One of the screwier effects of Illinois labor law was on display recently when an arbitrator ruled that the state would have to terminate its contract with Maximus Health Services. In September 2012, the state hired Maximus to review Illinois’ Medicaid rolls and remove those who were no longer eligible for benefits. The company’s investigation identified 60,000...
by Naomi Lopez-Bauman If ObamaCare weren’t already enough of a train wreck, the irony of the U.S. Treasury Department blog post announcing the delay of the ObamaCare employer mandate – titled Continuing to Implement the ACA in a Careful, Thoughtful Manner – would be hysterical. The employer mandate is a provision of ObamaCare that requires employers with 50...
If you’re not already disgusted by the budget implementation bill that passed today (shrubbery, Amtrak, grant unaccountability), try this on for size. The General Assembly hid ObamaCare-related Medicaid spending so that it doesn’t show up in the General Revenue Fund budget. A budget amendment hides “all federal matching funds” received to pay Medicaid costs for “individuals eligible for medical...
by Diane Cohen Under a 2010 amendment to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or PPACA, authored by U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, congressional leaders and their staffers are required to purchase health insurance from an ObamaCare exchange. Turns out Congress is having second thoughts. With the individual mandate set to take effect on...
by Jonathan Ingram Illinois lawmakers set to decide whether or not to adopt ObamaCare’s voluntary expansion of Medicaid may want to read a new study published in the Journal of New England Medicine. In 2008, Oregon officials wanted to expand eligibility for their Medicaid program, but only had enough funding for 10,000 of the 90,000 eligible...
Proponents of ObamaCare’s Medicaid expansion insist that the expansion is necessary to keep people out of emergency rooms for preventable conditions such as hypertension, asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The only problem? Medicaid patients are more likely than the uninsured to use emergency rooms, especially for preventable conditions. In 2010, medical researchers at the...
by Jonathan Ingram Senate Bill 26 passed out of the House Human Services Committee and will head to House for consideration. But the Medicaid expansion this bill proposes is not right for Illinois. First, Illinois is under no obligation to expand Medicaid eligibility. Federal law permits, but does not require, states to expand eligibility levels for...
by Diane Cohen According to reports by the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel will finally do what he and other politicians should have done a long time ago: end costly health insurance benefits paid to city retirees. Starting next year, the mayor will begin a three-year phase out of the coverage, at which time affected...
Jonathan Ingram There are plenty of reasons to oppose trapping more Illinoisans in a broken Medicaid program, but Moody’s Investors Services has given the state one more: expanding Medicaid will lead to credit downgrades. Remember: Illinois already has the worst credit rating in the nation. Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings have downgraded the state 11 times since Gov. Pat...
Federal authorities have raided Sacred Heart Hospital on Chicagos West Side after alleged crimes of medically unnecessary sedation, intubation and tracheotomy procedures on patients in an attempt to defraud Medicare and Medicaid.
Back in February, Illinois Senate Democrats pushed through Senate Bill 26, which would impose ObamaCares massive expansion of Medicaid on Illinois.
With new ObamaCare coverage slated to kick in Jan. 1, 2014, more details are beginning to unfold regarding the inner workings of this complex law. Including a picture from Sen. Mitch McConnell’s office showing the regulations vs. the actual bill. Now, the Health and Human Services Department has released a draft application for individuals interested in...
For more than a decade, Illinois’ Medicaid program has failed to meet the needs of the state’s most vulnerable residents. Access to high-quality care has deteriorated, even as record amounts of taxpayer dollars are spent on the ballooning program. Over the years, eligibility standards have loosened to increasingly include families earning ever-higher incomes. Today, only...
Senate Democrats pushed through Senate Bill 26, which would impose ObamaCare’s massive expansion of Medicaid on Illinois, on Feb. 28. The bill passed on a party-line vote. You may recall that when this bill was debated in committee, proponents were allowed an hour of testimony – I was given less than one minute to testify in opposition. It’s a...