Battleground Wisconsin: Voters feel nickel-and-dimed by health care costs

BIRNAMWOOD, Wis. — The land of fried cheese curds and the Green Bay Packers is among a half-dozen battleground states that could determine the outcome of the expected November rematch between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump — a contest in which the cost and availability of health care are emerging as defining issues.

At church picnics and summertime polka festivals that draw voters of all political stripes, Wisconsinites said they’re struggling to pay for even the most basic health care, from common blood tests to insulin prescriptions. A proposal by Wisconsin’s Democratic governor to expand the state’s Medicaid program to thousands of low-income residents has become a partisan lightning rod in the affordability debate: Democrats want it; Republicans don’t.

In 2020, voters here gave Biden, a Democrat, a narrow win after favoring Trump, a Republican, in 2016. Recent polling indicates that the two rivals were neck and neck in this year’s race.

Many Wisconsin voters still can’t figure out whom to vote for — or whether to vote at all.

“I know he’s trying to improve health care and inflation, but I’m not happy with Biden,” said Bob Prelipp, 79, a Republican who lives in Birnamwood, a village of about 700 people in rural central Wisconsin. He reluctantly voted for Biden in 2020, after voting for Trump in 2016.

Prelipp was serving beer at the Birnamwood Polka Days festival on a muggy June day. Pro-Trump hats peppered the crowd, and against the backdrop of cheerful polka tunes, peppy dancing, and the sweet smell of freshly cut hay, candidates for local and state office mingled with voters.

This rural part of the state is ruby red. Trump flags fly over the landscape and businesses proudly display pro-Trump paraphernalia. Biden supporters are more visible and vocal in the Wisconsin population centers of Madison, the capital, and Milwaukee.

Biden “needs to get prices down. Everything is getting so unaffordable, even health care,” said Prelipp, a Vietnam War veteran who said his federal health care for veterans has improved markedly under Biden, including wait times for appointments. Yet he said he can’t stomach the idea of voting for him again, or for Trump, who has disparaged military veterans.

Prelipp said people are feeling nickel-and-dimed, not only at the grocery store and gas pump, but also at doctors’ offices and hospitals.

Greg Laabs, a musician in one of the polka bands at Birnamwood, displayed a pro-Trump sticker on his tuba. He said he likes his federal Medicare health coverage but worries that if Biden is reelected Democrats will provide publicly subsidized health care to immigrants lacking legal residency.

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