In the News

By: Door County Pulse Staff

Madison Company Releases Test to Aid Early Autism Detection

A blood test that could help identify autism in children as young as 18 months hit the market this week, released by a Madison-based company.

In the United States, the average child with autism gets diagnosed at 4 years old. Behavioral tests can identify autism two years earlier. NeuroPointDX claims their new blood test can help identify autism in children as young as 18 months.

NeuroPointDX CEO Elizabeth Donley says the test draws on a large clinical study conducted with the University of California-Davis MIND Institute and researchers across the country that found 30 percent of children with autism had certain metabolic imbalances. Donley said their test screens for those irregularities in children with developmental delays. Donley said the hope is to get children who need treatment into it earlier, because early intervention often means better health outcomes.

 
ACA Enrollment Period Begins

Nov. 1 marks the beginning of a shortened sign-up period for those seeking health coverage through the Affordable Care Act marketplace.

Not only is enrollment shorter, but there won’t be a penalty for not buying health insurance. It’s one of the biggest changes in the law, along with more availability of short term plans, which are usually cheaper.

Insurance brokers may have a more prominent role this year because President Donald Trump has cut funding for navigators – people who get federal money to help customers sign up for health coverage. Wisconsin is down to one navigator group, which is contracting with another agency to provide in-person assistance to 23 of the state’s 72 counties.

Now in its sixth signup season, the ACA so far has withstood efforts by Republicans to undermine it. But it’s still being challenged in court by 20 states, including Wisconsin.

Enrollment for 2019 ends Dec. 15.

 

Feds OK Medicaid Work Requirements in Wisconsin

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has approved Wisconsin’s waiver requiring some BadgerCare recipients to work. Adults less than age 50 who do not have children would have to be employed 80 hours a month, undergo job training or do community service to be eligible for health care benefits.

Wisconsin is the fourth state to get approval for a Medicaid work requirement this year. Critics say it goes against the intent of the health program and may be illegal under current law. The Trump administration and Republican governors seeking permission to link health coverage and work say the change will help people become more independent.

Prior to the waiver’s approval, there was no limit to health benefits based on work requirements.

Wisconsin submitted the waiver request to federal health officials last year. Wisconsin’s changes include charging premiums to low-income childless adults on BadgerCare Plus who make no more than $12,060 a year.

Three other states have changed their Medicaid programs to include work requirements: Arkansas, Indiana, and New Hampshire. And a fourth, Kentucky, had those changes invalidated by courts this summer.

In Arkansas, thousands lost health coverage when that state implemented work requirements.

 

People Line Up to Ride The Hop

Milwaukee’s first new streetcar service line is up and running. Officials, including Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett and U.S. Congresswoman Gwen Moore, spoke to a crowd in Cathedral Square before the first official ride of the streetcar.

Sam Wilson was waiting in line with her son and two daughters. She is one of the many people who have been critical of the streetcar because of its initial route, which is limited to the downtown area.

“It seems like it’s something that’s to help make richer neighborhoods richer and kind of leave out people on the north side, near south side, so I wanted to hear what Mayor Barrett said in his speech and he did mention it going into other neighborhoods, but I guess we’ll see,” she said.

Wilson also said that no matter what she thinks of the streetcar, it’ll be fun for her children to go on.

“I mean it’s not like me not riding it will make it go away, so I’ll let them have a ride,” she said.

Penny Beams lives in Pewaukee but she said she spends a lot of time on the Milwaukee lakefront during summer weekends. She welcomes the new transit system, calling Friday a historic day.

“Well there hasn’t been (a streetcar) for so very many years,” she said. “And we like to travel through Europe and all over the bigger cities in the East Coast and the West Coast, and I see how effective mass transit is like this and it’s something that has always been missing in Milwaukee,” she said, adding that it could help boost tourism in Milwaukee.

While the route is central to Milwaukee’s downtown, people have also criticized that it largely avoids the downtown’s biggest attractions, including the new Fiserv Forum and the Wisconsin Center.

Riders will be able to board the more than two-mile initial route for free in the streetcar’s first year because of a 12-year, $10 million sponsorship deal the city struck with the Potawatomi Hotel and Casino.

The $128 million project used federal and local dollars, which couldn’t be used for anything else, according to officials.

The streetcar is expected up to every 15 minutes in its 18 stops. An expansion is planned to serve around the lakefront, but that isn’t expected to be operating until 2020.

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