Better Wyoming launched a healthcare campaign last spring building on the success in passing “Medicaid for Moms” with help by our grassroots organizing efforts during the Legislature’s 2023 session.
Our campaign kicked off in May by reaching out to folks over social media and text messages, asking them to fill out a survey about their healthcare concerns. Hundreds participated, each receiving a follow-up call from a Better Wyoming organizer to delve into their perspectives of what healthcare access in Wyoming looks like to them.
Expanding on these conversations, and with the support of existing healthcare advocates, Better Wyoming organized healthcare summits across the state. These events aimed to shape the demands for the upcoming 2024 legislative session through collective action.
Read more: Laramie County healthcare summit seeks to define legislative priorities
Read more: “A serious situation in Fremont County” – BW rallies state on healthcare
Through these summits, statewide calls, and extensive conversations, four key concerns emerged: affordability, lack of healthcare providers, mental health, and distance to care/transportation.
Read more: Better Wyoming 2023 healthcare campaign research report
This research led to more than just building our base of grassroots supporters—it also caught the attention of both the governor’s Policy Advisor for Health and Human Services, as well as the Wyoming Department of Health.
Better Wyoming staff and volunteers held meetings with officials at the governor’s office and the health department, as well as members of the Legislature’s Joint Appropriations Committee./ They presented a comprehensive report summarizing five months of work, distilling poll results and the identified healthcare issues that many hard-working Wyomingites face, while also learning officials’ perspectives on the upcoming legislative session.
During these meetings, Better Wyoming learned that the Department of Health faced the possibility of massive cuts to its budget in 2024, since federal emergency funds from the pandemic that the state had been using to support critical DOH programs were running out. If the Legislature refuses to backfill these funds with roughly $112 million in state dollars, programs that provide mental healthcare, disabilities services, long-term senior care, and more could be eliminated.
More than 90 percent of the Wyoming Department of Health’s budget is passed along to local community healthcare in the form of services, provider reimbursements, and programs, so cuts to the agency affect healthcare access across our state.
Fortunately, Governor Gordon recommended to the Legislature that it should, indeed, backfill the pandemic funds with state dollars. In his letter to the Joint Appropriations Committee, which writes the first draft of the state budget that the full Legislature will consider during its 2024 budget session, Gordon recommended that they fund most—but not all—of the Department of Health’s budget request.
Governor Gordon recommended the committee deny $20 million of the agency’s request, even though that funding would help address the precisely problems Better Wyoming’s healthcare campaign had identified: provider shortage, mental health, affordability, distance to care.
So, on Jan. 12, Better Wyoming took action. Our members sent nearly 170 emails to members of the Joint Appropriations Committee, and 20 healthcare advocates showed up to the Wyoming State Capital to give testimony, asking the committee to fully fund the Wyoming Department of Health in the upcoming budget.
The Joint Appropriations Committee assured Better Wyoming that they heard our concerns, and the next week the committee voted to fully fund the Department of Health’s budget request.
This was a big win, but the budget still needed to get approved by the Wyoming legislature, which includes a large block of lawmakers who ideologically oppose public spending on healthcare, despite the harms cutting Department of Health funding would do our communities.
During this tumultuous legislative session, radical legislators took a bludgeon to the budget, cutting funding for necessary public services. Yet, the largest potential target—the Department of Health budget—went unscathed.
This could not have happened without folks like you! It’s no coincidence that, in the lead up to the budget debates, nearly 400 Better Wyoming volunteers had already contacted lawmakers, given public testimony, met with legislators in their home districts, and spoke to them in the lobbies of the capitol asking them to fully fund our state healthcare agency.
Finally, in late March marked a major victory in this campaign: Governor Mark Gordon officially signed the biennial budget into law, which fully funded the Wyoming Department of Health and added a $10 million in long-term funding for the state’s 988 suicide hotline.
Grassroots movements like ours have the power to bring about real positive change.
Now, Better Wyoming is looking forward to the year ahead. We are already in the process of launching a campaign to educate voters on new election laws in advance of the primary and general elections. This will build toward bigger and more impactful grassroots actions on behalf of issues that Wyomingites care about—including Medicaid expansion—leading up to the 2025 legislative session.
Summary of our 2023-2024 healthcare campaign
Better Wyoming launched a healthcare campaign last spring building on the success in passing “Medicaid for Moms” with help by our grassroots organizing efforts during the Legislature’s 2023 session.
Our new campaign kicked off in May by reaching out to folks over social media and text messages, asking them to fill out a survey about their healthcare concerns. Hundreds participated, each receiving a follow-up call from a Better Wyoming organizer to delve into their perspectives of what healthcare access in Wyoming looks like to them.
Expanding on these conversations, and with the support of existing healthcare advocates, Better Wyoming organized healthcare summits across the state. These events aimed to shape the demands for the upcoming 2024 legislative session through collective action.
Read more: Laramie County healthcare summit seeks to define legislative priorities
Read more: “A serious situation in Fremont County” – BW rallies state on healthcare
Through these summits, statewide calls, and extensive conversations, four key concerns emerged: affordability, lack of healthcare providers, mental health, and distance to care/transportation.
Read more: Better Wyoming 2023 healthcare campaign research report
This research led to more than just building our base of grassroots supporters—it also caught the attention of both the governor’s Policy Advisor for Health and Human Services, as well as the Wyoming Department of Health.
Better Wyoming staff and volunteers held meetings with officials at the governor’s office and the health department, as well as members of the Legislature’s Joint Appropriations Committee./ They presented a comprehensive report summarizing five months of work, distilling poll results and the identified healthcare issues that many hard-working Wyomingites face, while also learning officials’ perspectives on the upcoming legislative session.
During these meetings, Better Wyoming learned that the Department of Health faced the possibility of massive cuts to its budget in 2024, since federal emergency funds from the pandemic that the state had been using to support critical DOH programs were running out. If the Legislature refuses to backfill these funds with roughly $112 million in state dollars, programs that provide mental healthcare, disabilities services, long-term senior care, and more could be eliminated.
More than 90 percent of the Wyoming Department of Health’s budget is passed along to local community healthcare in the form of services, provider reimbursements, and programs, so cuts to the agency affect healthcare access across our state.
Fortunately, Governor Gordon recommended to the Legislature that it should, indeed, backfill the pandemic funds with state dollars. In his letter to the Joint Appropriations Committee, which writes the first draft of the state budget that the full Legislature will consider during its 2024 budget session, Gordon recommended that they fund most—but not all—of the Department of Health’s budget request.
Governor Gordon recommended the committee deny $20 million of the agency’s request, even though that funding would help address the precisely problems Better Wyoming’s healthcare campaign had identified: provider shortage, mental health, affordability, distance to care.
So, on Jan. 12, Better Wyoming took action. Our members sent nearly 170 emails to members of the Joint Appropriations Committee, and 20 healthcare advocates showed up to the Wyoming State Capital to give testimony, asking the committee to fully fund the Wyoming Department of Health in the upcoming budget.
The Joint Appropriations Committee assured Better Wyoming that they heard our concerns, and the next week the committee voted to fully fund the Department of Health’s budget request.
This was a big win, but the budget still needed to get approved by the Wyoming legislature, which includes a large block of lawmakers who ideologically oppose public spending on healthcare, despite the harms cutting Department of Health funding would do our communities.
During this tumultuous legislative session, radical legislators took a bludgeon to the budget, cutting funding for necessary public services. Yet, the largest potential target—the Department of Health budget—went unscathed.
This could not have happened without folks like you! It’s no coincidence that, in the lead up to the budget debates, nearly 400 Better Wyoming volunteers had already contacted lawmakers, given public testimony, met with legislators in their home districts, and spoke to them in the lobbies of the capitol asking them to fully fund our state healthcare agency.
Finally, in late March marked a major victory in this campaign: Governor Mark Gordon officially signed the biennial budget into law, which fully funded the Wyoming Department of Health and added a $10 million in long-term funding for the state’s 988 suicide hotline.
Grassroots movements like ours have the power to bring about real positive change.
Now, Better Wyoming is looking forward to the year ahead. We are already in the process of launching a campaign to educate voters on new election laws in advance of the primary and general elections. This will build toward bigger and more impactful grassroots actions on behalf of issues that Wyomingites care about—including Medicaid expansion—leading up to the 2025 legislative session.