QUOTE OF THE DAY
Daily Herald: Medicaid paid $12 million for dead people in Illinois
The Illinois Medicaid program paid an estimated $12 million for medical services for people listed as deceased in other state records, according to an internal state government memo.
The memo dated Friday, which The Associated Press obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, says the state auditor compared clients enrolled in the Medicaid database last June with state death records dating back to 1970. Auditors identified overpayments for services to roughly 2,900 people after the date of their deaths.
The heads of the departments of Healthcare and Family Services and Human Services, the two state agencies involved with Medicaid payments, outline steps to fix the problem in the memo to their senior staffs.
USA Today: 10 worst states for retirement
Finding the best place to retire in is a little bit like looking for a mate. There are lots of pretty ones out there. To help weed out the more unattractive ones, we present our third annual (we skipped 2013) list of the worst states for retirement.
There is one main point we want to emphasize – everyone’s retirement situation is different, so a one size fits all approach won’t work. If your grandchildren live in one of these states and you want to be near them – that makes it a great retirement state for you.
Factors we considered:
Daily Herald: Illinois approved for No Child Left Behind waiver
Illinois has obtained a waiver from some parts of federal No Child Left Behind education law.
The waiver will give the state more flexibility when it comes to setting standards for education. It also will let the state look at measures beyond test scores in determining whether schools are succeeding or failing.
Illinois first applied for the waiver in 2012. It wasn’t initially approved because Illinois took longer than a number of other states to implement a new teacher evaluation system.
St. Louis Post Dispatch: University: Illinois pension law had costly typo
Illinois’ public universities have worried for months that contentious state pension reforms will push many employees to retire early. But a small mistake, essentially a typo in the legislation, is providing even stronger incentive.
Fixing it has proven more complicated than university administrators expected.
Administrators from the University of Illinois told trustees Friday that the language in last year’s pension law could take a year of benefits away from as many as 4,000 employees if they don’t retire by June 30. The effect would be to sharply reduce their monthly payments in retirement.
CARTOON OF THE DAY
