Medicaid

Where are the ObamaCare enrollment numbers?

By Naomi Lopez Bauman
04/29/2014
The president and his political allies haven’t been shy about touting an ObamaCare enrollment number of 8 million. But it now seems curious that, for all their back-slapping and self-congratulations, the administration is weeks late in releasing its monthly ObamaCare enrollment report. But this delay should not be all that surprising, given that it merely...

Quinn’s Chicago bailout

04/29/2014
For months Gov. Pat Quinn has campaigned on the need to make permanent the temporary tax hike the Illinois General Assembly passed in 2011. Under state law, the majority of the 2011 tax increase will sunset in January 2015. Quinn wants to reverse that. He claims the state is out of money and there is...

ObamaCare in Illinois: Just say no to a state exchange

By Naomi Lopez Bauman
04/22/2014
Some bad ideas just won’t stay dead. Despite reasonable opposition from both sides of the aisle in Springfield, some political activists are continuing to push the idea of a state-based health insurance exchange. Illinois has a state-federal partnership exchange currently. At a time when the state’s health-care bureaucracy was caught paying Medicaid benefits on behalf of dead...

Illinois Medicaid: $12 million paid to the dead is business as usual

By Naomi Lopez Bauman
04/21/2014
Illinoisans are all-too familiar with jokes about cemeteries full of voters. But, according to a recent audit, the dead are also receiving Medicaid benefits. National news outlets reported recently that the state made Medicaid payments to health-care providers on behalf of nearly 3,000 deceased Illinoisans under the Medicaid program. The federal-state program, which is supposed...

Budget Solutions 2015: Keeping promises to taxpayers and turning around Illinois

By Benjamin VanMetre
04/15/2014
The 2015 fiscal year marks a long-awaited milestone for Illinoisans: taxpayers are less than one year away from tax relief. The record 2011 income tax increase is slated to partially sunset during the 2015 fiscal year. But politicians are already crying poor as Illinois approaches the tax-hike sunset. The solutions they’ve offered up involve making...

The truth behind the ObamaCare numbers

By Naomi Lopez Bauman
04/08/2014
By any measure, the Affordable Care Act has been disastrous. But you would not know it by the administration’s fist-pumping and ball-spiking. The trumpeted headline dominating the news coverage is that the ObamaCare goal of 7 million enrollments was met. But this is horribly misleading. The reality is that the administration has, for months, refused...

Too soon for an ObamaCare victory lap

By Naomi Lopez Bauman
04/02/2014
The ObamaCare inaugural open enrollment ended on Monday just like it began: riddled with technical difficulties. Notorious for a glitch-ridden debut on Oct. 1, 2013, the site was down for several hours on at least two occasions throughout the day on Monday. On top of that, the administration announced last week that individuals who began – but weren’t...

TAGS: ACA: Affordable Care Act

Why Illinois’ Medicaid 1115 waiver is cause for concern

By Naomi Lopez Bauman
03/12/2014
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...

TAGS: Medicaid, Pat Quinn

Illinois politicians considering changes to law under review by U.S. Supreme Court

By Paul Kersey
03/05/2014
The Illinois General Assembly is poised to consider a bill that looks harmless at first glance, but should be raising eyebrows across the state. House Bill 5935 is supposed to make technical changes to the state’s Medicaid programs, but in the process it affects people who are involved in a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case....

TAGS: Harris v Quinn, labor, Medicaid, Pam Harris, Pat Quinn, U.S. Supreme Court

Moving the goal posts on Illinois’ Medicaid expansion

By Naomi Lopez Bauman
02/05/2014
Some of the same Illinois lawmakers and Medicaid expansion advocates who promised better access to care, better health outcomes and lower emergency-room utilizations to justify expanding Medicaid eligibility in Illinois now want to backtrack on these promises. They are attempting to redirect attention away from their lofty promises and toward needing “more time” to achieve...

TAGS: ACA: Affordable Care Act, Medicaid