-By Warner Todd Huston
Illinois is constantly at the bottom in every metric that measures our most successful states. It is perennially either the 48th, 49th, or 50th worst state in every category. And now we learn that the state is spending up to $12 million a year that it doesn’t have on Medicaid for people who are dead! Can this state become more of a joke?
The Associated Press recently filed a Freedom of Information Act request and uncovered a disturbing memo from the Illinois state auditor.
“State auditors identified overpayments for services to roughly 2,900 people after the date of their deaths,” the AP wrote.
This was more evidence that Obama’s claims that Democrats are fixing the Medicaid enrollment system is a failure.
“It’s disappointing and somewhat enraging for taxpayers, but it’s not surprising. I wish this administration would spend more time trying to solve the problems rather than trying to convince taxpayers that they’ve already solved them,” State Sen. Dale Righter (R, Mattoon) said.
Republicans in the state were pushing to resign with a private company to trim the rolls of dead and ineligible enrollees saying that a contract that recently ended achieved a Medicaid eligibility-removal rate of 40 percent.
The contract with Maximus Health Services, though, ended last year and Democrat Gov. Pat Quinn refused to resign with the company. Quinn shifted the work of maintaining the rolls to state workers.
As Kristina Ribali wrote, “Taxpayers in the Land of Lincoln should demand a major overhaul of their state’s Medicaid program. As Obamacare pushes more people into government health care programs, the 2,900 deceased people in Illinois who received these benefits could seem like a drop in the bucket of fraud, abuse and mismanagement.”
But none of this should surprise anyone. Illinois has been failing spectacularly since the last vestige of any power the state Republican Party once had faded nearly 10 years ago.
Illinois is a failed, one-party state in the death grip of the Democrat Party.
For a little more context, here are just a few more of the “low lights” of Illinois’ standing among the states:
- Illinois Worst in Midwest for Private Sector Job Creation
- Illinois One of the Worst GDP Growth in Entire Midwest
- Illinois Ranks as ‘Worst’ For Small Businesses
- Of the Fifty, Illinoisans Have Least Trust in the State Government
- Poll: Even People in Illinois Say Illinois Worst State to Live In
- Illinois has the most underfunded pensions in the country and faces a deficit growth of $17 million per day.
- The state also has the worst funded teachers pensions in the country.
- Illinois was identified as one of the worst states in the union for its oppressive, jobs-killing lawsuit climate
- Illinois had more home foreclosures than almost every other state.
- Illinois ranks as the 49th worst debtor state in the nation.
- Illinois was ranked the 48th worst state for business.
- Illinois ranked 48th for unemployment making it among the worst five states for joblessness.
- Its government also has one of the worst rankings for state transparency and accountability in the nation, too.
- As to big city stats, Chicago tops the nation with the highest unemployment rate.
- Illinois has the worst credit rating
- Illinois Tops Nation in Growth of Food Stamp Recipients
- Mercatus: Illinois ranks at the bottom of the most free states
- Illinois Ranks as One of Worst States for Losing Citizens
So, we have to hand it to the Illinois Democrats and their weak sisters in the feckless Illinois Republican Party. You folks have done a great job utterly destroying one of the greatest states in the union. Great job to the dictator Michael Madigan, the hapless and ignorant Pat Quinn and the rest of the worthless set running the state into the ground.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, Wizbang.com, among many, many others. Huston has also appeared on Fox News, Fox Business Network, CNN, and many local TV shows as well as numerous talk radio shows throughout the country.
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