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Adam Paul, who owns Vintage Rose Bakery & Sandwich Shop in west De Pere with his wife, says health care is the biggest financial stress he faces.
He struggles with mental health, and his wife has a thyroid condition. For the last three months, Paul said they’ve been negotiating with their insurance provider to try to get an MRI covered for his wife’s condition.
“Fighting with the insurance company, and owning a business at the same time, to get things covered is a nightmare,” Paul said. “It’s a constant fight of, ‘OK what is my health worth?’”
As a business owner, he said he “would love” to offer his employees insurance, but his company is just “way too small” for him to make it work financially.
Paul and other Brown County community members spoke at an affordability roundtable in De Pere last month, moderated by former Democratic Party of Wisconsin chair Ben Wikler.
Paul wasn’t the only one at the roundtable who spoke about health care costs being a major source of financial stress.
Inflation and cost of living rank as the top issue among Wisconsin voters, according to a September Marquette Law School Poll. Health insurance was the third highest ranking issue among voters and outranked data centers, abortion, schools or crime.
Candidates running for Wisconsin governor, Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany and Democratic Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, both say they want to lower health care costs and make care more accessible. But they’re offering different views on how to do that.
Wisconsin hospital prices among highest in nation as ACA coverage declines
From 2000 to 2025, the cost of many essential goods and services rose faster than median incomes in Wisconsin, according to a recent report from Forward Analytics, the research arm of the Wisconsin Counties Association.
The biggest increase among essential costs came from hospital services, which increased by 274%, the report found. Median household incomes in Wisconsin increased by an estimated 90% over the same period.
Dan Sacks, a professor of risk and insurance at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business, said health care, in general, is expensive — accounting for around 18% of the nation’s gross domestic product.
He said Wisconsin’s hospital prices are among the highest in the nation, as the health care sector has become “dominated by a relatively small number of very important health systems.”
He said those who buy insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplace are seeing higher costs after pandemic-era subsidies ended at the start of the year. He said the subsidies helped keep ACA premiums down.
Sacks said tens of thousands fewer Wisconsinites enrolled in ACA coverage this year than last year, and people are generally “paying more out of pocket for their health care.”
Beyond the ACA marketplace, Medicaid work requirements included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act are set to begin at the start of 2027, which would affect those enrolled in BadgerCare, Sacks said.
“In Wisconsin, the work requirements will apply only to childless adult BadgerCare members,” Sacks said.
Crowley, Tiffany differ on the role government should play
While both candidates say they want to lower health care costs and expand access to care, Tiffany and Crowley differ on the role government should play in achieving those goals.
Crowley’s health care proposal calls for opening up BadgerCare enrollment to any household that wants it, making premiums based on income and giving targeted subsidies to small businesses, single parents, college students, farmers and gig workers.
The plan also proposes making BadgerCare comprehensive to include medical, dental, vision and mental health care.
“It’s about creating BadgerCare as an alternative to for-profit insurance, giving our veterans, our entrepreneurs, our students, our child care workers, anybody, the ability to pay into a system that’s going to be cheaper and is going to work well for them, so they don’t fall through the cracks,” Crowley told WPR.
Meanwhile, Tiffany’s health care proposal calls for requiring hospitals and insurance companies to provide upfront prices to patients, allowing primary care patients to pay their doctor directly through a subscription model and allowing the Wisconsin Farm Bureau to offer health plans to members.
The plan also calls for increased oversight of pharmacy benefit managers, which he says contribute to higher prescription drug costs.
“We’re going to create a system that makes health care more affordable in Wisconsin and brings greater resources to the table to make sure that we have top-notch health care,” Tiffany said. “We are going to make sure that all health care providers provide maximum transparency.”
Crowley has been critical of Tiffany for his vote in favor of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and its Medicaid spending cuts. Tiffany has defended the bill for providing funding for rural health care and said he supported a federal rule that could bring additional Medicaid funding to the state.
This story was produced as part of the NEW (Northeast Wisconsin) News Lab, a consortium of five news outlets.
Wisconsin governor candidates offer opposing plans to address rising health care costs is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
