Lake County Gazette

Illinois State Sen. Craig Wilcox (R-McHenry) is blasting Gov. J.B. Pritzker over what he sees as his lack of priorities in funding state health insurance for undocumented adult immigrants. 

According to the Chicago Tribune, as part of his $49.6 billion spending plan back in February, Pritzker pegged the cost of a program that provides state-funded health insurance to adult immigrants who are in the country without documentation at $220 million. Just three months later, the total has swelled to $1.1 billion and is straining the entire proposed budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1.

"Meanwhile, funding for developmentally disabled citizens in Illinois is well below where it needs to be," Wilcox wrote in a May 8 Facebook post.

The state launched a program in 2020 that provides Medicaid-style coverage to immigrants 65 and older who are in the country without legal permission or who have green cards but haven’t completed the five-year waiting period that makes them eligible for such assistance for federally funded programs. Since then, the program has expanded considerably and now offers coverage to people age 42 and older. 

“Every balanced budget that has passed is negotiated with the General Assembly and includes priorities the governor lays out in his budget address and the priorities of lawmakers in the General Assembly,” Pritzker spokeswoman Jordan Abudayyeh said in an email, according to the Chicago Tribune. “As the program was implemented and real costs were calculated it became clear the program was going to cost much more than what the advocates had predicted.” 

The Tribune reports that despite enrollment numbers ballooning well past expectations, several Democratic lawmakers want to expand the program even further and extend eligibility  to people as young as 19, a change that is estimated to come with a price tag of an additional $380 million.