Health and Mental Health

Firefighters and emergency medical service (EMS) professionals provide emergency services in Wisconsin. Under state law, firefighting means any activity related to controlling and extinguishing an unwanted fire or a fire set for training firefighters. Firefighting also includes emergency operations and responses related to rescues, terrorism, and special hazards. Both private and municipal fire departments may provide firefighting services. Fire department training is generally overseen by either the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration or the state Department of Safety and Professional Services.

Emergency medical services include basic life support, emergency medical care before hospitalization, and transportation of sick, disabled, or injured individuals. Municipalities, hospitals, and private companies may provide emergency medical services. Individual EMS professionals are either certified or licensed by the state Department of Health Services. This issue brief summarizes the training requirements for firefighters and EMS professionals under Wisconsin law.

In Tavern League v. Palm, 2021 WI 33, the plaintiffs challenged building capacity limits that were imposed by the Department of Health Service in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This issue brief provides background information and summarizes the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s decision and the current state of the law regarding the authority to establish capacity limits.

In Fabick v. Evers, 2021 WI 28, the Wisconsin Supreme Court held that the Governor lacks statutory authority to issue multiple declarations of emergency based on the same condition that enabled the Governor to initially declare a state of emergency. The decision holds that various orders issued after the expiration of the Governor’s initial declaration of a state of emergency in response to the COVID-19 pandemic were unlawful. In particular, the decision invalidates the Governor’s declared state of emergency that had been set to expire on April 5, 2021, including all executive actions and orders issued pursuant to the powers triggered by the emergency declaration, such as the statewide mask mandate.

Prior to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), insurers could deny enrollment in a health insurance policy and limit benefit coverage for persons with a preexisting condition, subject to certain limitations in each state’s laws. The ACA created uniform provisions that apply consistently throughout the states to address coverage for a preexisting condition. Wisconsin’s provisions regarding coverage for preexisting conditions were in place prior to the ACA and would apply if the ACA were to be overturned or repealed without replacement.

Governor Evers and his administration have taken numerous actions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This information memorandum provides a table outlining information on each of the executive and emergency orders that have been issued by Governor Evers and Department of Health Services Secretary-Designee Palm in response to the COVID-19 outbreak as of the date of this publication. For each executive and emergency order, the table identifies the official who issued the order, the authority cited by the official issuing the order, the expiration date provided by the terms of the order, and the current status of the order.

On April 14 and 15, 2020, the Wisconsin Legislature convened in virtual extraordinary session and passed 2019 Assembly Bill 1038, relating to the state government response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This legislation was signed into law by Governor Evers on April 16, 2020 and enacted as 2019 Wisconsin Act 185.

2017 Wisconsin Act 370 created a number of new requirements that the Department of Health Services must satisfy when making requests to the federal government, described generally below.

Wisconsin law authorizes multiple approaches to the delivery of emergency medical services (EMS). An EMS provider may be organized as a municipal agency, frequently within a municipality’s fire department, or may be organized as a private company or nonprofit corporation. Services may be staffed with paid or volunteer members, or a combination of both. The Department of Health Services plays a large role in approving and supporting EMS plans, and generally oversees the network of emergency response to facilitate integration with local hospitals.