Broad coalition lays out impacts of potential cuts to Illinois Medicaid

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (NEXSTAR) — Three million people are enrolled in Medicaid in Illinois, and their coverage could be impacted if congress decides to make cuts.

House Republicans in Washington D.C. passed a resolution that asked certain federal agencies to cut $880 billion dollars in spending over the next 10 years. The resolution does not explicitly mention Medicaid. Experts say that number can’t be reached without cutting the state based health insurance plan for the elderly, children and those with disabilities.

“I think that the fact that it’s such a large amount, $880 billion over ten years, there’s no way they can cut that much out of the federal budget without touching Medicaid,” Rep. Anna Moeller (D-Elgin) said.

Lawmakers in Springfield held a hearing to highlight the impacts these cuts could have, but little can be done at the state level to curb the hit, which led republicans to question the motivations of the hearing.

“I think, this is performative. We don’t know what will happen. There’s a lot of things that we have no control over budget negotiations going on at the national level,” Rep. Bill Hauter (R-Morton) said.

It wasn’t just politicians speaking, though; hospital executives warned that this could lead to closures.

That would lead to less reimbursement to hospitals when we’re already not being paid the full cost of care,” Executive Director of the Illinois Hospital Association A.J. Wilhelmi said.

Health insurance companies showed up to say cuts to Medicaid could result in private health insurance costs going up. They said less people on the state sponsored plans means more people on subsidized private plans, and the subsidies come from people paying those premiums.

Basically you create more costs into the system and all kind of things are financed different ways, but they’re coming out of the same pockets,” Laura Minzer, President of the Illinois Life and Health Insurance Council said.

Minzer used a Montana study as evidence for the prediction. Under the Affordable Care Act, there was an expansion for who can be on Medicaid. Montana went through with the expansion, but put a sunset clause in the expansion. When it close to ending, they conducted a study on what the impacts could be.

Congress has until March 14th to pass a spending plan. The resolution that called for the cuts has not passed the Senate.