Illinois gov. aims for universal health care others say is a bad idea

Questions persist on how Illinois taxpayers will be able to afford the subsidies for undocumented immigrant health care. Gov. J.B. Pritzker says he'd like to have everyone covered eventually.

As part of the state's fiscal year 2024 budget that began July 1, Pritzker modified the state's health care program to provide coverage for migrants only over 65 for a total budgeted amount of $550 million. Questions remain on how the state will afford it. Pritzker was asked about the costs and floated the idea of the state moving to a universal health care system.

"I would prefer if we had universal health care. I think that every person on the ground had access to the health care they need," Pritzker said. "We haven't done that in the United States, and we are trying very hard to do that in the state of Illinois. There is still more work to do."

State Rep. Brad Halbrook, R-Shelbyville, said this is another bad idea.

"This is, again, another bad idea of the progressive, Marxist, leftist, Pritzker regime," Halbrook said. "Just like the SAFE-T act was a bad idea, the gun ban was a bad idea, the list goes on and on."

In 2020, Illinois taxpayers began to subsidize the cost of undocumented immigrant health care for those over the age of 65. In 2022, the state budget included subsidizing coverage for those over the age of 42. As part of the state's fiscal year 2024 budget that began July 1, Pritzker modified the program to only cover those over 65. Lawmakers have suggested the state will run out of funding for migrant healthcare by the fall.

Pritzker said his hope is that the migrant program will be able to help more people.

"I think that we ought to have the program that we already have in place for the undocumented immigrants, cover more people," Pritzker said. "But we need to make sure we are doing it in a cost-efficient fashion."

Halbrook told The Center Square that the state has already shown that it has been unable to manage programs of this size.

"We just discovered $5.2 billion of unemployment funds that were stolen, with $10 million in interest, to make the fund whole again, paid all on the backs of employers and employees," Halbrook said. "We have created new programs out of $1.3 billion of [American Rescue Plan Act] money, and these guys want to ... start another program."