Cost, Coverage, & Access

Coverage and Access

Overview of Research

Evaluation of BadgerCare Core Plan for Adults without Dependent Children (“Childless Adults”)

• Report #1: Evaluation of Wisconsin’s BadgerCare Plus Core Plan for Adults without Dependent Children: How Does Coverage of Childless Adults Affect Their Utilization?
• Report #2: Evaluation of Wisconsin’s BadgerCare Plus Core Plan for Adults without Dependent Children: The Utility of the Health Needs Assessment (HNA)
• Report #3: Evaluation of Wisconsin's BadgerCare Plus Core Plan for Adults without Dependent Children: Is Early Utilization Distorted by Pent-Up Demand?

Evaluation of Wisconsin’s BadgerCare Plus Health Care Coverage Program
Final Reports, December 2010

• Report #1: Executive Summary Findings on Enrollment, Take-Up, Continuity, Target Efficiency, and Participation in Employer-Sponsored Insurance Coverage
• Report #2: Enrollment, Take-Up, Exit, and Churning: Has BadgerCare Plus Improved Access to and Continuity of Coverage?
• Report #3: Target Efficiency and the Displacement of Private Insurance: How Many New BadgerCare Enrollees Came from the Uninsured?
• Report #4: Wisconsin‘s Lessons about the Potential of Medicaid Auto-Enrollment
• Report #5: Wisconsin's On-Line System for Medicaid Application and Enrollment: Who Uses It? And Does it Increase Take-Up of Benefits?
• Report #6: Has Wisconsin Achieved the Policy Goal of 98% Access to Health Insurance?

The UW Population Health Institute is evaluating Wisconsin's BadgerCare Plus health insurance reform, in partnership with the Wisconsin Department of Health Services BadgerCare Plus, Wisconsin's Medicaid and SCHIP expansion, is Governor Doyle's strategy for extending access to health insurance for most Wisconsin children and many low and middle income families. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation awarded the UW Population Health Institute a grant under its State Health Access Reform Evaluation (SHARE) initiative. This funding supports a study of BadgerCare Plus enrollment, efficiency, and churning of covered members. UW was one of 15 national grantees that competed from a field of over 60 applicants to the SHARE funding initiative.

The Wisconsin Department of Health Services also supports two additional components of investigation:

1. Measuring take – up rates within various populations and the effect of BadgerCare Plus on crowd-out in the private employer-sponsored insurance market; and
2. Evaluation of the Core Plan for Adults without Dependent Children, including the utility of the health needs assessment and the utilization by program enrollees.

The Institute is now conducting this evaluation under Wisconsin’s State Health Access Program (SHAP) award from HRSA.

The UW team includes

• Donna Friedsam, Project Director
• Tom Deleire, PhD, Principal Investigator
• Lindsey Leininger, PhD
• Kristen Voskuil, MA
• Bobbi Wolfe, PhD
• Staff researchers at the UW Institute for Research on Poverty
• Graduate student Laura Dague

Publications & Presentations

Deleire T, et al. Expanding Coverage to Uninsured Childless Adults: Effect on the Use of Health Care. Academy Health Annual Research Meeting. June 25, 2012. Orlando Florida.

DeLeire T, Leininger L, Dague L, Mok S, Friedsam D. 2012. Wisconsin’s Experience with Medicaid Auto-Enrollment: Lessons for Other States. Medicare & Medicaid Research Review. Vol 2 (2): E1-E20.

Academy Health Annual Research Meeting, Tuesday, June 14, 2011
An Analysis of Wisconsin’s ACCESS Online Application for BadgerCare Plus

Online Application for Medicaid and BadgerCare: How Efficient Relative to Other Application Venues?
UW Population Health Issue Brief, May 2011, Vol 10(2).

Estimates of Crowd-Out from a Public Health Insurance Expansion Using Administrative Data. NBER Working Paper No. 17009. Issued in May 2011.

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