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* Gov. Pritzker was asked again today about the paused enrollment to the program that pays medical costs for undocumented immigrants aged 42-64. Where do those folks go now?…
So you may recall that there was a time when we didn’t have any program- HBIA, HBIS, those are the names of the programs - for people who were illegal, undocumented rather, here in Illinois. There was no program for them. What did they do? We have free clinics, we have hospitals and emergency rooms that they were going to. I would prefer if we had universal health care. I think that every person on the ground [applause] had access to the health care that they need. Meanwhile, there are, you know, we haven’t done that in the United States and we’re trying really hard to do that in the state of Illinois. There’s still more work to do.
So what will those folks do? We have free clinics. We have, by the way, the open program still for seniors who are undocumented immigrants. And so that program remains open, there’s thousands more slots. But as far as I’m concerned, we need to make sure that we’re also balancing our budget and providing health care. So we support many of those free clinics, the state does and will continue to do that. I think that we ought to have the program that we already have in place for undocumented immigrants cover more people. But we need to make sure that we’re doing it in a cost efficient fashion. And to me, that means running it like Medicaid, because it wasn’t being run like Medicaid. It was on a fee for service basis.
But I think we can run it efficiently and make sure that we’re reopening the program, again, within our budgetary constraints. I think you’re aware that a very deep concern of mine for the state of Illinois making sure that we balance our budgets, run surpluses so that we can afford to do the things that we think are important to protect people across the state. And so I’m going to continue to try to balance all those interests.
posted by Rich Miller
Monday, Jul 31, 23 @ 12:40 pm
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The Illinois Association of Free & Charitable Clinics (IAFCC) are a key part of what can be done right now until the IL version of the ACA can get up and running. Those clinics have really stepped to provide services that even other members of the IL healthcare safety net cannot provide. I hope Gov. Pritzker’s statement resonates with people who are trying to figure this out because it does not look like the feds will be able to provide much direction or funding any time soon.
Comment by levivotedforjudy Monday, Jul 31, 23 @ 4:11 pm