DeKalb Times

Illinois state Sen. Dave Syverson (R-Rockford) stated that the high costs of the state’s free health care program for immigrants lacking permanent legal status is putting pressure on the state’s budget.

The senator criticized the free medical coverage the state offers to adults ages “42 through 64 regardless of their immigration status,” according to the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services (HFS). There is also a Health Benefits for Immigrant Seniors program for people age 65 and older.

“We warned when they began this program over a year ago that Illinois would become a magnet as the only state to provide this free healthcare to undocumented immigrants,” Syverson said in a recent statement posted on Facebook. “When the Majority Party first introduced this legislation last year, they said the cost would be less than $200 million and would be serving an estimated 10,000 undocumented residents, ages 42 and older.”

By January, the program had 52,000 participants and cost nearly $800 million, Syverson said.

“Then in a budget hearing on May 3, HFS adjusted their numbers upward again to an estimated 120,000 undocumented individuals to be covered by full Illinois taxpayer-paid healthcare at the cost of $1.1 billion,” Syverson said in the statement. “The program is exploding and will grow even faster when the federal Title 42 ends May 11 and a further surge of undocumented immigrants is expected.”

Title 42, which was lifted on May 11 when the U.S. COVID-19 public health emergency ended, was a legally binding order that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) initially issued on March 20, 2020, to prevent the spread of COVID-19, the CDC’s website said.

The initial order under the Public Health Service Act said the director of the CDC was authorized “to suspend the introduction” of people into the U.S. when it was determined that a communicable disease in a foreign country would threaten the health of people in the U.S.

“When you are the only state offering free broad-based healthcare for undocumented immigrants, common sense tells you unhealthy people from around the United States and from other countries will come to Illinois for care,” Syverson said in his statement, which was also posted on his website. “There are many concerns with the massive growth of this program, one of those being the spending pressures it will have on other programs that fund the most vulnerable in our population – persons with developmental disabilities and senior citizens.”

HFS estimated that as of March it would cost $990 million to fund the medical program for people 42 and older, a recent report from The State Journal-Register said. That amount is well above the $220 million estimate included in Gov. JB Pritzker’s budget proposal presented in February.

But while the program's expansion and expense are significantly outpacing government estimates, some cost stabilization is also expected.

"While the presentation laid out higher-than-expected costs for the program, it also noted per-enrollee costs for those age 65 and older are stabilizing because enrolled individuals are getting chronic conditions under control," an April Journal-Register report said. "For all groups, initial costs were higher due to the number of long-untreated conditions now receiving care."

A lifelong resident of Illinois, Syverson was first elected to the state Senate in 1993, his website biography said. In the Senate, he is spokesperson for the Insurance Committee, the Health and Human Services Committee, and the Appropriations (Health and Human Services) Committee. He is also a member of the Behavioral and Mental Health, Public Health, Licensed Activities, and Local Government committees. Additionally, Syverson is co-chair of the bipartisan Hospital Transformation and Medicaid Reform committees and a member of the Government Forecasting and Accountability Commission.