February 6, 2019 at 4:16 p.m.
Tiffany, Swearingen hold listening session at library
Tiffany, Swearingen hold listening session at library
Scheduled to last an hour, the session lasted more than twice that long as the over 40 people in attendance asked questions or commented on the lawmakers' recent votes on legislation.
While a lot of attendees posed questions about what the two legislators are doing to help the soon-to-be displaced workers at Drs. Foster and Smith, a number of other topics were covered as well.
The first question concerned state legislation addressing pre-existing conditions that passed the state Assembly on Jan. 22 but has yet to be taken up by the state Senate would require health insurers to cover pre-existing health conditions and would ban insurers from dropping coverage for those who exceed caps on lifetime or annual coverage amounts.
The bill would take effect if the Affordable Care Act were to be overturned through a federal lawsuit. Tiffany and Swearingen were asked if similar bills were being considered to protect other provisions of the ACA.
"Go back to your very first sentence, pre-existing conditions, that's what it's supposed to cover," Swearingen told the woman who asked the question. "Yeah, down the road I think we could see addendums to these bills to cover what those extra issues are. Right now, the focus was on pre-existing conditions."
Swearingen added that he was happy to co-sponsor the bill, however the ball is in the Senate's court now.
Tiffany said that the Senate is only considering the version the Assembly passed that covers pre-existing conditions.
"What comes after that, I'm not sure," Tiffany added. "I haven't been in the forefront of drafting the bills that are on the floor in this round."
He added that one of the criticisms of the ACA is that the law requires coverage for conditions some people don't need, such as pregnancy coverage for post-menopausal women.
"That is why you saw the price of premiums go up so sharply is because there was this requirement that certain things be covered that some people don't need," Tiffany said. "And obviously, the insurance companies with their underwriters, if it says you have to cover that, then they have to provide for that in the insurance policy, and it is going to make the insurance more expensive. I just think there might be some better routes to go rather than guaranteeing that certain coverages have to be put in place that perhaps people don't need."
The two were then asked if they would support a movement to add a 28th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on Citizens United, that states that only human beings are people and that money in the form of campaign donations is not speech under the First Amendment.
Tiffany said there are regulations and limitations in place already in regard to political campaigns.
"We have limits to the amount of limits that we can take," Tiffany said. "There are limits to activities that we can do in the campaign sphere, so it is regulated now."
He said what the person who asked the question termed as a loophole in campaign laws would take "great exception to that."
"That loophole you're talking about is what is known as the First Amendment to the Constitution and it's freedom of speech, which, if you go back and read the founding documents, they didn't mean freedom of speech as we view it in the 20th century going into the 21st century where you get to say whatever you want to, basically," Tiffany said. "They put freedom of speech in there to say freedom of political speech because of what the king (of England) was doing with them in the colonies, and preventing them from practicing the freedom of political speech. It is the first thing that they wanted to ensure happened in this country, that we would have robust, free, political speech."
"Citizens United is a direct result of the McCain-Feingold (campaign finance law) being signed into effect, which put significant restrictions in place," Tiffany added. "And so they (the Supreme Court) struck it down on constitutional grounds."
He said the best thing that lawmakers can do is make sure that there is transparency so the public knows who is contributing to whom.
Another member of the audience asked the lawmakers if counties and cities and towns would see some help from the legislators with combating the opioid epidemic, which is starting to tax the budgets of social service and law enforcement agencies.
"Overwhelmingly, whenever someone comes to our offices, they are asking for money," Swearingen said. "And the budget is a biannual product worth about $70 billion, and in there, we have to make sure there is money for everything."
He said that after talking with area sheriffs and police chiefs, he knows the problem involves "some pretty scary stuff."
"And with that comes the money to try and control it and help those folks that have gotten enveloped in the situation," Swearingen said. "So we are, it's almost the start of February, Governor (Tony) Evers will announce his budget by the end of February - probably about the last week - and we'll see what extra money, if any, that he provides into that portion of the budget. At that point then, Senator Tiffany and the rest of the joint finance team has to take a look at what he's got proposed, and "we'll see if the state can afford the extra dollars, if there are any extra dollars."
Tiffany pointed out that Wisconsin's Hope Agenda has been a national leader for helping break the bonds of opioid addiction.
"Is it making a dent? I think it's making a difference, but it is a really big problem that you are seeing here, but counties are seeing it across Wisconsin," Tiffany said. "So we have done some good things to try to get a hold on it."
Tiffany said he would urge the Evers administration to include additional funding for the crisis in the proposed budget.
"We will react to what they do in their budget," he said. "I would hope that we can put some money in there."
Tiffany was asked if he would be against giving local municipalities and counties the ability to tax exceed the levy limit to provide more funds. Under the current taxing formula, new construction is what allows governments to raise taxes.
"Up here, you have a number of people wanting to raise the levy limits for a variety of issues," Tiffany said. "That's the last thing that I would want to do is lift those levy limits."
He cited a recent survey where 1,100 respondents were asked how they would like to see tax relief.
"When you get to northern and rural Wisconsin, they want it in their property taxes," Tiffany said. "And that, by far, is how people reacted; they wanted to keep control of my property taxes. So we run up against that talking to our constituents when we start discussing lifting those levy limits."
Swearingen said he is always concerned about those taxpayers living on fixed incomes.
"That could be the difference of putting them in or out of their home in their retirement years," Swearingen said.
Finding more money to help pay for needed road and infrastructure was also a concerned they were asked to address.
"We will have to see where Governor Evers goes with his transportation budget," Swearingen said. "We are of the opinion that the previous governor had put forth a pretty good proposal for road funding."
He said this entailed getting expensive projects in the southern part of the state completed.
"And it is our opinion that it is time to maintain what we have. That being said, it is also our job to make sure the Northwoods gets its fair share of what those projects are going to be," Swearingen said.
"We need to get more money for our local roads for our local municipalities," Tiffany agreed, adding that Walker"s proposal from last fall would do just that.
Improved funding for the state park system, local schools, ways to effectively combat chronic wasting disease and strengthening, not weakening, environmental protections were also addressed.
Jamie Taylor may be reached via email at [email protected].
Comments:
You must login to comment.