Thread: Blagojevich’s All Kids insurance program costly to taxpaye

Blagojevich’s All Kids insurance program costly to taxpayers, state audit finds

By MONIFA THOMAS
April 14, 2011

The expansion of the All Kids health insurance program cost Illinois more than $74 million in unpaid premiums last year, the state auditor general reported Thursday.

In addition, All Kids paid the medical bills of thousands of children and young adults who no longer qualified for the program, while misclassifying thousands of other children whose coverage would have been eligible for federal reimbursement, Auditor General William G. Holland reported.

Many of the same problems were identified in a 2009 audit of the program.

The state’s KidCare child health insurance program was expanded in 2006 to include uninsured children who had previously been ineligible, making Illinois the first state to promise health insurance to all children. Critics at the time warned that the program, pushed by former Gov. Rod Blagojevich during his re-election bid, would be too costly.

The expansion of the program, now known as All Kids, added children whose family income was greater than 200 percent of the federal poverty level and undocumented immigrant children.

These children – nearly 95,000 in 2010 – don’t qualify for federal funds, so the cost of covering them is paid for entirely by state taxpayers.

The audit deals only with the expansion, not the entire All Kids program.

Among the findings:

â–* All Kids paid out $84 million in medical claims in fiscal 2010 for children added through the expansion. But it only received $9.8 million in premiums from families, resulting in a net cost of $74.4 million. In 2009, unpaid premiums cost the state $70 million. Holland found that the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services did not terminate coverage when enrollees failed to pay their premiums, as required by law.

â–* Though All Kids enrollment is supposed to end at age 18, more than 4,000 19-year-olds were still in the program, and 265 of them received services after their 19th birthday. â–* Of the nearly 74,000 children enrolled under the expansion as of June 30, 2010, 73 percent were classified as undocumented immigrants. But the audit also found that more than 12,000 legal immigrant children were misclassified as undocumented immigrants. As a result, the state missed out on federal money it could have received for covering these children.

HFS director Julie Hamos said the department has “already taken a number of steps to address the findings in the audit and enhance the integrity of the eligibility process.â€

â–* Of the nearly 74,000 children enrolled under the expansion as of June 30, 2010, 73 percent were classified as undocumented immigrants.

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Q: Take this and multiply by 50 and whadaya get?

A: MEXICO!