Illinois noncitizen health care programs helped give hospitals a financial boost

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WTVO) — Illinois’s controversial program to offer insurance to noncitizen migrants contributed millions to hospitals’ bottom lines, according to a new study.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported that Illinois currently insures roughly 40,000 people who don’t have legal status or qualify for federal Medicaid or Medicare.

Illinois enacted laws in March 2022 that provide free health insurance, first for senior migrants, then for migrants aged 55-64, and ultimately for all migrants aged 52+.

Without federal match dollars for treating immigrants as part of the state’s Health Benefits or Immigrant Adults program, Illinois taxpayers were left to pick up the tab.

The program is similar to Medicaid but is funded by the state, since noncitizens aren’t eligible for federal coverage.

A study by the University of Chicago found that the state programs, funded by taxpayer money, helped hospitals reduce “bad debt” by nearly $1.5 million per hospital.

The state paid hospitals for the medical care they provided, without having to bill uninsured patients who couldn’t afford care or wouldn’t pay.

Following Gov. JB Pritzker’s annual budget address, an audit found the costs of the program and enrollments were vastly underestimated, costing taxpayers more than $1.6 billion since it began in 2020.

The state had estimated the cost of the program for younger people at $126 million, but the actual cost to taxpayers came in at $485 million over three years, the audit found.

Pritzker did not include the Health Benefits for Immigrant Adults program in his proposed 2025 budget. More than 30,000 noncitizens between the ages of 42-64 are set to lose coverage starting July 1st.

The Health Benefits for Immigrant Seniors program, on the other hand, was budgeted at $2 million for the first year, but that estimate ballooned to $4 million while the program was being set up in 2020, and actually cost taxpayers more than $67 million by December 2020.

In three years, the program cost the state $412 million — 84% higher than the original estimates.