By Wes Venteicher
Chicago Tribune
FEBRUARY 18, 2015, 8:36 PM
Gov. Bruce Rauner’s proposed $1.47 billion in Medicaid cuts includes reductions in dental services, mental
health care and other coverage. But some legislators and patient advocates say the targeted services don’t
just help keep people healthy — they also save the state money.
The proposed cuts would eliminate or reduce coverage of adult dental care, podiatry, renal dialysis and hemophilia
and funding of some mental health rehabilitation facilities, according to a budget document and a Rauner budget
official. The cuts would also reduce funding for hospitals by about $735 million, according to the Illinois Hospital
Association.
Many of the targeted patient services were recently restored to the Medicaid program after being eliminated a few
years ago to save money, Rauner noted in his budget address Wednesday. Legislators who support the services say
eliminating them cost the state more in the long run.
Regarding Rauner’s proposed cuts, Democratic Senate President John Cullerton said: “We already did that.
“We found, for example, that if you cut people’s dental services and then they don’t go to a dentist, they end up
going to an emergency room and it costs us more money,” Cullerton said. “So we went back and examined that and
made a change.”
“People will not miraculously get better if they’re denied care for services,” said Rep. Greg Harris, DChicago.
“They’ll just end up at a higher level of care in an acute care setting at the most expensive end of their disease.”
Other legislators responded that the added costs of emergency room services have not been welldocumented.
“It’s theory,” said Sen. Dale Righter, RMattoon. “The simple fact is that we can’t afford to pay for those services.
We couldn’t pay for them at the time we repealed the services, we couldn’t afford them when they were added back,
we can’t afford them now.”
The earlier service cuts were part of a 2012 Medicaid reform law called the Smart Act; it was later amended to roll
back some of those changes.
The law instituted a process to determine how many people were on Medicaid who were not eligible to be. Rauner
proposes saving $75 million by being more aggressive in determining eligibility and by adding new efforts to
“detect and prevent fraudulent and abusive billing practices by providers,” according to the budget document.
Barbara Otto, head of Chicagobased Health & Disability Advocates, said people often seek help from her
organization after being wrongly classified as ineligible.
“This is an old trick by a new governor,” to boot patients off Medicaid rolls, Otto said.
Critics: Medicaid services that Rauner wants cut actually save money
February 19, 2015 By