Association Fears Discount Bill?s Amendatory Veto May Encourage Uninsured to Forgo Coverage

More than 300,000 Illinois families with income of $84,800 or more don’t have healthcare insurance. And the Illinois Hospital Association is afraid that Governor Rod Blagojevich’s amendatory veto of a discount of groundbreaking bill designed to guarantee significant price breaks to the uninsured will encourage those who can afford healthcare insurance to forgo coverage.

That’s because Blagojevich’s amendments raise the income level needed to qualify for the discounts, and added a provision that hospitals cover half of out-of-pocket expenses for treating insured children with diabetes (“Illinois Effort to Limit Uninsured Health Care Expenses Halted by Governor’s Bill Amendments,” Sept. 9). Blagojevich’s amendments even replaced the Attorney General Office, which helped craft the bill and has been aggressive in its efforts to make sure hospitals increase their charity care to communities, as the agency to seek legal remedies if hospitals violate the would-be law.  

If the State Legislature accepts Blagojevich’s amendments, families with incomes as high as $170,000 would qualify for the discounts, which would limit their out-of-pocket costs to 20 percent above hospitals’ cost and no more than 25 percent of their annual income, said Danny Chun, the IHA’s spokesman. Consequently, many Illinoisans may think they can afford their hospital bills without coverage.  And that, he said, would place Illinois hospitals, which already are absorbing $2 billion in government program underpayments and $1 billion in uncompensated care expense, in financial jeopardy.

“The goal is the help the uninsured,” Chun told insideARM. “But when you have these much higher incomes, your encouraging those with relatively well off not to purchase their own insurance and the use the hospital emergency department.”

Blagojevich’s office issued a statement saying, "We have improved this bill by insuring that better health care options will be provided to a broader range of Illinois citizens.  With these improvements additional low income Illinoisans and uninsured middle income families will have the ability to receive essential medical services at more modest costs.  Also, patients diagnosed with juvenile diabetes will benefit by having the ability to receive more affordable care.  This is part of the governor’s continuing effort to expand access to health care to more Illinoisans."

The office of the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Jeffrey Schoenberg of Evanston, said that he will file a motion to override the veto and that the bill has the support of the Attorney General’s office and the Illinois Hospital Association. “We’re expecting overwhelming bipartisan support in both chambers,” Leslie Fields, Schoenberg’s legislative aide, told insideARM.