Power of People & Collaboration

1. Power of People & Collaboration Presentation to CKF Conference October 5, 2011

2. The Save BadgerCare Coalition consists of health care providers, public policy experts, disability rights advocates, consumers and the faith community working together to sustain BadgerCare and ensure health insurance for Wisconsin families

3. 5 Steps to a Coalition • Step One: Our Motivation • Step Two: Our Purpose • Step Three: Our Identity & Structure • Step Four: Our Strategy • Step Five: Implementation

4. Importance of BadgerCare • BadgerCare is Wisconsin’s award-winning Medicaid program that provides health care coverage for more than 750,000 men and women—and their children—from across the state. • Established in 1997 as a bipartisan effort to encourage work and improve health care in Wisconsin, BadgerCare has proven to be a highly effective—and cost-effective—program, successful in both rural and urban communities, in good economies and bad.

5. Our Message: BadgerCare Works! • BadgerCareworks for all Wisconsinites, providing important health care coverage to working men and women—and their children—from all 72 Wisconsin counties. • BadgerCareworks for our businesses, ensuring healthy, productive workers. • BadgerCareworks for Wisconsin’s taxpayers, bringing hundreds of millions of federal dollars into the state’s economy. • BadgerCareworks for our communities. When folks without insurance get sick they end up in emergency rooms or use expensive inpatient care. Costs skyrocket and hospitals pass those fees along to everyone. Employers often pay the most through increased insurance premiums. Ultimately we all pay a "hidden health tax."

8. Outreach: Website • Website www.savebadgercare.org

9. Outreach: Hearings • Milwaukee & Madison

10. Outreach: Member Efforts

11. Raising Voices • Printed 10,000 postcards urging people to share their story why BadgerCare is important to them and their families • Delivered approximately 700 to State Senators, State Representatives and DHS

12. Real Stories I am a mother of two young children and a nursing student, trying to make a better life for my children. Without BadgerCare, I never would have been able to go back to school to become a Registered Nurse, and I would have been stuck at a low paying job just to make sure my family had access to health care.! Please don't change eligibility and take away access to health care that thousands of people rely on! – Darcy, Pleasant Prairie

13. Real Stories About a year ago, my husband was not working for about 6 months. BadgerCare, quite frankly, saved us. We were able to keep our house, which we would not have been able to do had we had to pay private insurance premiums that were simply unaffordable when we were down to one income. Additionally, my youngest son, we discovered, had a speech delay due to hearing loss in his ears because of fluid. He required surgery to have tubes placed in his ears so that he could hear in order to learn to speak. This was able to happen, thanks to BadgerCare. My oldest son has asthma. Without the necessary inhalers that he needs only occasionally, we would have made many expensive trips to the emergency room in order to access these necessary medications. Amy, Verona

14. Real Stories I am one of the invisible, forgotten Wisconsinites who would have been eligible for Badgercare, now having been without a health insurance plan for over 12 months, and being too young for Medicare. I would have been placed on the waiting list. My entire life I worked as a machinist and mechanical designer, in between periods of layoffs and plant closures that is. Not surprisingly, I have not saved enough money to pay out $750-1000 monthly for a private health insurance plan that would have a deductible that would not clean out my bank account were I to have a medical event. Bobby, Stevens Point

15. As of today… • 176 organizational and individual memberships • 1,347 followers on Facebook • 300 individuals in our Save BadgerCare &Medicaid Matters Google Groups • 1,820 individuals who have spoken out to Save BadgerCare • 700 postcards delivered to state legislators and DHS • 1,645 visits to the Save BadgerCare Coalition website and 1,353 unique visitors

16. Video

17. Thank you! For more information and to join us, visit us online at: www.savebadgercare.org