Lawmakers struggle to understand that zero new revenues is the wrong answer.
Wyoming's trust funds contain more than $20 billion.

Wyoming's "budget crisis" is fake

Even as fossil fuel tax revenues plummet, Wyoming remains a rich state with no urgent reason to cut public services from struggling and vulnerable people. It also just received more than a billion dollars in federal aid. Why then, are Wyoming lawmakers eager to cut public funding? Because they want to.
Wyoming's rural hospitals struggle to care for people like Beverly Kolacny, who lives on a ranch near Powell. Medicaid expansion would provide resources to rural hospitals and clinics in Wyoming for better healthcare.

Wyoming’s rural hospitals (and communities) would benefit from Medicaid expansion

Expanding Medicaid would help Wyoming’s struggling rural hospitals offset state budget cuts, provide mental health treatment, and attract and retain physicians to provide better services.
All people in Wyoming would see the financial benefits of expanded Medicaid.

Expanding Medicaid would drive down people’s healthcare costs across Wyoming

When hospitals treat people who can’t afford to pay, they pass off those losses to everyone else, raising medical costs and insurance premiums statewide. This “uncompensated care” amounts to 6 percent of Wyoming hospitals’ total expenses. Medicaid expansion would cover those costs instead, helping hospitals and driving down the price of healthcare for everyone.
Other states' budgets have seen decreases in healthcare spending as a result of expanding Medicaid.

Medicaid expansion would lower Wyoming’s state healthcare spending

The State of Wyoming would pay for 10 percent of the cost of expanding Medicaid—roughly $9 million the first year. But other states’ experiences have shown that savings from the program more than offset the costs.
Expanding Medicaid would provide healthcare to tens of thousands of low-income Wyomingites.

Revenue Committee votes to sponsor Wyoming Medicaid expansion bill during 2020 Legislative session

The committee's support—and Wyoming's worsening budget situation—gives Medicaid expansion the best shot it's had in years.
With few other viable options for revenue, that big pot of Medicaid expansion money is looking better and better.

Revenue Committee to consider non-tax proposal to bring hundreds of millions of public dollars to Wyoming

A bill to expand Medicaid would help close the state’s sizeable budget shortfall (and it would help poor people get healthcare, too).
Wyoming misses out on millions of dollars the federal government offers us.

Wyoming lawmakers have a “cultural bias” against accepting federal funds

When times are good, no one questions whether the Legislature’s refusal to accept federal funding is wise. But as Wyoming’s budget problems continue, those questions are beginning to arise.
Rod Miller holds court at the Bunkhouse Saloon in beautiful Buford, Wyoming.

Rod Miller explains Wyoming coal’s long, slow death [VIDEO]

Hell yes, there's a War on Coal. It's been going on a lot longer than you think it has. And coal's enemies are not who or what you think they are.
The pursuit of beaver fur brought trappers West to Wyoming in the early days of European settlement. Those trappers adapted when the fur trade went south.

What Wyoming can learn about coal from the collapse of the fur trade

When the world switched from beaver-skin hats to silk hats in the 1800s, the fur trade plummeted. Instead of doubling down on pelts, smart fur-bearing states developed new industries.
Lawmakers struggle to understand that zero new revenues is the wrong answer.

Lawmakers fail to figure out new revenues for Wyoming public school funding, but avoid further cuts—2019 Legislative recap

After three consecutive years of deep cuts to the Wyoming public education budget, the Legislature relented this session. But without stable sources of revenue, more school cuts are likely on the way.