The past: you get sick, you have to drop below full-time student status to take care of yourself, you lose health insurance.
NOW: you get sick, you have to drop below full-time status, you get to keep your health insurance.
Governor Doyle signed AB 280 into law this morning in front of an audience of students from the UW System, legislators (Sen. Roessler and Rep. Nygren), and administrators.
Susan Crowley, interim Director of UHS here at UW-Madison had some introductory remarks about the importance of healthcare access especially to students. She was followed by Governor Doyle, who, in addition to explaining the background and necessity of the bill, announced that he had received a call yesterday from US Secretary of Health and Human Services Mike Leavitt with news that BadgerCarePLUS has been approved (!).
The dean at UW-Marinette spoke about the inspiration for this bill in Wisconsin, a Marinette student. She also made sure to point out that United Council (the coalition of college student governments across the state) had a role in making this legislation happen.
I closed out the speakers list and offered a student perspective on the new law from my standpoint as a full-time student and a member of the Health Care Advisory Committee here.
Overall, the event was nice but it could have been better. The publicity was almost zero, especially in recruiting students to attend. The students who did come were almost all United Council folks (Cedric Lawson, Nicole Juan, etc.), Visitor and Information Programs guides who were working at the Welcome Center (Matt Dulak, Hilary Minor), and Ashok Kumar (who accosted the Governor as he was shaking hands... something about median family income of UW students vs. second-lowest tuition in the BigTen). As the Governor used about 12 pens to sign the bill (one for each part of the date and each letter in his name), all of us standing behind him got a pen and two were sent to the Marinette student and his family.
The press avail afterwards unfortunately took the spotlight away from AB 280 and the BadgerCarePLUS announcement...and shifted it to the Packers and NFL network. Both the new law protecting student insurance and the BadgerCare guarantee are important advances for healthcare in Wisconsin. It's a bummer that the Packers comments will steal the show on news networks tonight.
NOW: you get sick, you have to drop below full-time status, you get to keep your health insurance.
Governor Doyle signed AB 280 into law this morning in front of an audience of students from the UW System, legislators (Sen. Roessler and Rep. Nygren), and administrators.
Susan Crowley, interim Director of UHS here at UW-Madison had some introductory remarks about the importance of healthcare access especially to students. She was followed by Governor Doyle, who, in addition to explaining the background and necessity of the bill, announced that he had received a call yesterday from US Secretary of Health and Human Services Mike Leavitt with news that BadgerCarePLUS has been approved (!).
The dean at UW-Marinette spoke about the inspiration for this bill in Wisconsin, a Marinette student. She also made sure to point out that United Council (the coalition of college student governments across the state) had a role in making this legislation happen.
I closed out the speakers list and offered a student perspective on the new law from my standpoint as a full-time student and a member of the Health Care Advisory Committee here.
Overall, the event was nice but it could have been better. The publicity was almost zero, especially in recruiting students to attend. The students who did come were almost all United Council folks (Cedric Lawson, Nicole Juan, etc.), Visitor and Information Programs guides who were working at the Welcome Center (Matt Dulak, Hilary Minor), and Ashok Kumar (who accosted the Governor as he was shaking hands... something about median family income of UW students vs. second-lowest tuition in the BigTen). As the Governor used about 12 pens to sign the bill (one for each part of the date and each letter in his name), all of us standing behind him got a pen and two were sent to the Marinette student and his family.
The press avail afterwards unfortunately took the spotlight away from AB 280 and the BadgerCarePLUS announcement...and shifted it to the Packers and NFL network. Both the new law protecting student insurance and the BadgerCare guarantee are important advances for healthcare in Wisconsin. It's a bummer that the Packers comments will steal the show on news networks tonight.
Labels: Assembly, healthcare, UW
9 Comments:
more details on ashok. doyle shut him down.
"doyle shut him down" ... well, since I was there I'll tell you what happened. My understanding is that Kumar thanked Doyle for his action, and then asked Doyle if he planned to rolling back the more the 60% tuition hikes he's instituted since he's taken office. Doyle responded that he would not, and then they disagreed briefly on some Wisconsin medium income numbers. I wouldn't call a constituent of an elected official asking them a substantive policy question "accosting".
The reason I chose the word "accosting" was the context in which the conversation was started. And by context I mean while the event was legitimately still going on. If the discussion had occurred after the event was completely over (including after the press avail), I would have termed it "questioned" instead of "accosted."
This brings up an interesting point. While people do have a right to have their voice heard, I believe there is some responsibility on the part of the individual to pick a proper venue for their comments.
Example: Kanye West's comments that George Bush doesn't care about black people. He absolutely has a right to say that, but I don't agree with the venue he chose.
y'all are ridiculous. it's totally reasonable for students who just stood in on Doyle's photo-op to ask him political questions. that's democracy: holding public officials accountable. as for the setting, if Doyle wasn't so hard to get ahold of, it wouldn't have to happen like it did. check this out kids: http://www.wispolitics.com/index.iml?Article=111650
I disagree with that press release's claim that "half of the UW students present confronted Doyle." It was more like...2. With one doing the talking.
Elected officials (even at the County level) are busy people and don't always speak one-on-one with every constituent. There's only one Governor, and Wisconsin has a lot of people. The nature of government today necessitates that aides step in and fill in wherever possible.
Demanding a full conversation during an event is like asking Mariano Rivera to teach you to throw a fastball - in the middle of a tickertape parade.
2/4 = 1/2
2/5 = 0.4 < 0.5
(perhaps even 2/6)
Samuel: I was within ear shot. It wasn't so friendly. Kumar basically attacked Doyle only to be told off and frankly it made students look bad.
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