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| Christopher Dilts/Paul Ratje/Bloomberg |
Illinois taxpayers are set to be hit with a billion-dollar bill providing healthcare benefits to newly arrived illegal aliens in the state thanks to Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D), according to estimates.
While tens of thousands of illegal aliens continue to be bused to the sanctuary city of Chicago, Illinois, from Texas, Republican lawmakers in the state are sounding the alarm over the economic and social burden that the new arrivals are set to impose on taxpayers.
Citing recent analysis from state officials, the lawmakers said taxpayers will be left holding the bill when nearly 110,000 additional illegal aliens sign up for taxpayer-subsidized healthcare benefits next year.
State Rep. Norine Hammond (R) said during a recent news conference on the issue that “dramatic growth” in Illinois’s illegal alien population and their enrollment for healthcare benefits “will require nearly a billion dollars in general revenue funds to support this program in Fiscal Year 2024.” --->READ MORE HERE
How can it happen that an annual program would cost 94 times times what Illinoisans were told it would cost just three years ago — $188 million in its first year? With subsequent extensions it now costs nearly $1 billion per year and growing, money the state doesn’t have.
A better question: How could it not happen, given the abject disregard for cost of the program and Illinois’ routinely scandalous budget process?
And wait ’till you hear the excuse for the fiasco from Gov. J.B Pritzker’s administration.
Here’s what happened: In May 2020 Illinois, became the first state to provide Medicaid for undocumented seniors. The coverage was “tucked in near the end of the 465-page budget implementation bill that passed the Illinois General Assembly late Saturday night,” as reported by the State Journal-Register at the time. That’s how Illinois’ budget is routinely implemented. A budget plus an implementation bill, usually totaling at least a thousand pages, is put up for a vote with only hours of review.
The program would cost just $2 million per year, the bill’s sponsor said at the time. That’s Delia Ramirez, a Chicago Democrat in the Illinois House at the time. Pritzker signed the bill without any cost estimate by his office. That’s all we knew at the time.
But the cost of the program blew though the appropriation for it even within the first month of implementation and soared beyond all subsequent estimates and appropriations. That’s according to a closed-door presentation by the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services to lawmakers last month that became public last week.
For the year from March 2022 through February 2023, cost of care for the 65 and over age group was nearly $188 million, which is 94 times what Ramirez claimed. --->READ MORE HERE
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