Medicaid is one of Illinois government’s largest and fastest-growing expenses, accounting for more than 28 percent of the state’s total operating budget.1 It has also been a prime target of waste, fraud and abuse, earning a “high risk” designation from the U.S. Government Accountability Office.2 Most states, including Illinois, have focused fraud-prevention efforts on provider...

Health-care savings come from proposed cuts to state-employee health insurance, reinstating Medicaid reforms and ending duplicative services.

According to a federal audit released Aug. 18, Illinois’ Medicaid program routinely over-estimated the amount of funds it needed from federal coffers to the tune of nearly $1 billion from 2010 through 2012. Over that three-year period, the state would spend the Medicaid money elsewhere and was slow in repaying the federal government, costing federal...

This week, the governor’s office is scheduled to submit “The Path to Transformation: Illinois 1115 Waiver Proposal” to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. If approved by the federal government, this proposal would overhaul the Illinois Medicaid program. The state would not only consolidate multiple health-care programs aimed at providing home and community-based...

In January, the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services, or HFS, began a new project verifying eligibility for Illinois’ Medicaid enrollees. For years, state workers had failed to take adequate steps to ensure the people receiving Medicaid benefits were actually eligible for the program. As an Auditor General report noted, state workers failed to verify basic...