Brian Dake

Seeking to break an impasse on the state budget, Gov. Scott Walker has proposed reducing borrowing for transportation projects while sticking to his pledge not to raise gas taxes or vehicle fees. The plan gained no immediate traction and his fellow Republicans who control the Legislature signaled they remain far apart on highway funding — the biggest reason for the budget stalemate.

Walker sent his letter Wednesday to Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) and made it public Thursday.

“We can pass a budget that provides meaningful increases to local governments to improve roads and bridges — as well as add significant investments in safety and maintenance and highway rehabilitation —  all without raising the gas tax or vehicle fee,” Walker wrote.

The governor’s original transportation plan would delay work on some projects, including the north leg of the Zoo Interchange in Milwaukee County and I-94 south of Milwaukee. But he said his new plan would not result in further delays because of projected savings and tax collections that were better than expected.

Assembly Republicans want to find new money for roads by raising gasoline taxes or other fees. Walker and Senate Republicans are opposed to that.

Underlining the disconnect between the two sides, Fitzgerald emerged Thursday from a meeting with fellow GOP senators to say his caucus won’t support raising new money for roads

Senate Republicans want to borrow $750 million for roads over the next two years, a modest decrease from their previous positions of seeking $850 million in highway loans.

Senate Republicans want to prevent further delays on the Zoo Interchange and I-94 south of Milwaukee, Fitzgerald said. They also want to begin work on the east-west portion of I-94 between the Marquette and Zoo interchanges — an idea Walker rejected this spring.

Rep. John Nygren (R-Marinette), the co-chairman of the Legislature’s budget committee, praised Walker’s letter as a good first step but offered little reason to think it would solve the stalemate on its own.

“It’s good that the governor’s engaged and looking for a solution,” Nygren said.

Meanwhile, the DOT is seeking $341 million through a special federal highway program — more than 10 times as much as it has received through that program in recent years.

When states don’t use all their federal aid, other states can compete for what’s left over. Wisconsin has received $34 million annually on average through that program in the last five years, according to the Legislature’s nonpartisan budget office.

During that time, the state applied for between $30 million and $137 million annually. But the most the state has ever gotten since 2012 is $40 million, according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau.

Nygren said that Assembly Republicans would be willing to provide more state matching dollars to capture such additional federal aid for highway projects. But he was skeptical that Wisconsin would see a huge jump in federal money for roads.

“Passing a budget based on (federal money) being there — I’m not sure we’re there,” he said.

Ruling that Wisconsin’s $750,000 cap on medical malpractice claims is unconstitutional, an appellate court said Wednesday that a Milwaukee woman who lost all four limbs should collect the $16.5 million for pain and suffering awarded to her and her husband.

“We conclude that the statutory cap on non-economic damages is unconstitutional on its face,” Judge Joan Kessler wrote in the 19-page unanimous opinion by the three-judge First District Court of Appeals panel.

Kessler added that “Wisconsin’s cap on non-economic medical malpractice damages always reduces non-economic damages only for the class of the most severely injured victims who have been awarded damages exceeding the cap, yet always allows full damages to the less severely injured malpractice victims.”

Wisconsin law caps non-economic damages in medical malpractice cases at $750,000 but does not put a ceiling on the amount that could be awarded for economic damages, such as medical costs, which in Mayo’s case was awarded at $8.8 million. That award and $750,000 has already been paid by the $1.3 billion state-managed medical malpractice insurance fund.

The case is expected to be appealed to the state Supreme Court.

Wisconsin has had various ceilings on medical malpractice damages since 1986. A $350,000 cap enacted in 1995 was struck down by the state Supreme Court in 2005 as being arbitrary and violating the equal protection provision of the state constitution. It was replaced a year later by the $750,000 ceiling.

The personal property tax, implemented in the early days of Wisconsin, when most of its governmental revenue came from property taxes, began as a tax on items like livestock, furniture, jewelry and vehicles. Its property tax counterpart — real property — covers land and buildings.

The Wisconsin Commissioner of Insurance has approved an overall 8.46% rate decrease for Worker’s Compensation (WC) premiums for business this year following a 3.19% decline last year. Some specific industries, like manufacturing, will see even greater decreases of 9.28%. This overall decrease represents a savings of nearly $170 million for employers.

“This is the second consecutive year Worker’s Compensation rates have declined in Wisconsin, reaffirming our commitment that Wisconsin is open for business,” said Governor Walker. “The magnitude of savings is a result of employers working with their employees to emphasize the importance of safety in the workplace.”

Worker’s compensation rates are adjusted yearly by a committee of actuaries from the Wisconsin Compensation Rating Bureau (WCRB). The committee studies the prior losses (claims) of hundreds of categories and professions throughout the state’s employment pool and submits a rate recommendation to the Office of the Commissioner of Insurance (OCI) who has final approval over the rates.

“Wisconsin businesses are dedicated to ensuring a safe working environment and this decrease in workers compensation rates reflects that,” said Commissioner of Insurance Ted Nickel. “These savings will allow Wisconsin businesses to continue to strengthen their ability to operate affordably and efficiently.”

On July 1, the Wisconsin court system will launch a three-year pilot project for the handling of large-claim business and commercial cases filed in Waukesha County Circuit Court and in the circuit courts of the Eighth Judicial Administrative District in northeastern Wisconsin.

There is also potential availability of a commercial docket for cases venued outside of those jurisdictions, when the parties agree to the change in venue, and a judge participating in a commercial docket agrees to the transfer. The commercial docket is intended to ensure that large business and complicated commercial cases are resolved timely and effectively.

“This is a significant step forward for the Wisconsin court system. It is our hope that the commercial docket will result in efficient resolutions of complex business-related controversies, and in the process, improve the efficiency of the justice system for everyone,” said Wisconsin Supreme Court Chief Justice Patience Drake Roggensack.

The Court approved the pilot project in an order issued April 11. If successful, and after a thorough review of the pilot program, the Court may consider a statewide commercial docket.

Roggensack convened the Business Court Advisory Committee in the fall of 2016 to draft a proposed rule petition to be considered in the event that the Court approved a commercial docket. The committee created the framework and forms necessary to implement the project, and the committee remains available to assist the Court with any adjustments that may be necessary moving ahead, Roggensack said.

The commercial docket will handle disputes involving, among other things: the governance of business organizations, including financial institutions; unfair competition or prohibited business activities; sales and mergers; securities sales and regulations; intellectual property rights; franchising; and cases involving claims or disputes under portions of the Uniform Commercial Code, when the amount in controversy exceeds $100,000 exclusive of interest, costs, and attorney fees.

Detailed criteria for cases to be assigned to the commercial docket, as well as cases that may be taken on a discretionary basis, are listed in the appendix attached to the Court’s order. Commercial court docket cases will be integrated with the existing circuit court eFiling system, making it easy for lawyers involved in the cases to submit and track filings.

Senate Republicans on Thursday released a health-care bill that would curtail federal Medicaid funding, repeal taxes on the wealthy and eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood as part of an effort to fulfill a years-long promise to undo Barack Obama’s signature health-care law.

The bill is an attempt to strike a compromise between existing law and a bill passed by the House in May as Republicans struggle to advance their vision for the country’s health-care system even though they now control both chambers of Congress and the White House.

The Senate proposal largely mirrors the House measure with significant differences, according to a discussion draft circulating Wednesday among aides and lobbyists. While the House legislation would peg federal insurance subsidies to age, the Senate bill would link them to income, as the Affordable Care Act does.

The Senate measure would cut off expanded Medicaid funding for states more gradually than the House bill but would enact deeper long-term cuts to the health-care program for low-income Americans. It also would eliminate House language aimed at prohibiting federally subsidized health plans from covering abortions, a provision that may run afoul of complex Senate budget rules.

Like the House bill, the Senate measure is expected to make big changes to Medicaid, the program that insures about 74 million elderly and lower-income Americans and was expanded in most states under the ACA. In effect, the revisions would reduce federal spending on the program.

The Senate measure would transform Medicaid from an open-ended entitlement to one in which federal funding would be distributed to states on a per capita basis. The Senate measure would also seek to phase out the program’s expansion – although at a more gradual rate than the House version.

Yet the Senate bill is expected to go further than the House version in its approach to cutting Medicaid funding in the future. In 2025, the measure would tie federal spending on the program to an even slower growth index than the one used in the House bill. That move could prompt states to reduce the size of their Medicaid programs.

In a move that will please the health-care industry, the draft also proposes repealing all the ACA taxes except for its ‘‘Cadillac tax’’ on high-cost health plans in language similar to the House version. Senators had previously toyed with the idea of keeping some of the ACA’s taxes.

It would also eliminate Medicaid reimbursements for Planned Parenthood for one year. Federal law already prevents taxpayer funding to pay for abortions except to save the life of the woman or in the case of rape or incest. But some Republicans want to ban all federal funding for Planned Parenthood, which also provides health services such as birth control, because their clinics provide abortion services.

Like the House measure, the Senate bill would eliminate two central requirements of the current health-care law: that individuals provide proof of insurance when filing their annual tax returns and that companies with 50 or more employees provide health coverage for their workers.

In a move that is critical to insurers, the Senate measure would continue to fund for two years cost-sharing subsidies that help 7 million Americans with ACA plans. House Republicans have challenged the legality of the $7 billion in subsidies – which help cover consumers’ deductibles and copays – in court, and insurers have warned that they will have to increase premiums dramatically next year unless the federal government commits to continuing the payments.

Health insurer Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield says it will largely stop selling insurance plans in Wisconsin on the marketplaces set up through the Affordable Care Act next year, citing a volatile market for insurance plans that comply with the law.

Anthem will be the second large national insurance company to stop selling health plans on the state’s marketplaces. UnitedHealthcare pulled out last year.

About 14,000 people are covered by the Anthem health plans sold on Wisconsin’s marketplaces. That works out to less than 6% of the 242,863 people who were enrolled in health plans sold on the marketplaces as of Jan. 31. Anthem said its decision does not affect its health plans for employers, its Medicare Advantage plans or Medicaid plans.

It also will continue to renew its so-called transitional plans that were sold before March 2010 and December 2013. Those plans, which are not available to new customers, cover about 4,500 people in Wisconsin.

Anthem previously pulled out of the marketplaces for Milwaukee, Racine and Kenosha counties. But Molina Healthcare, Common Ground Healthcare Cooperative, Children’s Community Health Plan and Network Health sold plans in Milwaukee County this year.

Other health insurers selling marketplace plans in the state include Dean Health Plan, Unity Health Insurance, Security Health, Gundersen Health Plan and Aspirus Arise Health Plan of Wisconsin.

All of the insurers, though, have struggled.

“The Wisconsin individual market remains volatile, making planning and pricing for ACA-compliant health plans increasingly difficult,” Anthem said Wednesday in a statement.

Among the factors Anthem cited were a shrinking and deteriorating market and uncertainty at the federal level.