State regulations now bar expansion of the Medicaid rolls. HB5007 creates a waiver that would allow Cook County to start enrolling people who will be eligible in 2014, when President Barack Obama’s health care reform plan is scheduled to go into effect. The waiver would expire if the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down the health care law."
http://www.sj-r.com/top-stories/x639955210/House-committee-approves-Medicaid-cuts?zc_p=1
“The Chicago Democrats in charge of Illinois are running another scam on the most vulnerable Illinoisans with their proposed non-reform of the state’s Medicaid program. What Governor Quinn had initially presented as a plan to reduce Medicaid spending by $2.7 billion has come out the other end of the Springfield sausage grinder as a plan to raise taxes and impose counterproductive price controls that will worsen the access to quality health care for low-income families and disabled persons.”
“Furthermore, the proffered plan includes an end-run around the United States Supreme Court with a provision that begins the implementation of Obamacare in Cook County. Instead of reforming the state’s Medicaid rolls which currently include one-in-five Illinoisans by limiting the program to those truly needy persons it was intended to serve, Chicago Democrats would grow the Medicaid rolls by a projected 100,000 individuals.”
“Any legislator who votes for this plan is effectively saying that the personal and corporate income tax hikes of 2011 will not sunset in 2014 as was promised because they are committing the state to a level of Medicaid spending it cannot sustain, regardless of anticipated federal support.”