State to pay down employee health insurance, Medicaid bills
Combined with federal matching funds available for some of the bills, a total of nearly
"Important to all of the providers, many of them, who have been waiting far too long to get paid, will begin to see immediate relief," Mendoza said at a Statehouse news conference. "Tonight, the first round of major payments on paying down the bill backlog will be taking effect."
As part of the budget deal in July, lawmakers authorized the state to issue up to
Mendoza said
On Monday, another
By the time it's done, Mendoza said, about two-thirds of the backlogged group health insurance bills will be paid. Her office said between
"We're still going to owe group health," Mendoza said. "It's not enough money to cover, even remotely, all of our bills, even when we're done paying this
Medicaid bills, which are mostly subject to late payment penalties and also qualify for federal matching funds, that were accumulated prior to
None of the bond money is being earmarked to pay bills owed to human service agencies and other vendors owed money by the state. Mendoza said she is sympathetic to those entities, but said bills owed to human services agencies generally don't qualify for late payment penalties. She said the fiscally prudent thing to do is pay off old bills that qualify for late payment penalties. The state owes about
Mendoza also said that her office has given priority to human services payments as much as possible during the state's budget crisis.
Mendoza said it is difficult to say exactly what the bill backlog will look like in another week after the payments are made because bills continue to arrive in her office, some of them that the office didn't know existed. That could change under legislation approved in the
The
She said a clear picture of state bills is vital to deal with the state's financial issues.
"We, the legislature and my office, can't do the job we've been elected to do without this full transparency," Mendoza said.
Rauner vetoed the bill because he said it was an attempt by Mendoza to micromanage his agencies and he said the agencies themselves didn't have the capability to report bills on a monthly basis.
Mendoza didn't buy it.
"The numbers are available, they know what they are and they should report them," Mendoza said. There's no excuse for it."
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