$8 Million to Market Government Healthcare

Illinois's expanded "All Kids" audit reveals high costs and operational issues.

by Kristina Rasmussen

In case you missed, the Illinois Auditor General’s recent audit of the state’s expanded “All Kids” program is worth a read. The expanded All Kids program provides health coverage to uninsured children from families making above 200 percent of federal poverty level and to undocumented immigrants.

Among the findings:

• The net cost of the expanded All Kids program is $70 million a year.
• Income verification is lax, and some income may not be counted when determining eligibility. Pay eligibility may be determined by one pay stub (an effort to up the requirement to two stubsfailed earlier this year).
• The state does not terminate coverage as required by law when the enrollee fails to pay required premiums.
• Most of the enrollees are undocumented immigrants (up to 75 percent, although this may be lower due to government counting problems).
• Administrators don’t have adequate controls in place to ensure that kids over age 18 are terminated from the program.
• Adequate controls are not in place to ensure that individuals are not enrolled more than once.
• The state paid Greer Margolis Mitchell Burns, Inc./Fleishman-Hillard over $8 million for All Kids marketing activities between fiscal years 2006 and 2008. Taxpayer dollars were spent with the goal of signing up more individuals for government aid (also funded by taxpayer dollars).