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* The cuts continue…
Longer lines, shorter hours and fewer services at pharmacies will be the result of a proposal by Gov. Pat Quinn’s administration to slash the reimbursement rate for Medicaid patients’ prescriptions, according to a new group formed to fight the rate cuts.
But officials at the Department of Healthcare and Family Services say Illinois’ debt-riddled state government needs to save money, and the proposed rates are in line with what the private sector pays.
The department proposed the new rates, which would cut reimbursement rates for Medicaid patients’ prescription drugs by 4 percent, on July 29. The public has 45 days to comment on the rates to the General Assembly’s Joint Committee on Administrative Rules. JCAR could vote on the new rates in October.
The state estimates it will save $42 million out of roughly $1.5 billion in Medicaid prescription costs per year. Pharmacists say that while the cut appears small in the context of how much Illinois spends on Medicaid prescriptions, their profit margins are small – often as low as 2 percent.
“All of a sudden, you’re taking all of our profit,” said David Vite, president of the Illinois Retail Merchants Association, a member of the new coalition, which is called Pharmacy Choice and Access Now.
* There’s no progress yet on asset sales…
It’s been over a year since the governor issued an order calling for the sale of surplus state property as a way to raise money during the fiscal meltdown. At the time, we compared it to a big garage sale.
So, what did the state sell and how much was raised?
Actually, the net effect of Quinn’s edict thus far has been a bill that will cost the state $750,000 in the end.
That’s because the Illinois Department of Central Management Services, which oversees state property, has hired a consultant, Jones Lang LaSalle, to study the situation and then recommend what property to sell, when to sell it and how much to sell it for.
* While the State Fair is doing much better, it’s still not paying for itself…
Over a nine-year period ending in 2009, the Illinois State Fair cut its annual loss nearly in half.
But according to the most recent audit available of fair finances, the 10-day event still lost nearly $2.8 million two years ago. Some officials question that expense at a time when state government continues to struggle with paying its bills and just enacted a budget that makes cuts to dozens of human-service programs.
The 2011 state fair begins Friday.
“I love the state fair, and I’ll be back again, but you have to be running it in a revenue-neutral way,” said Sen. Matt Murphy of Palatine, the Senate Republicans’ point man on the state budget.
* We should probably expect a “solution” to this wholly manufactured (by the governor) crisis sometime this week…
Illinois’ regional superintendents of schools agreed this past week to continue working, more than a month after Gov. Pat Quinn eliminated their salaries from the state budget.
But Robert A. Daiber, superintendent of the Madison County Regional Office of Education and president of the Illinois Association of Regional Superintendents of Schools, said he’s not sure how long that agreement will last. And, he said, he’s not sure what effect that could have on the start of the new school year.
“Is there going to be a statewide shutdown? I can’t say. Will they say at Labor Day, ‘I’ve had enough?’ I don’t know,” Daiber said. “There are people very, very disgruntled about missing a third paycheck.”
* And this may be one more nail in the coffin for the legislative scholarship program…
Federal investigators have opened a criminal probe into legislative scholarships that lobbyist and former state Rep. Robert Molaro awarded as a lawmaker, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.
Two rounds of subpoenas related to Molaro’s scholarships have been delivered to the Illinois State Board of Education since April, one as recently as July 20, records show.
The first subpoena from U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald’s office, dated April 26, sought paperwork concerning tuition waivers worth more than $94,000 that Molaro awarded to four children of his campaign contributor Phil Bruno, an Oak Lawn real estate broker.
The subpoena from two weeks ago casts a broader net, seeking “all documents relating to the Illinois General Assembly Legislative Scholarships nominated/issued from former State Representative Robert S. Molaro.”
* Related…
* Sinaloa Cartel boss who supplied Chicago: I was a DEA snitch
* Illinois braces for fallout from U.S. credit rating downgrade - Some in Chicago predict a market slide; others see lower rating as a ‘nonevent’
* What will toll increase mean for you?
* Return of implements puts farm back in state fair
posted by Rich Miller
Monday, Aug 8, 11 @ 6:00 am
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do we even know what regional superintendents of schools do? or why their salaries are part of the state budget??? sounds to me like something that government could eliminate with no loss of service or quality in our education system.
Comment by bored now Monday, Aug 8, 11 @ 8:07 am
=== While the State Fair is doing much better, it’s still not paying for itself… ===
Hogwash! This is the kind oif headline and thinking that is killing IL and its economy. Missing from this report is the money that the fair brings in to Sangamon and surrounding counties. the State Journal Register did a story noting that the fair brings in 36 million to the surrounding community and buisness! The fair calculation does not include th sales tax and income tax produced to the state on this extra income. Not to mention the benefit to the State.
Its not a loss if spending 2-4 million nets the local economy 3 times that amounts! and here were talking about a return that is over ten times the supposed loss.
Not to mention no one is counting the sales and income tax generated off the money brougt into the community. And from what I can tell of the reported numbers, they are not even counting the sales tax generated at the fair!
This thing is highly profitable and well worht the expense.
Comment by Ghost Monday, Aug 8, 11 @ 8:29 am
Obviously we need to spend more money on math and economics education….. A State fair is a wonderful thing, but is it something to subsidize when there are more pressing needs in the State?
It is a loss if one party has to spend the money, while a different party gets the benefits.
It takes 40 million is sales taxable purchases for the state to recoup 2 million dollars of expenses. I’m not so certain that there are those kinds of revenues which would not be made if the fair were was downsized or eliminated.
Another example of why the government is in a deep hole and keeps digging.
Comment by Plutocrat03 Monday, Aug 8, 11 @ 8:48 am
Keep cutting those Medicaid rates across the board and eventually the numbers of providers will become extremely small. If Medicaid is a major portion of a practices income, they have serious trouble. Locally, the closest dental office is over 20 miles away, physicians limit who they will see, non-medical providers are struggling, and now pharmacists get hit again. You can try adapting this into a regional system or managed care as is being tried around Chicago, but the costs of operations are not dropping. You do not make up loses by volume. It will simply turn into more people in emergency rooms.
Comment by zatoichi Monday, Aug 8, 11 @ 9:10 am
bored now,
Yes, we know what the ROE’s do. They are the primary source of handling teacher certification, a focal point for school construction, and a coordinator of teacher continuing education. All of these tasks are mandated by the State.
While we could eliminate these offices, which may lower costs, the tasked mandated to be performed must, BY LAW, be assigned to other entities. Until that legislation is passed, Quinn’s unilateral action, which Rich so rightly describes as a, “wholly manufactured (by the governor) crisis,” threatened all manners of the operation of schools in this state.
Here we have just the latest example of Quinn acting before he thinks. If this is a considered action by Quinn, it says even more about his management capabilities and personality than just rank incompetence, a trait he shows on almost a daily basis.
Comment by Cincinnatus Monday, Aug 8, 11 @ 9:19 am
zatoichi,
You are spot on about the lack of providers. However, you are well behind the times. Already, there are a dearth of specialists to handle Medicaid patients. These small practitioners run practices, normally small and doctor owned, that lose significant amounts of money, and cannot even cover their costs, if they see Medicaid patients. I know many doctors who refuse to see Medicaid patients. These types of rates deny low-income people of some of the best-equipped doctors to handle the patient’s complaint.
Now we see that Quinn is attempting to squeeze pharmacies. I think a large chain like Walgreens would be able to absorb the costs without too much trouble. But small pharmacies will have no option but to deny service to Medicaid patients, thereby again robbing patients of their ability to receive quality care in a convenient manner.
Illinois must make some attempt to create a comprehensive reform of Medicare. Here is an opportunity for Quinn to lead. Don’t hold your breath.
Comment by Cincinnatus Monday, Aug 8, 11 @ 9:26 am
*Medicaid
Comment by Cincinnatus Monday, Aug 8, 11 @ 9:27 am
Can anyone say this with a straight face? Just because four children of a donor got scholarships doesn’t mean there was any connection between the two.
Comment by reformer Monday, Aug 8, 11 @ 9:33 am
Bad News Everywhere You Look…..except for this weekend’s sweep of the Twinkies. the pleasure of sweeping them in their own house clouds the mind and numbs to the many problems of the State. Many problems.
Comment by amalia Monday, Aug 8, 11 @ 9:35 am
It just amazing me that the Illinois Tollway Authority would propose a toll increase when unemployment is at record highs, the state recently increased income taxes by 67% and the dollar is worth less than a year ago and continues to lose its value. I hope that Governor Quinn has the confidence to come out publicly against it.
Comment by Anonymous Monday, Aug 8, 11 @ 9:41 am
Why don’t the Feds look at the SIU presidential scholarship, awarded to SIU president Glen Poshard’s granddaughter? She didn’t accept it after every newspaper in the state ran an article.
Comment by Bob Monday, Aug 8, 11 @ 10:04 am
When will the tollway folks learn that you can’t build your way out of congestion? Paula Wolff is certainly smart enough to understand this truism, but because she heads a road building agency she has no ability to apply alternative tools to solving the area’s transportation problem. She only has a hammer so everything looks like a nail.
Comment by wishbone Monday, Aug 8, 11 @ 11:10 am
I thought the Surplus Property Div is one of the few things CMS did right. 3/4 of a million dollars for what? How many furlough days did it take to pay for that nonsense?
Comment by Joe from Joliet Monday, Aug 8, 11 @ 11:49 am
@Bob:
That is a ridiculous drive by comment that Rich should delete. Mr. Poshard’s grandaughter’s academic credentials were unquestionable and the fact that the press saw fit to drag her name through the mud is crappy reporting in my opinion.
Comment by Demoralized Monday, Aug 8, 11 @ 12:12 pm
IDK Joe but I know some of the agencies could have severely used the ’surplus’ equipment instead of pitching it out the door for peanuts. I don’t see where it saves money as a whole when another agency could have used it yet now either has to spend for new (yeah, good luck on that)and/or repairs on beyond repairable. How many times can things 15-20plus years old be repaired? Where’s the cash for new replacements?
Comment by Cindy Lou Monday, Aug 8, 11 @ 12:16 pm
I simply do not think the Tollway Authority should be able to conduct this scope of expansion plan without oversight. I fully endorse the rehabilitation, repair and reconstruction called for in the plan, but the huge capacity expansions especially around O’Hare are simply uncalled for. This increase should be trimmed by at least half and focused on the parts of the network that actually need reconstruction and indeed were intended to be taken care of in the original 2004-11 plan and would have been if fewer people had switched from cash to I-Pass.
In general it’s terrible policy to have a single mode of transport unaccountable to the rest of the state’s transportation policy. The incentive for the Tollway Authority is to build, build and build, and hang the consequences for other agencies such as public transit agencies that lose business and local governments that deal with waves of new traffic generated by bigger tollways.
Comment by Angry Chicagoan Monday, Aug 8, 11 @ 12:40 pm
Once again PQ strikes a blow against economic recovery in Illinois. Closing down the small pharmacies in illinois must be his goal. First of all he doesn’t pay them what they are owed by the State. Now he wants to limit their profit margin. The upshot will be that they will follow the Doctors who are refusing to treat those on medicaid, forcing them to seek treatment and drugs at the hospital emergency rooms which will increase the cost to the State. I thought he was trying to grow jobs in Illinois. Apparently he does not realize that small businesses are the only thing that is going to accomplish this.
He also apparently forgot his pledge to reduce the size and power of CMS. The sale or distribution to other agencies of surplus property has been going on for years. The warehouse on 10th st. would fill up several times a year and was used by many other agencies to procure items they needed but could not afford to buy new. They would hold an auction and the warehousaes would be completely emptied. Then Blago came in and turned into a fiasco and PQ has done nothing to fix it. Forget the online auction and go back to the old way that worked.
As far as the ROE offices are concerned, if the state is going to mandate the programs they run the State should pay for their operation. This is just PQ wanting to raise taxes again.
Does this man ever think before he acts? Are his advisors mute?
Comment by Irish Monday, Aug 8, 11 @ 1:56 pm
I’m with amalia at 9:35 a.m. AMEN! It’s about time we got those Twinkies back! “White Sox! White Sox! Go-Go WHITE Sox”!!!
Comment by Just The Way It Is One Monday, Aug 8, 11 @ 7:14 pm
I agree with Ghost. The state fair is very important for downstate, and shouldn’t just be measured in a strict dollars-and-sense manner.
Still, I wonder if the state is leveraging its sponsorship opportunities.
Here’s the list of sponsors of this year’s fair.
http://www.agr.state.il.us/isf/sponsor/
Some of the Usual Suspects are there. But there are some surprises that aren’t.No soft drink sponsors? No fast food, cough, cough, McDonalds? No John Deere or Navistar? No Corn Products? How about Ford? How about Walgreens, Illinois-based and one of the largest, most consistently profitable corporations in the world.
There are more.I think there needs to some more hustle on the sponsorship front.
Comment by wordslinger Monday, Aug 8, 11 @ 8:52 pm