Tiffany’s Useless Bill
This letter to the editor, by Laurie Harmon, appeared in the Hudson Star Observer on December 18, 2025.
Shallow, unwarranted indignation may be free for politicians to express, but it costs us taxpayers money when worthless bills make it all the way through the Wisconsin Legislature to the governor’s desk. A perfect example: U.S. Tom Tiffany’s recent political tantrum over Assembly Bill 308.
Blustering and grandstanding in his bid for governor, Tiffany — who is in federal congress, and not the state legislature where the bill went through to the governor’s desk — championed the passage of this unnecessary bill and is now outraged over it after Gov. Tony Evers vetoed the bill. In Evers’ letter elaborating on the decision, the governor cited the Republican co-author of the bill saying during a proposal “Wisconsin currently doesn’t allow undocumented immigrants to enroll in BadgerCare.”
The bill is trying to ban what is already banned: taxpayer money subsidizing healthcare for undocumented immigrants. Not only did the bill waste time and energy, it amounted to nothing more than political theater.
Under existing law, people “not lawfully present in the United States” already do not qualify for Wisconsin’s two largest medical care programs: BadgerCare or Medicaid. There are two types of “free” healthcare in Wisconsin available for undocumented immigrants: 1) immediate medical care in the form of emergency room treatment, which is required by federal law that applies to all states; and 2) prenatal care, which also is required by federal law that applies to all states.
I, for one, support providing emergency room and prenatal medical care to all people in our community because it’s the humane, decent and lawful thing to do. Also, it actually benefits all Wisconsinites, keeping us all healthier.
Besides that, working immigrants — both documented and undocumented alike — financially contribute to the operations of our local, state and federal government programs. They contribute to Social Security and Medicare — even though undocumented people cannot collect Social Security or qualify for Medicare benefits. They pay lots of other taxes, too. In 2022, undocumented immigrants alone contributed over $240 million to Wisconsin in state and local taxes, as reported by the University of Wisconsin’s School for Workers.
In comparison, U.S. Rep. Tiffany is squandering our public funds by pushing the passage of a needless bill. We should expect more of the same if he ever becomes governor. Next November, don’t give him any more opportunities to waste Wisconsin’s money and time. Tiffany is bad for Wisconsin.