Milwaukee Co. Board considers $1M health care education plan

MILWAUKEE (WITI) -- The new national Health Care Law takes full effect in two weeks but one Milwaukee County Board Chairwoman believes the public needs further education to understand the plan.

Chairwoman Marina Dimitrijevic has proposed spending more than $1 million on education efforts including increasing funding for marketing information, training workers, and creating a directory of services related to the Health Care Law.

"We're about to have the biggest change in health care that this country has ever seen and we need to do all we can in Milwaukee County to ensure people have the right information so they can get health care access," said Dimitrijevic.

Dimitrijevic wants to use a portion of the county's nearly $6 million budget surplus to make sure people have information about the new health care plans and how to sign up for them. Supervisor Deanna Alexander says the proposal is a waste of money that would duplicate services already provided by the county.

"Why should we take money out of our rainy day fund or out of our emergency fund in order to fund that?" asked Alexander. "What she wants to spend the #1.1 million on, she wants to put toward services that the county is already providing."

County Executive Chris Abele has also proposed an outreach effort, but with a much lower cost -- around $200,000.

"Even though it's not our statutory responsibility, it's our moral responsibility. We're trying to do the right thing and do things in a responsible way and we believe the plan we proposed does that," said Hector Colon, Milwaukee County Health and Human Services Director.

The Milwaukee County Board debated, and ultimately delayed, a vote on the plan to spend over $1 million for health care education. There is a special committee meeting scheduled for Thursday, September 26th -- the same day that the County Executive plans to present his budget to the board.