Local News
Health insurance rates keep going up in Wisconsin
Yet, only 5.7 percent of Wisconsinites
remain without health insurance
The rate of uninsured people in Wisconsin continues to fall according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Data shows only 5.7 percent remain without coverage since the Affordable Care Act was passed in 2010.
It’s not doing that much locally though says Greg Skemp with Gundersen Health Plan.
“We’ve always had a traditionally pretty low uninsured rate in the La Crosse market,” Skemp said. “Couple years ago when the exchanges opened, we did see some people enrolled but over the last couple years, the enrollment of the uninsured has kind of flattened out.”
Skemp says the Affordable Care Act, often referred to as Obamacare, has largely failed because the funding to suddenly insure everyone has not been there.
“There are programs that were supposed to help us offset some of those costs and those programs haven’t worked,” Skemp said. “That’s one of the biggest challenges we all have and that’s why the rates keep going up.”
