be wiped out if the ACA is overturned. At stake are key provisions that enabled former President Barack Obama’s health reform law to expand health care […]
Racine joins trend to ban conversion therapy for LGBT minors
Racine became the fifth city in Wisconsin this week to ban conversion therapy — attempts by professional counselors to change the sexual orientation or gender identity of gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender people — from being used on children under the age of 18. The city council voted 11-3 Tuesday night to ban the practice […]
Measures for low-income workers aim to offset 2017 tax law’s tilt toward wealthy
More than a million people in Wisconsin could benefit from proposed changes in two federal tax credits for low- and moderate-income families, according to a new report. New federal legislation expanding the federal Earned Income Tax Credit would help 394,000 childless adults in Wisconsin, while a companion bill expanding the Child Care Tax Credit would […]
Fair Maps lawmakers, activists pressure gerrymandering opponents
Lawmakers and activists seeking to end partisan gerrymandering and create a nonpartisan system for drawing legislative districts sought to turn up the heat Tuesday on current Assembly and Senate leaders to give the proposals a hearing. At a crowded Capitol press conference, the sponsors of companion Senate and Assembly “Fair Maps” bills called on the […]
Milwaukee’s high homicide rates rooted in segregation
A recent report by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel draws an explicit link between the city’s homicide rates and its historic segregation. It’s part of a larger pattern that criminologists have been aware of for years, a leading Wisconsin criminologist tells the Wisconsin Examiner — and one that demands a deeper conversation over social structure that […]
Fair Maps groups push reform after high court’s gerrymandering decision
Senate and Assembly bills would hand the task of drawing district maps over to the nonpartisan Legislative Reference Bureau and a new advisory commission. They could offer the only path to taking politics out of redistricting after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last month.