Illinois House Speaker Emanuel ‘Chris’ Welch on Budget, Bipartisanship and Immigration – WTTW (Chicago)

The Pritzker administration had estimated a Medicaid-style program providing health coverage to eligible undocumented residents would run Illinois about $1.1 billion. Republican skeptics cast doubts on whether it’s practically or politically possible for Gov. JB Pritzker to keep the program to the budgeted $550 million in the next fiscal year, but Welch said he’s “confident” it can be done, and that Pritzker can contain growth of the program via the “tools” provided by the General Assembly and through the limited expenses eligible for matching federal funds.