On July 14, 2010, Cook County Commissioners approved by a vote of 9 to 3 a strategic plan to reorient the County’s health system more toward outpatient care and away from inpatient hospital services. The five-year plan calls for closing the emergency room and inpatient facilities at Oak Forest Hospital. At Provident Hospital, the emergency room would remain open, but most inpatient beds would be eliminated. Savings from these steps would be used to expand outpatient services across the County’s…
This editorial discusses recent efforts to reform Illinois’ Medicaid system. It cites a finding in the Civic Federation’s “Fiscal Rehabilitation Plan for the State of Illinois” that enrollment in the system doubled between 1998 and 2008 while the State’s population only increased by 5.1 percent.
The State of Illinois is not the only cash-strapped state that shied away from major tax increases to improve its financial condition in FY2011. According to Stateline.org, most states avoided raising significant revenue and instead patched together FY2011 budgets by finding a few new items to tax, curtailing spending and relying on federal stimulus dollars. So far only Kansas and Arizona have raised their sales tax rates this year, according to Stateline, a daily online publication of the Pew…
Illinois and many other states drafted budget plans for FY2011 based on the assumption that Congress would extend the expiration date for enhanced federal Medicaid funding by six months—from December 31, 2010 to June 30, 2011. Now that assumption is looking increasingly shaky, adding to concerns about mounting state budget deficits. Just before the Memorial Day weekend, the U.S. House of Representatives eliminated the Medicaid extension provision from a jobs bill before passing the proposed…
In a victory for good government, the Cook County Board of Commissioners on June 1, 2010 voted 13-3 to make permanent the independent Board of Directors overseeing the Cook County Health and Hospitals System (Health System). Without action by Commissioners, the independent Board would have expired in February of 2011. The Civic Federation, a long-time supporter of the independent Board, was the only group testifying in favor of making it a permanent part of Cook County government. The Civic…
As the General Assembly nears the final days of this year’s regular session with no FY2011 budget in sight, a group of lawmakers is attempting to advance the negotiations by proposing a $1.3 billion package of spending reductions and savings. The proposal by ten Democrats on May 24, 2010 represented an uncommon effort by Illinois lawmakers to suggest significant and broad-based reductions in the State of Illinois’ budget. In contrast, the cuts contained in Governor Pat Quinn’s recommended…
The Civic Federation opposes Governor Pat Quinn’s $52 billion FY2011 recommended operating budget for the State of Illinois because it is unbalanced and does too little to address the State’s fiscal crisis. The Governor’s recommended budget borrows billions to pay for operations while continuing to ignore the massive backlog of unpaid bills, which will make the State’s financial condition worse. Although the Civic Federation is encouraged that Governor Quinn has signed significant pension…
The State of Illinois currently pays the entire bill for health insurance premiums for 90% of retired state workers. Under Illinois law, retirees with at least 20 years of government service and their survivors do not have to pay any portion of their health insurance premiums. Governor Pat Quinn’s FY2011 budget includes a proposal to save state taxpayers $254.5 million by requiring all retirees to pay part of their premium costs. For some retirees, the new expense would be substantial. Health…
Federal healthcare reform could increase the State of Illinois’ Medicaid enrollment by 400,000 to 600,000 recipients beginning in 2014, but the federal government is expected to pay nearly all the additional cost for newly eligible recipients. The new law would extend Medicaid coverage to all nonelderly individuals with incomes below 133% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) in 2014. The FPL is now $10,830 for a family of one and $22,050 for a family of four. Under the new law, the…
Governor Pat Quinn’s recommended FY2011 budget, issued on March 10, 2010, proposes borrowing $4.7 billion to cover FY2011’s projected operating deficit. No details about the Governor’s borrowing plan have yet been made available. However, the budget proposal states that borrowing would be preferable to increasing the State of Illinois’ backlog of unpaid bills by roughly the same amount because unpaid bills cause financial stress for vendors and require the State to pay 1% a month in interest…
