Rep. Patti Bellock

Every state is struggling with the explosive growth and cost of its Medicaid program. Illinois, however, found a way to reduce Medicaid spending significantly, freeing up money for other important projects—or better yet, tax cuts.

Medicaid, the government health-insurance program for the poor and disabled, covered 72.2 million people for at least one month in 2012, according to estimates from the Department of Health and Human Services.

But enrollment is growing quickly. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services reports that Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) enrollment is up by about 8.7 million people—nearly 15%—since the Affordable Care Act’s October 2013 rollout. Total Medicaid spending was about $432 billion in 2012. The federal government provided $250 billion, or a bit more than half, but states paid the rest.

For many states, Medicaid is already their single largest expenditure, and now it is demanding more, forcing state governments to limit or reduce spending in other important areas like education and welfare.

Enter the Illinois solution. In 2013, the state faced a Medicaid budget shortfall of $2.7 billion. Springfield had begun implementing some reforms, such as shifting more Medicaid recipients into private managed-care organizations, but that wasn’t enough.

So Illinois state Rep. Patti Bellock garnered bipartisan support to pass legislation in 2012 that included several Medicaid reforms. One of the most important was a provision to establish the Illinois Medicaid Redetermination Program to “redetermine” if Medicaid enrollees were still eligible to participate.Every state is struggling with the explosive growth and cost of its Medicaid program. Illinois, however, found a way to reduce Medicaid spending significantly, freeing up money for other important projects—or better yet, tax cuts. Read more by Merrill Matthews in the Wall Street Journal.

Cook County has long been ridiculed for allowing dead people cast votes, but the state may have just garnered a new distinction.

It paid $12 million in health care for people who were already dead — including in one case, for a person who had died in 1989.

A new financial audit released by Auditor General Bill Holland’s office on Thursday found that the Illinois Department of Health and Family Services had 8,232 people still on Medicaid rolls qualifying for benefits, even though they were dead.

The state paid monthly premiums totaling almost $7 million for 561 people who had already been dead for an average of nearly two years before they were enrolled in a state managed care program. Read the entire Chicago SunTimes story.

Frustrated with the failure of Governor Pat Quinn to implement the broad Medicaid reforms set forth in the 2011 law and the 2012 SMART Act—even as he advocates for an extension of the Democrats’ 67 percent tax increase, State Senator Dale Righter (R, Mattoon) and State Representative Patti Bellock (R, Downers Grove) rolled out a new initiative placing a moratorium on all Medicaid expansions, including benefit increases, until a 2011 managed care requirement is achieved.

“Gov. Pat Quinn and the Democrat leaders are trying to sell the notion that they have done such a good job of cutting, driving efficiencies into and refining the Medicaid program that we can’t possibly move forward in this state without making the tax increase permanent. However, the facts show that simply is not true,” said Righter. Read more.

Chicago Tribune, December 22, 2013

Merry Christmas, AFSCME! You may get up to 520 new jobs in the state's Department of Human Services. A private contractor that has done an extraordinary job of scrubbing the state's Medicaid rolls of ineligible people is being shown the door so unionized state workers can take over.

We've told readers about this case. Gov. Pat Quinn's administration hired Virginia-based Maximus Health Services Inc. to investigate how many people on the Medicaid rolls actually qualify for Medicaid. Thousands of ineligible recipients were identified and removed.

But the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees filed a complaint, and an arbitrator ruled that the Maximum deal violated AFSCME's contract with the state. Quinn wisely appealed the ruling ... but now he has surrendered.

Quinn dropped the state's appeal Tuesday and agreed to shift the job of vetting Medicaid recipients from Maximus workers to state workers. Quinn said the new deal was the best way to keep the program running and avoid the legal wrangling. Read the rest of the editorial in the Chicago Tribune.

Other stories you might be interested in reading:
Backroom deal threatens bipartisan Medicaid reforms
Illinois Watchdog: Despite ‘staggering’ success, Illinois drops Medicaid fraud finder
Bellock urges public hearing to discuss future of Medicaid program

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In response to revelations of a backroom deal that completely undoes the state’s efforts to save the Illinois Medicaid program State Sen. Dale Righter (R-Mattoon) and State Rep. Patti Bellock (R-Hinsdale) criticized the Quinn administration’s most recent efforts to dismantle the most important element of the bipartisan SMART act reforms.

“The administration has negotiated a backroom deal with AFSCME that would halt the state’s redetermination efforts using an outside vendor by April 30, effectively eliminating the cornerstone of the Medicaid reform,” Righter said. “The redetermination process goes to the heart of fraud and abuse in the Medicaid program, and without it there is no doubt that the state’s limited resources will again be directed to people receiving taxpayer-paid benefits fraudulently.”

Rep. Patti Bellock believe Maximus
is doing exactly what lawmakers
hired them do to and questions
the need to cancel their work.

A private contractor hired by Illinois has excelled in removing from the state's Medicaid rolls people who didn't qualify for the benefit. The contractor, Virginia-based Maximus Health Services Inc., has recommended over the course of the year that the state scrub about 190,000 people from the Medicaid rolls. That saves money and helps to preserve the vital health coverage for lower-income residents.

Maximus' reward? Its caseworkers may be fired, its responsibilities scaled back.

Why? Because AFSCME, the state employees union, convinced an arbitrator this year that the state couldn't legally hire Maximus to do the job. The work should have been done by the state's union workforce, arbitrator Edwin Benn ruled. He set a Dec. 31 deadline for the state to fire Maximus and use state workers. Read the entire Chicago Tribune Editorial.

Other stories on the issue:

Despite ‘staggering’ success, Illinois drops Medicaid fraud finder

Bellock urges public hearing to discuss future of Medicaid program

By Benjamin Yount | Illinois Watchdog

Rep. Patti Bellock

Illinois is rewarding a private company that has found more than 200,000 people who should not be enrolled in Medicaid by pulling the firm off the job.

Maximus, a Virginia-based company, has been combing through the 2.7 million people enrolled in Illinois’ Medicaid program.

So far this year, the company has reviewed 465,076 cases, and recommended that 228,965 people — about half — be dropped from the Medicaid rolls. Illinois has removed 114,675 people from Medicaid, and kept 176,664. The remaining cases are pending.

But Maximus time on the job is coming to an end...

Please click HERE for the full article from Illinois Watchdog.

Rep. Patti Bellock has long been a champion for those who need state assistance. Unfortunately, over the years, the Medicaid system has gotten weighed down, become too costly and nearly unsustainable. Reform in Illinois of the Medicaid system has been no easy task.

For her entire tenure in the House, Rep. Bellock has led House Republicans through the complicated issue standing up for those in need by fighting to save Medicaid.   In 2012, she succeeded in passing key reforms that would secure Illinois' failing Medicaid system. She is standing up again, demanding and successfully securing a public hearing to discuss recent actions that might halt reforms passed by the General Assembly in the 2012 Saving Medicaid Access and Resources Together (SMART) Act.

That public hearing will be held on Tuesday, September 17, 2013 at 3 p.m. in the Michael A. Bilandic Building in Chicago - C-600, 6th floor.

Arbitrator's ruling threatens a big savings program
Chicago Tribune Editorial for June 28, 2013 

Illinois has removed from its Medicaid rolls this year more than 60,000 people who didn't qualify for the government benefit. That's an astonishing number, and it appears there are still many people getting benefits who don't qualify.

A contractor hired by the state is churning through hundreds of thousands of questionable Medicaid accounts, part of a state effort to save the enormously expensive health care program for low-income people.

We've strongly backed this effort, which had bipartisan support in the Illinois legislature. Every dollar spent on people who are ineligible for benefits — some of them don't even live in Illinois — is a dollar not available for essential state services.

Now this vital scrub of Medicaid is in jeopardy, thanks to a grievance filed by AFSCME, the state employees union. An arbitrator recently ruled that the state couldn't hire the contractor, Virginia-based Maximus Health Services Inc., to do the job.

The work should be done by the state's union workforce, ruled the arbitrator, Edwin Benn.

Read the entire Chicago Tribune Editorial...

On May 27, 2013 the House debated Medicaid Expansion. All Republicans voted against the measure. Here's what several of our members had to say during that debate:

“The courts are allowing us to enroll in the Federal Medicaid Expansion at any time,” said Rep. Patti Bellock. “This is no time to rush into a massive expansion the State and Illinois taxpayers cannot afford. We need to spend more time getting our fiscal house in order to ensure Medicaid is sustained for those it was designed to serve.” 

by House Republican Leader Tom Cross in May 24th Daily Herald.

As a result of legislation passed last year by the Illinois General Assembly, a private company is analyzing Illinois' Medicaid program to make sure it is running efficiently and that those who are receiving benefits are legally eligible to receive these services.

Maximus, the company hired to review the program, has reviewed 65,995 cases this year and made recommendations. Of those, the state made final determination on 51,587 cases, which has resulted in a conclusion that 26,871 do not qualify under current state law. The reasons are primarily because these individuals either don't live in Illinois or they don't meet the income guidelines. Read more at the Daily Herald...