A public hearing for the children's hearing aid and cochlear implant bill is scheduled at the State Capitol for March 18 at 10:30 a.m.
This will be a joint hearing of both the Senate Committee on Health, Health Insurance, Privacy, Property Tax Relief and Revenue headed by Senator John Erpenbach, and the Assembly Committee on Insurance headed by Representative Cullen.
The bill did not pass last session but has been reintroduced this session. This bill would require group and individual insurance companies to provide coverage for hearing aids and cochlear implants for children who are deaf and hard of hearing.
Last session there were separate public hearings, with the Assembly hearing lasting seven hours as over one hundred families from all over the state came to testify. Local constituents plan to testify at the upcoming hearing, including Beaver Dam's Tiffany Wilke and Heather Schreiber, who also testified last year at multiple hearings.
This session the bill has a number of legislators, both Democrats and Republicans, who are in strong support of the bill. One Republican supporter is Senator Scott Fitzgerald, who has signed on as a co-sponsor of the bill.