* My weekly syndicated newspaper column…

Back in May, Gov. J.B. Pritzker told reporters that his administration had given lawmakers seven options to rein in costs of a health care program for undocumented immigrants which was growing well beyond affordability.

Pritzker told reporters at a more recent event that he had originally budgeted the program for a $220 million increase, but since then the program was projected to actually grow by $1.1 billion in the coming fiscal year. So, he said, the state needed to limit the growth to $550 million. Pritzker said his administration believed “we could manage the program with the number of people that are in it now” to keep those cost increases at $550 million, which was a clear sign that an enrollment cap was coming.

The administration has been meeting with the Legislative Latino Caucus about the unexpected growth in the program since March. And it’s been pretty clear from the beginning that enrollment would have to be capped and other cost-cutting measures put in place to prevent the program from eating up even more limited state resources.

Even so, some Latino legislators were enraged during the final briefing about the solutions the governor decided to put into place: “Pausing” new enrollment for those aged 42-64; establishing co-pays; implementing managed care; clawing back some over-payments to the Cook County Hospital System and limiting or eliminating backdated medical coverage. The plan was called “racist” by at least one person on the Zoom call.

Several hours later, the Latino Caucus issued a toned-down press release, calling the governor’s announcement “disappointing.” They did, after all, vote for the Medicaid omnibus bill which enabled the emergency rule-making authority.

Others weren’t so muted. U.S. Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., had sponsored the original bill to create the program for senior citizens when she was still a state legislator. Ramirez and others predicted at the time the program would only cost a few million dollars a year. After Pritzker acted, she called the governor’s decision to impose the limits “a false choice built on fear-mongering and anti-immigrant rhetoric,” which will put “thousands of hard-working, taxpaying immigrants’ lives in danger.”

But the sharpest criticism came from activists.

The Healthy Illinois Campaign, which lobbied hard to expand the program even further this year despite the exploding costs, issued a press release back in May supporting the new state budget, and thanked the General Assembly for protecting existing coverage for undocumented immigrants who are 42 and older. But then the reality of what it really takes to save $550 million out of a projected cost increase of $1.1 billion within the span of one fiscal year fully set in when Pritzker issued his emergency rules.

The governor went to Florida last week to receive an award from two prominent immigration groups, but the Healthy Illinois Campaign called on the groups to rescind the honor.

“It is absolutely scandalous that Governor Pritzker will be receiving an immigrant leadership award while in the state of Illinois he has rejected and perverted the idea that immigrants have the right to health care,” the Healthy Illinois Campaign’s statement claimed. “Governor Pritzker is not different from Ron DeSantis hurting the most vulnerable immigrants,” they continued. “A billionaire governor so willfully causing pain to the hardest working people — is that any different from Ron DeSantis? Is this the standard now for opportunistic politicians running for president?”

Ouch.

The Healthy Illinois Campaign has never accepted the governor’s cost projections, but it has yet to fully explain why they believe the expected costs are not nearly as high as the administration’s estimates. The governor, for his part, seemingly contradicted himself when he told reporters a few weeks ago that the state saves money when it invested in the health car program. “If they don’t get basic health care, they end up in an emergency room and we all end up paying for that at a much higher cost than if we have preventative care.”

This is obviously an unusual position for the governor to be in. He’s been a darling, even a hero, of the progressive wing of his party since Day One. But, at least for now, he’s taking some real heat. “This is a welcoming state,” progressive Sen. Omar Aquino, D-Chicago, thundered during a die-in demonstration at Chicago’s Federal Plaza. “Always,” he said, “Not only when it’s convenient.”

And Democratic Socialist Chicago Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35th) recently tweeted that, while he had previously called Pritzker “arguably the best Illinois governor since progressive John Peter Altgeld,” he now believes that the decision to impose the emergency rules is “criminal.”

* Meanwhile, there appears to be some confusion out there about what the program is designed to do. The Chicago Tribune editorial board brought the asylum-seeking migrants into the debate the other day, followed by this report from WBEZ…

Pritzker faces criticism over cuts to a health insurance program for migrants

Latino lawmakers say they are outraged by Gov. JB Pritzker’s decision to make cuts to a health insurance program for migrants as Chicago struggles to address the basic needs of asylum-seekers arriving from border states. […]

And the process of providing permanent housing to migrants is complicated by several other factors.

And then WTTW’s Week in Review program did pretty much the same.

Asylum-seekers are here legally, so there is federal reimbursement for at least some of their healthcare costs. That generally isn’t the case for undocumented immigrants, although there are some exceptions.

* Other stories…

* Protests over Governor JB Pritzker’s pause on undocumented healthcare program: The governor’s office says restrictions on the program will be lifted when more money is appropriated. As the rally was going on at Daley Plaza, Governor Pritzker was in Orlando being honored by the National Immigrant’s List for his work on immigrant rights.

* State Week: Pritzker takes heat over immigrant health care limits

* Politico: “In the progressive movement, a lot of times it’s all or nothing,” Sui Chung, a Miami attorney who grew up in Illinois and sits on the board of Immigrants’ List, told Playbook. Chung praised Pritzker’s work: “What the governor has done in terms of banning private detention of immigrants and allowing non-citizens to have drivers licenses is huge. In Florida, we’re facing hateful bills that will cause tremendous problems for immigrants. Illinois is far ahead. People point to California, but really, it’s Illinois that’s in the lead on immigrant rights.” And the irony: Ramirez praised Pritzker during her acceptance speech calling him “her champion.”

* Pritzker defends Johnson’s pension fix panel: Pritzker… defended his decision to impose new enrollment limits and copays on the state’s insurance program for undocumented immigrants. The Legislature’s Latino Caucus “knew what was going on,” Pritzker told reporters. The cuts “saved the program” from financial collapse, he added.