The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has released its latest ObamaCare enrollment numbers, and it is easy to see why the Obama administration has been so reluctant to reveal detailed enrollment data. About 2.1 million Americans “enrolled” in the ObamaCare exchanges through Dec. 28. That number is far below the Obama administration’s impending...
In July, Gov. Pat Quinn used his line-item veto power to suspend Illinois legislators’ salaries, pledging to withhold their paychecks until they solved the state’s pension crisis. This predictably provoked a lawsuit by House Speaker Mike Madigan, Senate President John Cullerton and other legislators. A Cook County Circuit Court judge then ruled in September that...
In December 2013, Gov. Pat Quinn signed a pension “reform” bill with many serious flaws. For example, it: barely makes a dent in the state’s unfunded pension liability; guarantees pension funding at the expense of taxpayers and all other government services; creates a fake 401(k) plan; doesn’t means test cost-of-living adjustments, or COLAs; still allows state workers to retire much earlier...
Last month, USA Today reported that thousands of people are being mistakenly enrolled in Medicaid due to continued glitches in the healthcare.gov website. Now, it is being reported that more than 100,000 people in five states, including 30,000 in Illinois, have not been able to enroll in the Medicaid program directly from the government site....
The national unemployment rate declined to 6.7 percent in December, down from 7 percent a month earlier, according to the latest report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Payroll jobs increased a paltry 74,000, below consensus estimates of 200,000. November payroll gains were revised up from 203,000 to 241,000. Despite the huge miss in...
The U.S. Census Bureau announced that Illinois had the sixth-lowest population growth in the nation in 2013. The state’s population growth was just 0.11 percent, adding only 14,000 people to its population of nearly 13 million people. Other large states such as Georgia, North Carolina, Florida and Texas grew seven to 13 times faster than...
This weekend marks the three-year anniversary of the 2011 state income tax increase. But the anniversary also marks another milestone for taxpayers: we are just one year away from tax relief. Illinois taxpayers currently fork over 5 percent of their paycheck to the state. Politicians like to say that 5 percent of your household income...
According to a recent Crain’s Chicago Business analysis, the cost of some “catastrophic” health insurance plans offered under the ObamaCare health insurance exchange in Illinois actually cost more than the supposedly more generous plans in 13 counties across the state. That should not be surprising as the improperly named “catastrophic plan” offered on the exchange...
Illinois’ Medicaid program has long been plagued with wasteful spending. The U.S. Government Accountability Office designates Medicaid as a high-risk program, largely because it is “particularly vulnerable to fraud, waste, abuse and improper payments” and has inadequate oversight to prevent wasteful spending. Indeed, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, or HHS, reports an improper payment...
Illinois is often used as the poster child for how not to run a state. Money-hungry politicians perpetuate the state’s spending problem with higher taxes and more borrowing. Meanwhile, the state’s tax base continues to erode as tapped-out families and businesses move to states with more opportunities and friendlier business environments. Illinois’ debt has grown...
Eleven state attorneys general are coming out against the unconstitutionality of changes in implementing President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act. This group – not including Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan – lambasted the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, or HHS, for proposed regulations they say “[compound] illegal executive action” and “[fail] to protect...
Republican Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin is filing suit today “to make Congress live by the letter of the health-care law it imposed on the rest of America.” According to Johnson: “By arranging for me and other members of Congress and their staffs to receive benefits intentionally ruled out by the Patient Protection and Affordable...
Despite the ups and downs associated with doing business day-in and day-out, the Conns are in Illinois for the long haul.
The Obama administration’s Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced that 2.1 million have enrolled in a private insurance plan in the ObamaCare exchanges and at least another 3.9 million are eligible for Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program, or CHIP. While the announcement was thin on details, it is safe to assume that these...