$1.5B in Unpaid Healthcare Bills for Illinois State Employees

The state is a tad broke

SPRINGFIELD — While Illinois lawmakers remain frozen over what to do about the state's gargantuan pension debt, leaders in the statehouse are moving swiftly on Illinois' other public employee promise — health care.

Illinois has more than $1.5 billion in unpaid health care bills for state employees, university workers, lawmakers and their families dating back nearly a year.

"For all four programs … it's about $1.6 billion," Marsha Armstrong a benefit expert from Illinois' main bureaucratic agency, Central Management Services, told lawmakers Tuesday.

Illinois did not pay what it owes doctors, hospitals and pharmacists for employee health-care claims for the same reason the state did not pay nearly $7 billion in other bills. Illinois does not have the money.

Comments

[Susanna123]

Unstable economy situation makes people panic and find extra sources of income. Usually they start taking out loans no credit check to cover their everyday needs: treatment, education, dwelling and so on. Unfortunately, more than $1.5 billion health care bills for state employees, university workers, lawmakers and their families dating back nearly a year are unpaid only for Illinois State. Local government has no money to pay doctors, hospitals and pharmacists. The state does not have the money. At the same time teachers suffer no smaller than doctors. They don't agree with the cost-of-living cut. It will make them ineligible for state-backed health coverage.