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| Rep. Patti Bellock |
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.