APNewsBreak: Medicaid group can’t concur with cuts
A bipartisan group given the job of cutting the state’s Medicaid budget by $2.7 billion failed to come up with a plan with a deadline soon and after this Gov. Pat Quinn intentions to progress together with his own proposal, committee members said Wednesday.
The committee mulled over a listing of 56 potential ideas that soon add up to only about $1.4 billion in cuts towards the medical care insurance program that serves nearly three million poor and disabled Illinois residents. Those ideas include eliminating Illinois Cares Rx, which helps nearly 200,000 seniors get prescription drugs, limiting medicines and cutting tangible benefits like visits to chiropractors.
But committee members told The Associated Press soon after meeting Wednesday that they can disagreed on bigger points for instance a potential $1-a-pack cigarette tax increase and rate cuts to medical service providers. The Quinn administration floated those ways to the committee latest research by and in addition they likely are going to be contained in the Medicaid proposal Quinn is anticipated to produce Thursday.
“We never have decided on a last proposal,” said Republican state Rep. Patti Bellock, part of the committee. “The governor is going forward. He really wants to skip forward with something.”
Quinn spokeswoman Brooke Anderson declined to offer information regarding the governor’s proposal, but said hello was informed by ideas made available from the committee.
“They’ve been focusing on installing every one of the options,” she said.
Illinois faces intense fiscal problems, including unpaid bills of roughly $8 billion, a massively underfunded state pension system and rising Medicaid costs. The governor has vowed to perform Medicaid and pension reforms this current year.
In their February budget address, Quinn told the bipartisan Medicaid group to generate plans by April 17, saying this program was “on the brink of collapse.” However the committee’s disagreements – including philosophical approaches to what services are optional – underscore the problems in cutting the program. Major reforms also may prove especially difficult in an election year.
Quinn issued another stern warning to legislators immediately, saying his “intention is always to restructure Medicaid whatever who’s takes.”
“Members in the Legislature ought to be happy to cancel their summer vacations to acheive this mission accomplished,” he stated with an unrelated news conference Tuesday. “We cannot permit the current system to carry on in its present form. It’ll implode.”
Sen. Heather Steans, a Democrat on the Medicaid working group, said the committee’s work isn’t done. She said a celebration is planned for in a few days plus the committee will consider tips to ensure feasibility despite if the governor makes his proposal public.
“Everyone agrees we wish a $2.7 billion solution,” she said.
Another working group is expected to provide a strategy for pensions later this week. Ab muscles equally complex and long-term, with funding over $80 below what pension systems need later on.
State Sen. Michael Noland, an Elgin Democrat, says committee members have discussed adjusting cost-of-living increases. Suggestions include temporarily suspending annual pension increases to help a state make up for the $80 billion funding gap in the five pension systems or scaling COLA increases to a employee’s time period of service.
Other ideas include raising the retirement, demanding greater employee contributions and requiring the state to pay annual pension obligations preparing any other part.
Noland said they have not specifically addressed asking local school districts to post employer contributions with regards to teachers which the state now pays, a concept Quinn has discussed during the past.
“The work has largely been done. The practical considerations are very well understood here,” Noland said. “Now it might be much more of a political discussion.”
Meanwhile advocacy groups have been bracing for proposed cuts and they are concerned about the affect the elderly, poor and disabled.
“It’s going to be really bad,” said David Vinkler of AARP. “People who need help … start choosing between food, drugs, and paying their bills.”
He added the cutting some benefits can result in increases in additional fees, like er visits.