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* First, some context from Capitol News Illinois, reported earlier this month…
The U.S. House gave final passage Thursday to a budget bill that will cut federal Medicaid spending by an estimated $1 trillion over 10 years.
The cuts would translate to about $48 billion in Illinois over that period, or about 20% of what the state would otherwise receive, according to an analysis by KFF, a nonpartisan health policy research organization. […]
According to KFF, most of the reductions in Medicaid spending would result from just a few policy changes contained in the bill
Those include imposing a work requirement on adults enrolled in Medicaid through the Affordable Care Act, also known as “Obamacare.” That law expanded eligibility for Medicaid to working-age adults with incomes up to 138% of the federal poverty level. About 772,000 people in Illinois are enrolled under that program.
The bill also calls for requiring people enrolled through the ACA expansion to verify their continued eligibility for Medicaid twice a year instead of annually. That is expected to filter out enrollees whose incomes rise above the eligibility limit as well as those who simply fail to complete the verification process.
Many of the cuts aren’t slated to take effect until 2027 or 2028.
A multistate coalition sued the Trump administration Thursday challenging a proposal by the Department of Health and Human Services they warn would make it more difficult to receive health care though Affordable Care Act marketplaces and throw 1.8 million people off their health insurance.
The 21 state attorneys general, led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta, filed the suit in the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, asked a federal judge to block the rule before it takes effect on Aug. 25.
The administration claims that the new rule, “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act; Marketplace Integrity and Affordability,” will address waste, fraud and abuse in the Patient Protection and ACA eligibility and enrollment systems as well as rising “improper enrollment and health care costs.”
“This isn’t a serious attempt to protect consumers,” Bonta said at a press conference Thursday. “It’s yet another political move to punish vulnerable communities by removing access to vital care and gutting the Affordable Care Act.”
* Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul…
In the lawsuit, Raoul and the attorneys general argue the rule is unlawful and would cause significant harm to local governments and residents because it imposes burdensome and costly paperwork requirements, limits the opportunities to sign up for health coverage, increases cost-sharing limits, and forces exchanges and consumers to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to prove eligibility for coverage and subsidies. The coalition is also seeking preliminary relief to prevent the challenged portions of the final rule from taking effect in the plaintiff states before the August 25 effective date. […]
Congress enacted the ACA in 2010 to increase the number of Americans with health insurance and to decrease the cost of health care. Fifteen years later, the act continues to meet its goals, with annual enrollment on the ACA marketplace doubling over the past five years. In 2025, over 24 million people, including millions of people in the plaintiff states, signed up for health insurance coverage on the ACA exchanges and received subsidies to make such coverage affordable.
Raoul and the coalition explain that with less than four months until the start of open enrollment for plan year 2026, the Trump administration’s final rule would abruptly reverse that trend, creating a series of new barriers to enrollment. The administration’s own estimates show the rule will deprive up to 1.8 million people of insurance coverage, and cause millions more to pay increased insurance premiums and out-of-pocket costs like copays and deductibles. The rule will also significantly drive up the health care costs incurred by plaintiff states, resulting in increased state expenditures on Medicaid and other services provided to newly-uninsured residents, as well as uncompensated emergency care.
The final rule will cause an estimated 14,000 Illinoisians to lose health insurance access and will cause Illinois health insurance premiums to rise. The increase in uninsured residents will have a detrimental impact on Illinois and its residents, including reducing the revenue and operations of hospitals, particularly the state’s safety net and critical access hospitals that treat patients in rural communities and underserved areas of cities. […]
Raoul and the attorneys general argue in the lawsuit that the HHS and CMS rule is unlawful and would cause significant harm to local governments and residents because it imposes burdensome and costly paperwork requirements, limits the opportunities to sign up for health coverage, increases cost-sharing limits, and forces exchanges and consumers to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to prove eligibility for coverage and subsidies.
posted by Isabel Miller
Friday, Jul 18, 25 @ 12:29 pm
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– because it imposes burdensome and costly paperwork requirements –
Glad we live in Illinois where no government would ever do anything that heinous
Comment by JB13 Friday, Jul 18, 25 @ 1:55 pm
I appreciate the AG’s effort but the ACA was a poor substitute for universal healthcare. It did a lot for health insurance companies but not really healthcare as much. Better than nothing, but we remain the only western country without universal healthcare which is ridiculous.
Comment by JS Mill Friday, Jul 18, 25 @ 2:00 pm
JS Mill - ymmv but ACA did a lot of good for me. i wasn’t able to buy private health insurance until ACA marketplace was open because I had a “pre-existing condition” black mark.
Also I and many people in life feel better now that lifetime caps on insurance coverage are no longer allowed.
Comment by hisgirlfriday Friday, Jul 18, 25 @ 3:29 pm