Illinois governor threatens to stop paying docs, hospitals that treat state workers

In the latest blow to come out of the Illinois budget stalemate, Gov. Bruce Rauner is threatening to stop paying doctors, hospitals and other healthcare providers who treat workers on the state payroll.

The unprecedented step would apply to those who provide healthcare for the almost 363,000 state workers, university employees, retirees and others covered by the state's group insurance plan, according to a report from the State Journal-Register in Springfield.

“All health care services will continue to be paid as long as possible," Meredith Krantz, spokeswoman for the Illinois Department of Central Management Services, told the newspaper.

“However, in the near future, we will no longer have the legal authority to continue to pay health care vendors for their services,” she wrote in an email Friday.

Krantz would not say when health care providers no longer would be paid.

In an email to Crain's, Krantz said until the General Assembly passes a balanced budget, “there is nothing else we can do to continue to pay health care providers. Once a budget is approved and funding is in place, we will resume releasing payments for health care services.”

She added that for more than a decade, the state has had a lengthy, months-long backlog of bills owed to healthcare providers.

The Rauner administration previously told lawmakers that the budget stalemate would not affect their health, dental and life insurance.

The Illinois Hospital Association, an influential Naperville-based lobbying group, is “deeply concerned” that the failure to pay providers soon would start to jeopardize access to healthcare for patients and communities throughout the state, Danny Chun, vice president of corporate communications and marketing at the IHA, said in a statement.

“Hospitals and other critical healthcare providers will be forced to reduce services, lay off staff, delay paying vendors and even close, because of the state's failure to pay its bills on time,” Chun said in the statement. “Simply put, this scenario will jeopardize the health of Illinois families.”

Anders Lindall, spokesman for Chicago-based Council 31 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the largest union representing state workers, called the news "very disturbing," the report said.

"The state has never said, 'We're not paying claims,' before," Lindall said.

"We will do everything possible to correct it," he said. "It's further evidence that our state is breaking down."

"Rauner threatens to stop paying doctors, hospitals that treat state workers" originally appeared in Crain's Chicago Business.