And even though Walsh is in favor of getting rid of the UWHC Board, he is not a fan of how this all is playing out.

"You don't normally do things like this without hearings," says Walsh. "Maybe some people do have concerns or some issues we haven't thought about. It just seems strange this would be in a repair bill. This doesn't repair anything. It seems unfair to those workers."

If the UWHC Board is killed off, all workers would apparently become authority employees. They would be compensated under terms of any collective bargaining agreements currently in place. But moving forward, these workers would have their pay and benefits established by the UWHC authority. And like those who currently work for the hospital authority, such as nurses, these employees would keep their state benefits such as health care and retirement.

"We just negotiated a four-year contract and it started in January," says Maggie Merdler, a field representative for the Wisconsin State Employees Union, which represents about 2,800 workers at UWHC. "My understanding is they plan to honor that contract, and after that we will have no collective bargaining rights."