Bryan Steil and the BadgerCare Work Requirement: What It Will Cost Wisconsin and His District

Bryan Steil, the House member for Wisconsin's 1st District, cast a deciding vote for the House version of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in May 2025 and voted for the final law that July. The law requires BadgerCare Plus adults with no child at home to show 80 hours a month of work, school or volunteering, starting January 1, 2027, and Wisconsin's health department puts about 63,000 members at risk of losing coverage.

In Steil's own district, KFF counts 68,000 adults on Medicaid, the BadgerCare adult group the requirement draws from. Steil has defended the requirement twice, at an August 2025 telephone town hall and at his October 2026 debate in Janesville.

What the BadgerCare Work Requirement Bryan Steil Voted For Will Cost Wisconsin

• About 63,000 BadgerCare members could lose their health coverage starting in 2027. Wisconsin's health department estimates that about 200,000 BadgerCare adults will be subject to the requirement and that "approximately 63,000 members are at risk of losing their health care coverage"; WPR reported that the state has no work history on file for about 63,000 of them. A member who loses BadgerCare pays full price for doctor visits and prescriptions, or goes without them.
• 68,000 adults in Steil's district are in the Medicaid group the requirement draws from. KFF counts 159,400 Medicaid enrollees in Wisconsin's 1st District, among them 68,000 adults, the group from which BadgerCare's childless adults come; the requirement does not apply to an adult with a dependent child living at home, so not all of them will have to report hours, but every adult who must report and cannot show a qualifying month before renewal risks losing coverage.
• A Wisconsin adult who was out of work the month before applying can be turned away. From January 1, 2027, an applicant "must meet the work requirement in the calendar month before the month in which they submit their application" or expect monthly income of at least $580, the federal minimum wage times 80 hours, according to the state's operations memo; an adult who loses a job and then applies for BadgerCare can be denied unless an exemption applies.
• Wisconsin taxpayers pay $10 million in the first year to run the requirement. State Health Services Secretary Kirsten Johnson said the requirement will cost Wisconsin $10 million in its first year to put in place; Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez has said the new federal work and eligibility rules are costing Wisconsin taxpayers about $72 million a year.

Bryan Steil's Votes and Statements on the BadgerCare Work Requirement

• Steil Cast a Deciding Vote for the House Bill and Voted for the Law That Puts a Work Requirement on BadgerCare, in 2025. On May 22, 2025, Bryan Steil voted yes on the House version of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which passed 215 to 214 with one member voting present, so it could not have passed without his vote; on July 3, 2025 he voted for the final law, which passed 218 to 214. Section 71119 of that law is the work requirement Wisconsin must now apply to BadgerCare, according to the state health department's operations memo. By the Congressional Budget Office's estimate, as KFF reports, the work requirement alone cuts federal Medicaid spending by $326 billion over a decade and leaves 5.3 million more people uninsured in 2034.
• Steil Cast Deciding Votes for the Budget Plan That Told the Committee Over Medicaid to Cut $880 Billion, in 2025. On February 25, 2025, Steil voted for H.Con.Res. 14, the budget resolution, which passed 217 to 215, and on April 10, 2025 he voted for its final version, which passed 216 to 214; a switch by him alone would have tied either vote, and a tie fails. The resolution told the committee that writes Medicaid law to "reduce the deficit by not less than $880,000,000,000" over ten years. The committee met that instruction with the law's Medicaid cuts, including the work requirement, which in Wisconsin reaches the roughly 190,000 childless adults BadgerCare covered in April 2026, according to the state health department as reported by the Wisconsin Examiner.
• Steil Said the Work Requirement on "Able-Bodied, Childless Adults" Would Strengthen BadgerCare, in October 2026. At his October 20, 2026 debate on WCLO radio in Janesville, Steil said the law's Medicaid work requirements on "able-bodied, childless adults of working age" would strengthen the program, the Wisconsin Examiner reported. Wisconsin's health department told members it would send letters in August or September 2026 and warned in its online screening tool: "If we ask you to send information or documents, it is important that you do so right away. If you don't, you could lose your health care coverage."
• Steil Said the Requirement Would "Lift Them Up and Into Work"; Research Found Work Requirements Did Not Raise Employment. At his August 7, 2025 telephone town hall, Steil said of the BadgerCare adults the state counts as not reporting work or a disability, "what we want to do is help lift them up and into work" (Racine County Eye transcript). Two economists, Chloe East (University of Colorado) and Adrianna McIntyre (Harvard), wrote in June 2026 that research showed the work requirement Arkansas imposed in 2018 "had no positive effect on employment and made participants worse off," and that "One consistent finding across dozens of papers on work requirements is that they reduce program participation among vulnerable individuals and households," as the Wisconsin Examiner reported.

Frequently Asked Questions About Bryan Steil on BadgerCare work requirement

Last updated: 2026-10-26

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