Democratic candidate for governor David Crowley believes one way to make healthcare more affordable in Wisconsin is to provide more opportunities for health insurance coverage, while Republican candidate Tom Tiffany believes if patients could compare costs they would save money.
Crowley, the Milwaukee County Executive, has a proposal in his Badger Basics platform to allow any state resident to enroll in BadgerCare, the state’s Medicaid program, with premiums for a public option based on a sliding scale relative to household income.
“All Wisconsin families should have access to affordable healthcare, no ifs, ands, or buts,” Crowley said in a statement about his plan. “With a public option, Wisconsinites who are paying too much, were kicked off their plan, or have never been able to afford it will have the opportunity to access more affordable coverage.”
Tiffany would make consumer competition his first healthcare initiative by requiring clearer upfront price information.
“Healthcare costs will come down when we give patients more choices, create more competition, and bring greater transparency to the system,” Tiffany told WISC-TV. “Patients should know the cost of care before they receive it, just as they would with any other major purchase. Yet fewer than half of Wisconsin hospitals are complying with federal price transparency requirements. The answer isn’t more government control. It’s a health care system that gives patients more choices.”
Tiffany’s subscription model
Tiffany also suggested a new consumer model frequently proposed by Republicans that would create an option for people to pay a monthly fee directly to their physician, “cutting out unnecessary bureaucracy and strengthening the doctor-patient relationship.”
Critics say this model would lead doctors and clinics to cherrypick the healthiest patients and is nothing more than a new monthly subscription cost for families that applies to outpatient services but does nothing for the catastrophic costs of emergency care, hospitalization, and expensive lab and drug needs.
Those ‘Big Beautiful’ cuts
If Tiffany becomes governor, one of the first healthcare crises he will face is one of his own making. His vote last year to pass a massive “Big Beautiful” package of spending cuts is estimated to push tens of thousands of people in Wisconsin off BadgerCare, increasing the out-of-pocket cost of uncovered care they will need in the future.
In Marathon County alone, an estimated 3,500 adults are at risk of losing coverage if they fail to properly file paperwork that shows their compliance with stricter work requirements, according to reporting by the Wausau Pilot and Review. “In every month of 2026 so far, more Wisconsinites have lost BadgerCare Plus coverage for procedural reasons — an incomplete renewal, missing information or verification — than because the state found them ineligible,” the Pilot story says.
“Seniors and families, they simply cannot afford Tom Tiffany to be governor of Wisconsin,” Crowley told Fox 6 in Milwaukee, “because at the end of the day, Wisconsin seniors deserve a healthcare system where getting the medicine their doctor prescribes doesn’t mean sacrificing their groceries, sacrificing their utilities, or other necessities.”
