Ted joined Chicago Tonight to talk about the Congressional House Republicans’ proposal to slow the increase in federal Medicaid spending by $880 billion over the next decade. Ted warned that we need to take a serious look at the program; that it’s been turned into an entitlement for the middle class instead of remaining focused on the poor and needy. And that’s driven state enrollment – and spending – to unsustainable levels.
Read more from Wirepoints:
- With the border closed, will Illinois finally cut spending on illegal immigrants?
- Mayor Emanuel suddenly cares about Chicago’s “streets, schools and finances?” Here’s his record.
- Willful indifference to cost: Illinois’ noncitizen healthcare scandal is worse than new audit shows
- …And about that “balanced” budget in Illinois
- Beyond the Nazi accusations. What you should know about Gov. Pritzker’s budget address
Audio and summary 
If this bill passes, say goodbye to local control over all Illinois parks and expect to see open drug and alcohol use, needles, no sanitation and fire hazards, but no ordinary park users.
I so often see these days people not getting married so the mother goes on welfare and the father, not claiming the children, gets to keep all of his paycheck for assorted toys, bells and whistles. What really irks me is hearing the mother’s say “we are old fashioned stay at home moms” that to me is highly distorted. The moms I remember didn’t sit around all day collecting welfare but this is Illinois I guess and today is today.
Not getting married is a symptom of a larger societal problem with men. Women are still having the biological urges to procreate but they don’t have the desire to tie themselves down with undesirable men. Men who earn below average salaries, play video games all day, are incels, cannot provide for the family, have substance abuse problems. The rise of feminism and the ultimate displacement of so many men as the breadwinners in the family, I believe, is the underlying cause of the low marriage rates and low birth rates. We see this in every country around the world where… Read more »
Do you remember this proposed bill in 2016 that a fathers name must be put on the birth certificate if not they will lose any state aid. That is one big reason there are so many unwed mothers. The bill was killed quickly because they said that was racist.
I would have presented the bill differently. Not naming the father the child would have no idea on the health problems on the fathers side of the family. No health history can cause many unforeseen problems like diabetes/heart disease/etc.
https://www.salon.com/2016/02/25/illinois_republicans_target_single_mothers_and_their_babies_gop_bill_would_ban_birth_certificates_financial_assistance_if_father_is_not_named/
As a family law attorney once told me, plenty of baby mamas out there don’t know for sure who the daddy is. They’ve got several irons in the fire, so to speak, and it can be one of a couple guys. You and I have jobs, and families, and work full time jobs. But if you’re 20 or 22, in a community where the unemployment rate among your age group is in the 50% range or higher, and everyone spends their waking hours drinking, smoking, sexing, slinging, hanging, gang banging…it’s easy to get knocked up by one of two or… Read more »
Maybe cut the fraud. People with corporations so they don’t “own” anything on Medicaid. Investgate this.
There are so many things wrong with this discussion! To the fair share lady: Medicaid is a negative externality designed to benefit large corporations and the billionaires that run them. If you take away Medicaid and SNAP, these predatory corporations will be insolvent. Maybe that’s a good thing, and perhaps a chance for our economy to shift resources to a more productive sector? What ever happened to agency and American values? If nobody is responsible or accountable, nothing gets done, and everyone suffers. Regarding health insurance, I think we have the highest medical expenses in the world, the most complex… Read more »
If I recall, the 90%/10% offer was made in the Obama years in an effort to get the Obamacare passed. It ENCOURAGES government dependency and that dependency is celebrated by the likes of Ms. Altman. The juxtaposition of Ms. Altman and Mr. Dabrowski’s rhetoric says it all. Ms. Atman ignores the financial realities and celebrates the increased numbers, reverting to the old saw “tax breaks for corporations billionaires” as the reason for cuts to the program. While Dabrowski opines that while the program should continue to serve the most vulnerable, he points out the expansion has overwhelmed the intent of… Read more »
Can it really be true that 1 of 4 Illioisians is too poor to pay their doctor bills? If you add in illegals and Medicare patients this number probably approaches 1 out 3.
WP Readers, now you know why your dollars don’t seem to buy much anymore.
Pre covid data showed that 1.2K of 100K people in IL were on one form or another of public aid. I can only imagine what the total is now.
Your numbers seem way off Indiana. If we only had 1.2% of the population on some form of public aid that would be amazingly affordable.
Again, these figures were pre- covid, pre 10M(?) people crossing the border and getting lodging, money, food etc on the taxpayers dime. IL ranks consistently higher in the number of people on the dole, as do NY, CA and NJ. I like the convoluted figures whereas red states, with low populations, have a higher percentage of welfare recipients, but in the end their higher percentage is dwarfed by the number of people in one large, blue urban area subsisting on handouts.
No Indiana. Pre-Covid the state still had about 23% of the population on Medicaid. 1.7 Million or 13% was on food stamps. There is no recent time when only 1.2% of the Illinois population was on some form of public aid. It’s an absurd number you quote.
So higher population states have more people on public aid? That’s why percentages matter. Arkansas, Louisiana, West Virginia, Kentucky and Mississippi all have around 30% of the population on Medicaid. Also, Indiana has over 27% of their population on medicaid. Higher than Illinois.
Yes more money goes to dense cities where more people live just as more tax dollars are collected from those same areas.
I researched this and medicaid coverage in Indiana jumped 25% during Biden’s term and COVID. Additionally over 50% of all children in the state are born using medicaid dollars and 40% of the state’s medicaid recipients are children. I’m sure there’s a deeper dive into these numbers, involving a lot of nuance, and it’s probably something along the lines of “look at all these Democrat voters on Medicaid”. There’s also the issue of poor, uninsured people having children. Half of all children are on medicaid. How does this happen? Who are these children? How did it get so high? Mothers… Read more »
Yes it’s a societal problem but not one that is unique to Illinois. Expanding medicaid was all part of the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare. It was designed to be expanded and even Obama believed that it was only temporary until single payer. With a large portion of people on medicaid and medicare they thought it would be easier to eventually convince the public to upend our current system. So far they’ve been wrong and cutting medicaid is a good tool to prevent this expansion.
Public aid answers it
That would make sense considering about 22% of the US population is on Medicaid. About 20% of the total population is on Medicare. So your 1 in 3 is probably low. Not to mention all the people on entitlements like Social Security and food stamps.
Social security is not an entitlement.
Yet you and others feel entitled to it. People would scream like stuck pigs if the government even just cut it a little bit. You may have paid SS taxes but you have no contractual rights to it and your hope of collecting it in the future is based on the generosity of the American people. No different than food stamps.
I’ve given you more credit than this comment. You are quite outfront about collecting your pension, but disparage social security benefits as “…based on the generosity of the American people.” Did you, PPF, pay into social security since your first job? Did you pay into that pension you expect to be paid first? Do you consider your pension an entitlement? Social security benefits don’t belong in the same breath as food stamps. Seniors contributed to and EARNED their social security benefits, rather like you contributed to and earned your pension. Food stamp are a state sanctioned and administered charity –… Read more »
You and I have no contractual rights to our social security. I have paid social security taxes and do feel “entitled” to them based on current law. However, just like food stamps and other government transfer payments, they can be ended at any time at the discretion of congress. If that happens you and I have no right to receive anything. Therefore, we depend on the generous and self serving nature of future politicians to keep getting this entitlement. This is in sharp contrast to pensions that are a legal contract to pay out deferred compensation and are not subject… Read more »
No chance in Hell that SS is going to stop. Much, much better chance that Pensions go bankrupt. Lots of voters on SS and very few on Pensions. That is what counts to politicians.
Yes, but “no” in that no one drawing SS has contractual rights to a given periodic benefit nor to how it’s even calculated. That’s always subject to change politically. Now, guess which of our many U. S. Presidents likely would have/had little-to-no sense of guilt or remorse in doing that if it suits/suited his overall underlying objectives.
While I don’t think SS will be cut any time soon, but if it ever happens they may cut people with higher incomes or “means” test for future benefits. Means testing for SS has been floated in the past by both Clinton and George W. It was also proposed by Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. One of the primary reasons against means testing is that it would remove the perception that you “earned” this versus what it really is which is welfare.The reality is that no one has any right to SS other than what the current law states, just… Read more »
PPF makes a valid point. My take on this is you’ll get your SS cheque until the Second Coming; it just won’t buy very much in the not too distant future. Perhaps lunch or a tank fill of gadoline.
Around 66 million people in the US receive social security benefits and there are 186 million registered voters. SS isn’t going anywhere Old Joe.
Social Security is certainly going somewhere, just where, we don’t know to. There simply aren’t enough workers paying into social security to continue the ponzi scheme. Importing more third-world low wage workers didn’t seem to help at all either. And likely makes things worse, and as their contributions are too little to make any difference. So many of these illegal immigrant’s chilren turn out to be ‘disabled’ in some way or another and collect SSI because their children are American citizens. The entire system is so corrupt and rotten.
AARP may be more powerful than teachers’ unions and those unions will now make common cause with AARP to preserve Social Security for those who don’t need it.
I might have added that the President in this case inclined to make that change couldn’t/can’t run for another term which suggests public support for the status quo surely is far less consequential than is the norm.
James, Trump has not stated he would cut Social Security so I’m not sure what you are getting at. Now he has proposed not taxing SS benefits and that would make the SS trust fund become depleted sooner as those income taxes go back to the trust fund.
Also, the President can’t make those changes on his own. Since Congressman and Senators want to get re-elected there are plenty of consequences left to prevent any cuts. The real question is what happens when they are forced to deal with it about 8 years down the road.
The scare tactics about supposed cuts to SS and Medicaid are astonishing, being peddled with full complicity of much of the press.
Fortunately, the traditional press is in the toilet these days.
Exactly right!
Austin Texas is building the new silicon valley booming tech economy. While here we are building the medicaid expansion/ free medicaid for illegal migrant capital of USA in ZERO business growth bankrupt Illinois???, to go along with my Streets & San neighbor who’s counting the days til he can retire to Arizona with his guaranteed $multi-million pension$…..it’s a complete joke…..if you where a young person or couple trying to look for opportunity for a future where would you choose?
If you are liberal as h… like blue hair, gauges in you ears, and freaks Austin is just the place for you. How the liberal pit is the capital on the state of Texas eludes me.
Perfect headline, Wirepoints. This despicable habit about bragging about how many people we can put on Medicaid started under Blagojevich, when the Dems we starting to be so eager to hand out freebies to all their constituents. Medicaid is for indigents, people who have such low level jobs their employers don’t have health plans, and for the poor who can’t afford to buy health care insurance. Yes, health care costs are burdensome, but bragging about how many folks in your state are in those low income, no benefit, needy jobs simply reflects how poor are the opportunities to be employed… Read more »
Obamacare is not affordable for most even with a salary above poverty.
But … you can “…keep your own doctor!”
The whole of Obamacare is a massive mistake – unaffordable. Not the best legacy.