Governor Evers’ Task Force on the Healthcare Workforce meets in La Crosse

LA CROSSE, Wis. (WEAU) - Governor Evers’ Task Force on the Healthcare Workforce met at UW-La Crosse’s Student Union to work to help fix the statewide healthcare shortage. This is the task force’s third meeting and their first in the coulee region.

{:11-:16 Sara Rodriguez/ Wisconsin Lt. Governor chair}

“As a nurse and somebody who’s worked in health care for over 25 years, I know that health care is regional and it is local, and solutions that may happen in Milwaukee or Madison may not work in La Crosse,” says Wisconsin Lieutenant Governor chair, Sara Rodriguez.

Secretary Department of Workforce Development Co-vice chair, Amy Pechacek, says Wisconsin hit record low unemployment.

“Despite all of these positive workforce indicators. Employers, especially our health care employers, are still having a hard time filling all of their vacancies,” says Pechacek.

Rodriguez says one of the ideas that has been discussed at meetings has been the introduction of Medicaid.

“Wisconsin is now only one of ten states that has not expanded Medicaid. If we did that, we would get almost $2 billion over the biennium that we could invest in health care here within Wisconsin,” says Rodriguez.

Rodriguez adds that other ideas include youth and nurse apprenticeship models, as well as increasing reimbursement rates. Meetings like this help those ideas move forward as they are shared amongst task force members.

“We’ve been having some fantastic discussions. We’re really looking at what we want to do moving forward to be able to shore up this critical industry. What we’re hearing from folks all across the state is that these shortages are real, and that we need to work on that pipeline of students coming through the different hospital systems in all sorts of areas. It’s not just about nurses. It’s not just about physicians. It’s about so many other roles that work within the hospital systems,” says Rodriguez.

Later this year, the task force’s ideas and recommendations will be sent to Governor Evers for his 2025 to 2027 state budget.

The task force will have three more meetings, which will be in Milwaukee, Green Bay, and Madison. The next meeting will be in Milwaukee on June 6.