Blue state governor’s ‘gross mismanagement’ cost taxpayers $1.6B for illegal immigrant healthcare: audit
An audit requested by state GOP lawmakers shows Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker’s administration underestimated costs and demand for illegal immigrant health programs, totaling $1.6B.
Illinois taxpayers paid out $1.6 billion for healthcare programs for illegal immigrants since 2020, well above the spending projections estimated by Democrat Gov. JB Pritzker’s administration, per a new state audit released this week at the request of GOP legislators.
The audit also found that, in many cases, state money was spent on people who were actually U.S. citizens or otherwise eligible for federal programs.
“This audit shows that the governor, that the program was rampant in overspending. It spent well in excess of 200% more than what was estimated in budgets and in appropriations,” state Senate Republican leader John Curran told Fox News Digital in an interview.
“And it also showed that the governor was unable to manage this program,” he said. “Thousands of people were allowed to sign up for free healthcare for years on the state taxpayer dime that should not have been eligible under the parameters laid out for this program, and the governor failed to even seek federal reimbursement when eligible on certain services for years, leaving federal dollars on the table.”
ILLINOIS TO CUT STATE-FUNDED HEALTHCARE FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS, GREEN CARD HOLDERS AFTER SOARING COSTS
A new audit shows $1.6 billion in Illinois taxpayer funds went to healthcare programs for illegal immigrants under the Pritzker administration. Shown here are Gov. JB Pritzker, left, and state Senate Republican leader John Curran. (Getty Images | Fox News Digital)
Illinois Auditor General Frank J. Mautino flagged more than 6,000 people listed as “undocumented” in the programs but who had Social Security numbers, and some of those individuals may actually be legal permanent residents who are eligible for Medicaid, meaning the state could get federal funding for them. The state reviewed 94 cases and found that 19 should have been classified as legal residents instead of noncitizens.
There were also nearly 700 people in the senior health program who were under 65. A review confirmed that many of the errors were due to incorrect birth dates, which were corrected later.
Nearly 400 enrollees appeared to have been in the country for more than five years and should have qualified for Medicaid, the audit also found. The state acknowledged that some of those people were enrolled incorrectly, which cost the state federal matching funds. The report recommended that the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services seek federal reimbursement for the lost funds.
ILLINOIS HEALTH CARE PROGRAM FOR NONCITIZENS, INCLUDING ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS, BALLOONS TO $1.1B
ICE agents arrest illegal immigrants during a workforce operation raid. (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement)
The auditor’s report, which Curran dubbed “gross mismanagement” in a press conference, was released just one week after Pritzker suggested cutting funding for a program that offers Medicaid-like coverage to illegal immigrants under 65 or legal immigrants without a green card. The proposed reduction, expected to save $330 million, was a key part of Pritzker’s strategy to address a more than $3 billion budget shortfall.
“The governor was papering over this large spending with tax increases over the last several years, as well as COVID relief funds being spent on this rather than actually trying to rein in spending in the state of Illinois,” Curran said. “Now that federal dollars have tapered off, we have a large budget deficit in Illinois this year and the governor is now being forced to try to end the program for all working adults.”
“We cannot afford this,” Curran continued. “The state of Illinois, state taxpayers, should not be burdened with providing free healthcare, especially for [the] working-age population. People that should be out and working in paying taxes and getting healthcare in the marketplace, just like every other Illinois state taxpayer is doing, so we want to bring the program to an end.”
As of December, 41,505 individuals were enrolled in the two programs, part of the Health Benefits for Immigrant Adults program, which Pritzker has proposed cutting starting July 1.
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Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel are shown during a raid in Chicago. (Christopher Dilts/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Despite Pritzker’s plan to cut funding for healthcare programs, he said during a Wednesday press conference that he supports some kind of universal health coverage: “The broader context is people need to get health care.”
He added, “It’s some evidence, anyway, that there are an awful lot of people out there that need coverage who aren’t getting it or who will do anything to get it, and I think that’s a sad state of affairs in our society.”
Curran said “Pritzker, from day 1, is taking an adversarial approach to President Donald Trump and his administration, and that has really put Illinois and really the city of Chicago in focus.”
“What we would like to see is a more cooperative tone,” he said.
Hundreds of illegal immigrants in Chicago, which is deemed a sanctuary city, have been detained by U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement since Trump took office.
Both Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson bucked Trump’s mass deportation move, vowing in January to protect residents regardless of their immigration status.
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Pritzker’s office did not respond to a request for comment by the publication deadline.
Jamie Joseph is a U.S. Politics reporter for Fox News Digital covering transgender and culture issues, the Departments of Education and Health and Human Services, and stateside legislative developments.
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Audit finds thousands were improperly enrolled in Illinois health care program for noncitizens, while costs were vastly underestimated
SPRINGFIELD — Gov. JB Pritzker’s administration vastly underestimated the cost and popularity of a pair of health insurance programs for immigrants who are not citizens that has ended up costing the state $1.6 billion since the initiative began in 2020, according to an audit report released Wednesday.
Aside from inaccurate projections of the programs’ cost and the number of people who would enroll, the audit uncovered more than 6,000 people enrolled in the programs who were listed as “undocumented” despite having Social Security numbers, and nearly 700 who were enrolled in the program for people 65 and older despite being younger than that. In addition, almost 400 people were enrolled in the programs but appeared to have been in the country long enough to qualify for Medicaid, which is jointly funded by the federal government.
The report from Illinois Auditor General Frank Mautino’s office was published a week after Pritzker proposed eliminating funding for the program that provides Medicaid-style insurance coverage for people younger than 65 who are in the country without legal permission or are in the U.S. legally but have not yet qualified for a green card. The cut, estimated to save $330 million, was part of Pritzker’s plan to close a budget hole once pegged at more than $3 billion.
The cost overruns were particularly pronounced in the program for younger recipients, with the actual expenditure of $485 million through the three years ending June 30, 2023, coming in at nearly four times the estimated cost of $126 million, according to the audit.
At a news conference in Chicago on Wednesday to announce another round of medical debt relief for Illinois residents, Pritzker did not answer directly when asked why the estimates his administration used for the programs were so far off. Instead, he said some individuals were at times kept on the programs’ rolls for a period before the state determined they were no longer eligible, either because of a change in immigration or employment status or some other factor.
Despite his proposal to do away with funding for coverage of those under 65, Pritzker reiterated his support for universal health care coverage in an unspecified form.
“The broader context is people need to get health care,” Pritzker said, adding: “It’s some evidence, anyway, that there are an awful lot of people out there that need coverage who aren’t getting it or who will do anything to get it, and I think that’s a sad state of affairs in our society.”
As of December, there were 41,505 people enrolled in the programs — one for those 65 and older, one for those under 65. Roughly 80% of them were in the program for younger immigrants for which Pritzker has proposed eliminating funding beginning July 1.
Illinois initially offered Medicaid-style health care coverage for noncitizen immigrants 65 and older in 2020 under a program called Health Benefits for Immigrant Seniors. This group of recipients was ineligible for the traditional health insurance program for the poor, which is jointly funded by the federal government.
This state-run health care initiative has been expanded twice and now covers those 42 and older. The ballooning costs of the program complicated budget negotiations two years ago.
Together, the two programs do not extend to the asylum-seekers arriving in Chicago from the southern U.S. border.
The two programs launched in Illinois at a time when Medicaid redeterminations — annual checks that verify whether an enrollee is eligible for that benefit — were put on pause by the federal government during the COVID-19 pandemic.
But the costs for the programs eventually spiraled upward and the issue has roiled the General Assembly in recent years. In February 2023, Pritzker took steps to curtail enrollment in the programs after an initial cost estimate from his administration of $220 million swelled fivefold three months later to $1.1 billion. Ultimately, a little over $500 million was set aside in the budget that passed by the legislature that spring.
Last year, the governor announced plans to cut as many as 6,000 health care recipients across the two programs to save more money.
Pritzker in the past has defended immigrant health care as a state effort to save more taxpayer money by providing this kind of coverage to noncitizens by keeping them out of emergency rooms and hospitals. But hours after announcing his budget proposal last week, Pritzker explained how there’s been people of working age in the 42-to-64 program that have later been able to find a better-paying job “that has health care associated with it.”
“Yes, we’re making sacrifices across the budget,” Pritzker said in his ceremonial office at the state Capitol. “I’m making sacrifices on things that matter to me.”
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(Petrella reported from Chicago. Tribune reporter Olivia Olander contributed.)
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Audit finds many were improperly enrolled in state health care program for noncitizens, while costs were vastly underestimated
SPRINGFIELD — Gov. JB Pritzker’s administration vastly underestimated the cost and attraction of a pair of controversial programs that provide state-funded health insurance for immigrants who are not citizens, according to an audit report released Wednesday.
The programs have cost the state more than $1.6 billion since the initiative began in late 2020 and also have been plagued by improper enrollments and a failure to move some recipients who were eligible into Medicaid, the traditional health insurance program for the poor that is jointly funded by the federal government, according to the report from Illinois Auditor General Frank Mautino’s office.
While widely supported by the Latino caucus in Springfield and other progressive lawmakers, the programs have been a source of tension among the Democrats who control the legislature and briefly derailed budget negotiations two years ago before legislators reached a compromise that gave Pritzker broad latitude to rein in costs.
The audit’s release comes a week after the governor proposed eliminating funding beginning July 1 for the program that insures people younger than 65, a move his administration estimates would save $330 million and help erase a state budget deficit for the coming year it once estimated at more than $3 billion.
The cost overruns were particularly pronounced in the program meant for recipients ages 42 to 64, with the actual expenditure of $485 million through the three years ending June 30, 2023, the period covered by the audit, coming in at nearly four times the initially estimated cost of $126 million, according to the report. During the same period, the actual cost of the program for those 65 and older was $412 million, nearly double the original projection of $224 million.
At a news conference in Chicago on Wednesday to announce another round of medical debt relief for Illinois residents, Pritzker did not answer directly when asked why the estimates his administration used for the programs were so far off. Instead, he said some individuals were at times kept on the programs’ rolls for a period before the state determined they were no longer eligible, either because of a change in immigration or employment status or some other factor.
Despite his proposal to do away with funding for coverage of those under 65, Pritzker reiterated his support for universal health care coverage in a form he didn’t specify.
“The broader context is people need to get health care,” Pritzker said. The popularity of the immigrant health care programs, and the ensuing high costs to the state, provide “some evidence, anyway, that there are an awful lot of people out there that need coverage who aren’t getting it or who will do anything to get it, and I think that’s a sad state of affairs in our society.”
As of December, there were 41,505 people enrolled in the two immigrant health care programs. Roughly 80% of them were in the program for younger immigrants.
The audit notes that when the program was created in 2020 for immigrants 65 and older who were in the country without legal permission or did not yet qualify for a green card, lawmakers and the Department of Healthcare and Family Services relied on advocacy groups for cost estimates.
The initial estimate, according to emails turned over to the auditor general, was that the program would cost $4 million annually, which one agency official later described as “very wrong.” The program ended up costing more than $67 million in its first seven months.
Still, it was expanded twice in 2022, lowering the eligibility age to 42. Together, the two programs do not extend to the asylum-seekers who’ve arrived in Chicago in recent years from the southern border.
In the first year both programs operated, “estimates were made with little experiential data to accurately predict program growth,” Healthcare and Family Services spokeswoman Melissa Kula said in an emailed statement. The estimates, based on cost and enrollment growth in traditional Medicaid, fell short in part because of higher rates of chronic disease and hospitalization among the populations served by the state programs, Kula said.
Despite efforts to improve projections, enrollment and costs continued to far outstrip estimates. By mid-2023, enrollment in the programs was roughly double what was expected.
Wednesday’s report was ordered by the Legislative Audit Commission, a bipartisan panel of House and Senate members that oversees the auditor general’s work.
State Rep. Fred Crespo, a Democrat from Hoffman Estates who co-chairs the commission, said that while the findings were expected, they should serve as a lesson in how the state needs to be more fiscally responsible in its budgeting.
“I was taken aback by the sheer cost and the underestimates, and I think that’s really a reflection on how we do business in the state,” said Crespo, a moderate who declined to say where he stands on the programs. “If you present a bill and you don’t have a handle on the cost, or in this case enrollment, this is going to blow up in your face.”
Nevertheless, funding the programs should continue to be a priority in order to provide adequate health care for noncitizens who pay taxes just like other Illinois residents, said Rep. Lilian Jimenez, a Chicago Democrat.
“When we’re talking about what the Illinois budget should include, I think we just have to think about, Are we unfairly excluding folks from programs that they would normally be eligible for but for the federal government’s decision to not provide people with Social Security numbers?” Jimenez said. “When we talk about health care for all, when we talk about health care as a human right, does it include everybody, or is there a carve-out? Does Illinois have a carve-out for who is entitled to health care and who is not?”
Republicans were quick to criticize Pritzker over the audit’s findings, some even going as far as alleging fraudulent activity, though the auditor general’s review was focused on internal processes and made no specific findings of fraud in the programs. Senate GOP leader John Curran of Downers Grove dismissed the programs as a “good press pop” for a Democratic governor seeking national attention.
Sen. Chapin Rose, a Republican who co-chairs the audit commission with Crespo, accused Pritzker and his administration of “complete mismanagement” of the programs and also criticized the administration for downplaying their cost.
“This is insane. Every time you turn around, he’s telling us, ‘Oh, don’t worry about it. It’s not going to cost that much money.’ And then a couple years later, you find, ‘Oh, once again, he’s wrong on his numbers,’” said Rose, of Mahomet. “Transparency is everything. You’ve got to be able to believe budget estimate numbers.”
Aside from inaccurate projections of the programs’ cost and the number of people who would sign up, the audit uncovered numerous apparent problems with their rolls, including nearly 500 duplicate enrollments; more than 6,000 enrollees with Social Security numbers who were designated as “undocumented”; nearly 700 people registered for the program for those 65 and older who were too young; and nearly 400 participants who had coverage despite being eligible for Medicaid, under which the federal government would share the cost.
Among the “undocumented” participants who also had Social Security numbers, the Department of Healthcare and Family Services reviewed a sample of 94 cases and found 19 who “should have been recorded in the system as lawfully present or as being a legal permanent resident,” according to the audit, which would have made them eligible for Medicaid after five years in the country.
As for the participants who appeared to already be eligible for Medicaid, the department reviewed 17 cases and found 13 people who were incorrectly approved for the programs paid for solely by the state.
The audit noted that about a quarter of the people signed up for the 65-and-over program who appeared to be too young were allowed to enroll because they were within three months of their 65th birthday, while other instances were due to incorrect birthdates provided during registration.
Rep. Norine Hammond of Macomb, lead budget negotiator for the House GOP, questioned the competence of those tasked with running the health care programs.
“Let’s be clear and let’s be transparent. We have to have the truth. If we can’t base our budgets and our priorities on truthful numbers, then what are we doing here? It makes absolutely no sense,” she said. “Who’s processing these applications? And what are they doing that they can’t do it correctly?”
The auditor general’s office recommended Healthcare and Family Services work with the Department of Human Services to review eligibility data and create processes “to ensure ineligible individuals are not enrolled” and “to remove any unnecessary duplicate enrollees to ensure fraudulent or duplicate payments are not made on their behalf.”
The office also recommended that the Healthcare and Family Services department “seek federal reimbursement for any federal match lost due to the miscategorization of … enrollees who were otherwise eligible for federally funded programs.”
While the department accepted the recommendations, the latter could be a tall order given Republican President Donald Trump’s hardline stance on immigration and his administration’s threats to withhold federal funds from states such as Illinois that resist federal deportation efforts.
Separate from the audit, Healthcare and Family Services has started a redetermination process for the programs, which were created at a time during the COVID-19 pandemic when the federal government had paused annual checks to verify whether enrollees were eligible for Medicaid.
Last year, the governor announced plans to cut as many as 6,000 health care recipients across the two programs to save money.
As of last month, more than 21,000 people had been dropped from the rolls through the process, more than half of them for not responding to the department’s communications. Almost 8,000 more were removed after becoming ineligible for reasons including earning too much money, moving out of state or dying, while nearly 1,500 moved into other programs for which they were qualified.
Petrella reported from Chicago. Chicago Tribune’s Olivia Olander contributed.
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