THU AM News: Expert warns of rural impacts from bird flu; WMC, WHA weigh in on Trump executive order on price transparency

February 27, 2025

— While Wisconsin still has yet to see any cases of bird flu in dairy cattle, the head of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory warns the impact of the virus could hit rural communities hardest.

Wisconsin in December identified multiple H5N1 cases in commercial and backyard poultry flocks, but has yet to find any bird flu in dairy cattle. Keith Poulsen, director of the WVDL, says the cost of infection on farms primarily impacts producers.

“The burden is on the farmer,” he said this week during an interview on WisconsinEye. “You’re going to see milk drop, you’ll also see loss of production bonuses due to … milk quality, fat, protein, volume. They’re also going to see about 50% of turnover for animals that are affected.”

He emphasized the expense of restoring those herds, noting the cost of replacing a dairy cow is up to three times as high as it was just a year ago.

“That becomes really untenable to a lot of farms,” he said. “And because those replacement animal costs are even higher, we could see more farms actually selling out, if they’re getting to that point where maybe the kids are gone and there’s no one to take over … we might see fewer Wisconsin farms, which is a challenge for all of our rural communities.”

Meanwhile, DATCP plans to test Wisconsin dairy farms for bird flu on a monthly basis as the virus has been spreading across the country, raising concerns about the possibility of another pandemic. While human-to-human transmission hasn’t been seen, dozens of people across the country have been infected by bird flu since last April, including at least one case in Wisconsin.

Dr. Darlene Konkle, state veterinarian with the agency, says DATCP will leverage the existing National Milk Testing Strategy, which already tests milk coming from Wisconsin dairy farms for other pathogens. The agency is currently working with the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory on logistics for this plan.

“The actual dairy farmer … really shouldn’t see anything different,” she said. “Their milk gets picked up and tested regularly for other reasons, and we’re going to piggyback on that same system.”

Poulsen said the “end goal” of eliminating the virus from dairy herds nationally is still within reach, though getting it out of poultry entirely will be “a little bit more challenging” due to their higher susceptibility and the added variable of infected wild birds.

Watch the video.

— Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce is applauding a recently signed executive order on health care cost transparency, while the Wisconsin Hospital Association says President Trump “is one of the only people” recognizing that health insurers are also subject to transparency laws.

In a statement yesterday, WMC Associate Vice President of Government Relations and Senior Political Advisor Rachel Ver Velde said the president’s move will “bring badly needed transparency” to health care costs.

The order directs federal officials to create a plan for implementing an earlier 2019 executive order requiring health insurers and hospitals to disclose cost information, according to the release.

“Wisconsin has the fourth highest hospital prices in the country, and we will never be able to lower prices unless we allow patients to make market-based spending decisions based on cost and quality,” Ver Velde said. “But they cannot do so when prices remain hidden.”

Meanwhile, WHA in a separate statement said Trump is acknowledging that health insurers, third party administrators and self-funded employers in Wisconsin are also subject to the federal price transparency law, “but you’d barely know it.”

“The mega health insurance companies, the impact they have on health care cost and their obligations under the federal health care price transparency law has been and continues to be glaringly ignored by some here in Wisconsin,” WHA said. “Hopefully, that’s now changing, at least in Washington, D.C.”

WMC argues enforcing the new policy “will be critical,” claiming just 30% of Wisconsin hospitals are fully complying with transparency rules. The group says it’s “particularly happy to see President Trump return the regulation’s focus to the consumer-friendly 300 shoppable services requirement, rather than allowing the problematic price estimator tools.”

WHA’s website has multiple pricing information tools, including its Price Finder mapping function and PricePoint application focused on specific services.

The group points to California health care pricing platform Turquoise Health in 2024 ranking Wisconsin as “best in the nation” for complying with federal price transparency laws and touts the hard work and commitment of hospitals in the state. WHA says it’s been working with Wisconsin hospitals to ensure they “stay ahead of ever-changing” federal transparency requirements and remains committed to this effort.

“At the same time, we call on federal regulators to enforce transparency laws fairly,” WHA said. “It’s time to hold mega health insurers and middlemen accountable, entities that extract billions from the healthcare system while avoiding the increased scrutiny they deserve.”

WHA says the executive order clarifies that health care transparency oversight “rests with the federal government rather than a hodgepodge of state transparency laws” that are always misaligned with federal requirements.

See WMC’s full statement here and WHA’s statement here.

— A coalition of Wisconsin groups that rely on Medicaid funding is warning a budget resolution passed by the U.S. House puts businesses in “every Wisconsin county” at risk of Medicaid funding cuts.

The Wisconsin Medicaid Coalition yesterday issued a report showing Medicaid provided $11 billion to nearly 40,000 businesses in the state in 2023, arguing any spending cuts targeting the federal health care program would “have a devastating impact” on the state economy.

Its report says more than 23% of residents in every Wisconsin county rely on Medicaid dollars to fund health care, including services for mental health and long-term care, while some counties in the state have up to 65% of their population in a Medicaid program.

Kim Hawthorne, CEO of Scenic Bluffs Community Health Centers in Monroe County, says Medicaid funding is a “key driver” for her rural community, helping to keep clinics and nursing homes open. She notes Medicaid dollars make up about half of all revenue at community health centers in Wisconsin.

“Especially in rural areas, Medicaid funding is the difference between having care options or having closures,” she said in a statement. “At Scenic Bluffs, nearly 45% of our patients rely on Medicaid as the payer for their care — many of whom would be uninsured or unable to afford necessary services without it.”

While the house resolution is targeting hundreds of billions in cuts that could hit the Medicaid program, the coalition argues, Dem Gov. Tony Evers is again calling for expanding the state’s BadgerCare program in his budget proposal. Legislative Republicans continue to reject that approach.

BadgerCare Plus, the state’s program that provides health care coverage for low-income residents, is funded in part by Medicaid, according to an overview from the state Department of Health Services. Wisconsin is one of 10 states that didn’t take the federal Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act.

In a report yesterday, the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty argued expanding Medicaid in the state would make health care more expensive while reducing quality. The group found states that did take the expansion spent $215.59 more per capita on health care each year, an increase of 2.1% compared to non-expansion states.

Plus, WILL said there’s “no guarantee” that Medicaid recipients will get needed care, noting 96.1% of doctors accept new private insurance patients while just 74.3% accept new Medicaid patients.

“Expanding Medicaid is a Trojan horse for higher costs without the promise of improved care,” WILL Policy Associate Miranda Spindt said in a statement. “Wisconsin would be better off finding ways to lower health care costs by reducing government intervention, and by allowing innovation to improve the quality of care for all Wisconsinites.”

See the coalition’s release and WILL’s release.

See a county-level breakdown of Medicaid funding in Wisconsin.

— The Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association and others are calling for the release of nearly $29 million in paused funding for Dairy Business Innovation initiatives, calling the dollars “critical to the stability and growth” of hundreds of companies.

Rebekah Sweeney, senior director of programs and policy for the group, sent a letter yesterday to USDA leadership expressing “deep concern” about the agency’s move to pause the funding. The WCMA and Center for Dairy Research run the Dairy Business Innovation Alliance in Wisconsin, one of the DBI centers.

They were recently told the USDA is pausing reimbursement to this and other centers, retroactive to Jan. 19, according to the letter.

“We respectfully ask for your immediate action to release Congressionally-directed funding, critical to the stability and growth of hundreds of small, rural businesses and the nation’s dairy industry,” Sweeney wrote.

She says 420 dairy businesses are impacted by the funding pause across the four DBI centers, including 88 businesses “awaiting promised reimbursement” of about $6.5 million through the Dairy Business Innovation Alliance.

“Our center’s affected dairy businesses are small, with 86 percent employing 50 or fewer workers, and 50 percent employing five or fewer workers,” she wrote. “They are depending on the federal government to honor its commitment to them, via our program.”

U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Madison, is making the same call to restart the payments for DBI centers, calling the funding uncertainty “incredibly alarming.” In a letter to USDA leadership, she said the funding pause threatens the future of dairy businesses that were already promised this support.

“Many of the farmers and processors operate with limited resources and cannot afford disruptions in funding,” Baldwin wrote. “Therefore, this unnecessary and ill-advised disruption could have widespread economic consequences, particularly, for small dairy operations in Wisconsin that drive our rural economies.”

DBI centers provide technical assistance, market research, free consulting, grants for launching companies and products, and more. The letter says related initiatives contribute 3.2 million jobs and $794 billion in economic impact across the country.

Read the WCMA letter here.

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