The Chicago Tribune has this disturbing editorial:
About one in five llinoisans gets health coverage through Medicaid. Do all those people actually live in Illinois? Do some of them earn too much to qualify for the government coverage targeted for the poor?Just a reminder, ObamaCare was never about cutting costs. What better proof than this?
Heck if the state knows. It doesn't stringently check those things.
Illinois sought to tighten its eligibility rules earlier this year, as a part of a sweeping state Medicaid reform law.
The law directs state workers to ask Medicaid applicants for proof of residency. The state has essentially been taking the applicants' word about where they live. The law also says applicants have to produce a month's worth of pay stubs to show income eligibility, instead of just one paycheck.
The new requirements were to start on July 1. Days before that, however, the federal government put a brick on them. The state couldn't ask for more proof of residency or income, said officials at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Asking for that proof would violate the new federal health care reform law, which says states can't make Medicaid eligibility standards more restrictive.
