Essentially the most highly effective Republican in Wisconsin stepped as much as a lectern that was affixed with an indication studying, “Professional-Girls Professional-Infants Professional-Life Rally.”
“One of many causes that I ran for workplace was to guard the lives of unborn youngsters,” Meeting Speaker Robin Vos advised the cheering crowd gathered within the ornate rotunda of the state Capitol. They have been there on a June day in 2019 to observe him signal 4 anti-abortion payments and to demand that the state’s Democratic governor signal them. (The governor didn’t.)
“Legislative Republicans are dedicated to defending the preborn as a result of we all know life is probably the most fundamental human proper,” Vos promised. “We’ll proceed to do all the pieces we are able to to guard the unborn, to guard harmless lives.”
Now, nonetheless, Vos has parted with some within the nationwide anti-abortion motion in its push for a selected measure to guard life: the life of latest moms.
Many anti-abortion Republicans have supported new state legal guidelines and insurance policies to increase Medicaid protection to ladies for a yr after giving delivery, up from 60 days. The promise of free well being take care of an extended span can assist persuade ladies in monetary crises to proceed with their pregnancies, quite than select abortion, proponents say. And lots of well being specialists have recognized the yr after childbirth as a precarious time for moms who can endure from a number of problems, each bodily and psychological.
Laws to increase government-provided well being care protection for as much as one yr for low-income new mothers has been handed in 48 different states — pink, blue and purple. Not in Arkansas, the place sufficient officers have balked. And never in Wisconsin, the place the restrict stays two months. And that’s solely due to Vos.
The Wisconsin Senate handed laws earlier this yr that might improve Medicaid postpartum protection to 12 months. Within the state Meeting, 30 Republicans have co-sponsored the laws, and there may be greater than sufficient bipartisan assist to move the invoice in that chamber.
However Vos, who has been speaker for almost 13 years and whose marketing campaign funding choices are thought-about key to victory in elections, controls the Meeting. And, in response to insiders on the state Capitol, he hasn’t allowed a vote on the Senate invoice or the Meeting model, burying it deep in a committee that hardly meets: Regulatory Licensing Reform.
Vos’ resistance has put him and a few of his anti-abortion colleagues within the odd place of getting to reconcile their assist for rising households with the failure of the Meeting to move a invoice aimed toward serving to new mothers keep wholesome.
“If we are able to’t get one thing like this performed, then I don’t know what I’m doing within the Legislature,” Republican Rep. Patrick Snyder, the invoice’s creator and an ardent abortion foe, mentioned in February in a Senate listening to.
Reached by telephone, Vos declined to debate the problem with ProPublica and referred inquiries to his spokesperson, who then didn’t reply to calls or emails. Explaining his opposition, Vos as soon as mentioned, “We have already got sufficient welfare in Wisconsin.” And in vowing to by no means develop Medicaid, he has mentioned the state ought to reserve this system just for “those that actually want it.”
His stance on extending advantages for brand spanking new moms has troubled well being care professionals, social employees and a few of his constituents. They’ve argued and pleaded with him and, in some instances, solid doubt on his ideas. ProPublica requested public feedback to his workplace from January 2024 to June 2025 and located that the overwhelming majority of the roughly 200 messages objected to his stance.
“I do know that is supported by a lot of your Republican colleagues. Because the ‘occasion of the household’ your opposition is abhorrent. Get with it,” one Wisconsin resident advised the speaker by way of a contact type on Vos’ web site.
One other one that reached out to Vos chastised him for offering “lame excuses,” writing: “The ladies of Wisconsin deserve higher from a celebration that CLAIMS to be ‘pro-life’ however in follow, may care much less about ladies and kids. We deserve higher than you.”
“A Commonsense Invoice”
Donna Rozar is among the many Wisconsin Republicans who staunchly oppose abortion but in addition assist Medicaid for brand spanking new moms.
Whereas serving as a state consultant in 2023, she sponsored laws to increase the protection as much as one yr. Her effort mirrored what was taking place in different states following the tip of Roe v. Wade and the constitutional proper to an abortion. Activists on either side of the abortion challenge acknowledged that there could possibly be an increase in high-risk births and sought to guard moms.
“I noticed this as a pro-life invoice to assist moms have protection for as much as a yr, with the intention to allow them to know that they might have the assistance they wanted if there have been any postpartum problems with their being pregnant,” mentioned Rozar, a retired registered nurse. “I believed it was a commonsense invoice.”
Vos, she mentioned, wouldn’t permit the invoice to proceed to a vote though it had 66 co-sponsors within the 99-person chamber. “The speaker of the state Meeting in Wisconsin is a really highly effective particular person and units the agenda,” she mentioned.
Rozar recalled having quite a few “irritating” conversations with Vos as she tried to steer him to advance the laws. “He was simply so against entitlement applications and any further expenditures of Medicaid {dollars} that he simply caught to that precept. Vehemently.”
Vos has argued as effectively that by way of different choices, together with the Reasonably priced Care Act, Wisconites have been capable of finding protection. Whereas some new moms qualify for no-cost premiums underneath sure ACA plans, not all do. Even with no-cost premiums, ACA plans sometimes require a deductible or co-payments. And subsequent yr, when enhanced premium tax credit are on account of expire, few individuals shall be eligible for $0 internet premiums except Congress acts to vary that.
Rozar misplaced her race for reelection in August 2024 after redistricting however returned to the state Capitol in February for a Senate listening to to proceed advocating for the extension. She was joined by a wide range of medical specialists who defined the excessive and life-threatening dangers ladies can face within the first yr after giving delivery.
They warned that with out prolonged Medicaid protection, ladies who want therapy and medicine for postpartum melancholy, drug habit, hypertension, diabetes, blood clots, coronary heart circumstances or different illnesses could also be unable to get them.
One legislative evaluation discovered that on common every month, 700 ladies fell off the Medicaid rolls in Wisconsin two months after giving delivery or experiencing a miscarriage, as a result of they now not met the earnings eligibility guidelines.
Justine Brown-Schabel, a group well being employee in Dane County, advised senators of a brand new mom recognized with gestational diabetes who misplaced Medicaid protection.
“She was now not in a position to afford her diabetes remedy,’’ Brown-Schabel mentioned. “Not solely did this have an effect on her well being however the well being of her toddler, as she was unable to correctly feed her youngster on account of a diminishing milk provide.”
She described one other new mom, one who had extreme postpartum melancholy, poor urge for food, vital weight reduction, insomnia and psychological exhaustion. Sixty days of Medicaid protection, Brown-Schabel mentioned, “are merely not sufficient” in a state of affairs like that.
At the moment, new mothers with family incomes as much as 306% of the poverty line (or $64,719 a yr for a single mother and child) can keep on Medicaid for 60 days after delivery. However the mom have to be under the poverty line ($21,150 for that mother and child) to proceed with protection past that. The brand new laws would prolong the present protections to a yr.
Bipartisan unity on the laws is so nice that Professional-Life Wisconsin and the lobbying arm of the abortion supplier Deliberate Parenthood, which affords some postpartum companies, each registered in assist of it earlier than the Senate.
“It’s one thing that we are able to do and one thing that’s achievable given the bipartisan assist for it,” Matt Sande, a lobbyist for Professional-Life Wisconsin, mentioned in an interview. “It’s not going to interrupt the financial institution.”
As soon as absolutely applied, the prolonged protection would price the state $9.4 million a yr, in response to the state Legislative Fiscal Bureau. The state ended fiscal yr 2025 with a finances surplus of $4.6 billion.
With the Meeting invoice buried by Vos, Democratic Rep. Robyn Vining tried in July to pressure the problem with a little bit of a legislative finish run. She rose throughout flooring debate on the state finances and proposed including the Medicaid extension to the mammoth spending invoice.
All the Republicans who had signed on to the Medicaid invoice, besides one absent member, voted to desk the proposal, sinking the modification. They included Snyder, the invoice’s sponsor, who in an e mail to ProPublica labeled the Democrats’ transfer to boost the problem throughout flooring debate “a stunt.”
“Democrats have been merely extra involved with taking part in political video games to garner speaking factors of who voted in opposition to what, than they have been in supporting the finances negotiated by their Governor,” he mentioned.
Stated Vining of the Republicans who tabled the modification: “They’re taking marching orders from the speaker as an alternative of representing their constituents.”
Properly-Funded Opposition
Vos’ opposition echoes that of influential conservative teams, together with the Basis for Authorities Accountability, a Florida suppose tank that promotes “work over welfare.” Its affiliated lobbying arm brazenly opposed the Medicaid extension for brand spanking new mothers when it first surfaced in Wisconsin in 2021, although it has not registered opposition since then. Reached not too long ago, a spokesperson for the inspiration declined to remark.
Over the previous decade, the inspiration has acquired greater than $11 million from a charitable fund run by billionaire Richard Uihlein, founding father of the Wisconsin-based delivery provides firm Uline. In recent times, Uihlein and his spouse, Liz, even have been prolific political donors nationally and within the Midwest, with Vos among the many beneficiaries.
Since 2020, Liz Uihlein has given over $6 million to Wisconsin’s Republican Meeting Marketing campaign Committee, which is taken into account a key instrument of Vos’ energy. And in February 2024, she donated $500,000 to Vos’ private political marketing campaign at a time when he was immersed in a troublesome intraparty skirmish.
One concern cited by extension opponents such because the Basis for Authorities Accountability is that Medicaid protection for brand spanking new mothers could possibly be used for well being points in a roundabout way associated to giving delivery. Questions over how expansive the protection can be spilled into debate in Arkansas in a Senate committee in April of this yr.
“Are you able to clarify what that protection is? Is it similar to full Medicaid for any drawback that they’ve, or is it by some means particular to the being pregnant and problems?” requested GOP Sen. John Payton.
A state well being official advised him new moms may obtain a full vary of advantages.
“Like, in the event that they wanted a knee substitute, I imply, it’d cowl it?” Payton mentioned.
“Sure,” got here the reply.
The invoice failed in a voice vote.
In Wisconsin, no lawmaker voiced any such concern throughout the February Senate listening to, which was marked by solely constructive suggestions. In truth, one lawmaker and a few medical specialists in attendance brazenly snickered on the thought that Arkansas — a state that ranks low in public well being measurements — would possibly move laws earlier than Wisconsin, leaving it the lone holdout.
Finally, the Wisconsin Senate permitted the laws 32-1 in April, sending it alongside to the Meeting to languish and leaving Wisconsin nonetheless within the firm of Arkansas on the problem.
Regardless of the setbacks and Vos’ agency opposition, Sande of Professional-Life Wisconsin and different anti-abortion activists aren’t giving up. He thinks Vos could be persuaded and the invoice may transfer out of its purgatory this winter.
“I’m telling you that we’re hopeful,” Sande mentioned.
Rozar is, too, though she is effectively conscious of Vos’ unwavering stance. “He might need egg on his face if he let it go,” she mentioned.
