This is apparently complicating state budget negotiation. There’s an easy answer. Can you guess what it is?
Ballooning cost of insuring undocumented immigrants complicating state budget negotiations
The $49.6 billion budget Gov. J.B. Pritzker introduced in February estimated the cost of a program that provides state-funded health insurance to adult immigrants who are in the country without legal permission at $220 million.
Just three months later, that estimate has grown fivefold, swelling to $1.1 billion and threatening to blow a hole in the Democratic governor’s proposal for the budget year that begins July 1, the first of his second term.
At the same time, revenue flowing to the state appears to be slowing, putting further pressure on Pritzker and the Democratic-controlled legislature as they try to assemble a spending plan that continues the financial progress made during the past four years. The General Assembly’s spring session is scheduled to adjourn May 19.
Illinois created a program in 2020 that provides Medicaid-style coverage to immigrants 65 and older who are in the country without legal permission or who have green cards but haven’t completed a five-year waiting period and are therefore ineligible for the traditional health insurance program for the poor, which is jointly funded by the federal government. The program has been expanded twice, now covering those 42 and older.
Even as enrollment has far outstripped expectations, some Democratic lawmakers are pushing to further expand coverage, opening the program to people 19 and older, which the Pritzker administration estimates would cost an additional $380 million in the first year.
So, let’s get this straight: Illinois created a program to give older illegals healthcare, off the backs of the legal taxpayers. That’s ballooned around 4 times more as costs rose due to Wuhan Flu and illegals streaming into the state. So they lowered the age to 42, and now want to lower it to 19. What could possibly go wrong?
Oh, right, people and companies are getting the hell out of Illinois, eroding the tax base, to compliment inflation.
When the program was introduced for those 65 and older in 2020, the budget for the entire year was spent in the first month, according to a briefing the Department of Healthcare and Family Services gave lawmakers earlier this spring.
“The initial cost overrun should’ve raised alarms with HFS, and the Pritzker administration should’ve shared this information with all of the members of the General Assembly,” state Rep. Norine Hammond, a Macomb Republican, said at a news conference last month where she was joined by other members of the House GOP.
Surprise, surprise, surprise! If you offer free stuff to illegals you incentivize them to come to your state.
Siegel (campaign director for Healthy Illinois, a coalition that advocated for the program’s creation and also backs the proposed expansion) said arguments against the program and its expansion are “fueled by a lot of, unfortunately, tired and typical talking points around immigrants taking our resources.”
No one really has to make an argument: the factual budget numbers speak for themselves. But, hey, it’s nice that illegals in the USA for a week can get free healthcare while US citizens have to pay for it, along with their own high rates.
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