IN MY OPINION: In Wisconsin, health outcomes worsen as health costs soar

We just received another wakeup call on health care in Wisconsin, where costs are too high, public health outcomes have plummeted, and our governor has hit the snooze button.

In the latest edition of America’s Health Rankings, Wisconsin ranked 33rd in health outcomes. The Badger state fell from 12th best in health outcomes in 1990, to 19th in 2019, to 33rd today.

Wisconsin’s ranking for children’s health outcomes is even worse, dropping to a record low of 39th in 2024. Similarly, the Centers for Disease Control in late 2024 noted that Wisconsin had fallen to 49th in immunizing school kids. That was followed by the news that Wisconsin had the nation’s third largest number of whooping cough cases and the state’s first childhood influenza-related death of the season.

Health costs, meanwhile, have soared to more than $25,000 a year per family of four.

Driving some of those costs is the epidemic of hospital and health system mergers. In every neighboring state, the attorney general has held hearings on the mergers. In some states, there were conditions put on the merger. Wisconsin had no hearings by Attorney General Josh Kaul and no conditions.

The Biden administration on Jan. 15 issued a long-delayed report on hospital consolidation and prices. It stated: “Empirical research unambiguously shows that hospital system-led acquisitions and mergers are associated with higher prices.”

Wisconsin does have excellent physicians and generally high-quality hospitals. Every study shows that. In the America’s Health Ranking report that showed declining public health outcomes, Wisconsin was ranked 11th best in the country in clinical outcomes for doctors and hospitals. In Wisconsin, though, that has not translated into lower costs and better public health outcomes.

The growing Wisconsin health care crisis is not caused by doctors and nurses. It is caused by the “suits” running giant health systems and by state government health policy and administration.

Wisconsin was once widely recognized as a top state for health care. President Bill Clinton appointed University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Donna Shalala as U.S. secretary of human services. President George W. Bush later appointed Wisconsin’s Gov. Tommy Thompson as her successor. Those appointments reflected Wisconsin’s health care success.

Yet in contrast to the successes of Shalala and Thompson, today Wisconsin faces a growing health care crisis — a wakeup call for leadership in Madison.

The depressing new statistics raise the question: Will anyone in Madison wake up?

It can start with setting a clear goal for Wisconsin to once again be a top state on health outcomes. Step two would be to create a regular state health care report card. Step three would be for the governor to call the state health system leaders and the UW System president to a meeting to demand a strategic statewide health care action plan. One good result from rampant system mergers is that it will be a small meeting.