State workers’ health-insurance benefits make up $3 billion of the state’s budget.

There should be little doubt that these access problems will be exacerbated as the state has essentially handed out 500,000 Medicaid cards without providing any additional capacity for patient care.

Health-care access and affordability are important goals. But they will never be achieved with a single-payer system – and that isn’t bad news.

If lawmakers begin to enter the ObamaCare exchanges themselves, it will certainly draw attention to the hypocrisy of some lawmakers who have imposed this costly law on Americans. But perhaps more importantly, it could serve as an important lever to force lawmakers to re-examine the most damaging aspects of the law.

The new federal spending bill, dubbed the “CRomnibus,” codifies that the ACA payments to insurers are budget-neutral, as the revenue to fund them will come from fees already assessed on health-insurance plans. This is not the blank check that insurers were hoping for.

It might be rare to heap praise on Illinois’ state lawmakers, but their decision not to move forward on a state-funded exchange deserves recognition.

“It just seemed wrong to me, that you would deny a woman, or a person of color, or someone from downstate, a seat on this governing board, just based on who they happen to be, as opposed to their merit and their talent.”