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"This is a great day for health care in Illinois," Blagojevich said.
"We've been on a mission to make sure that everyone in Illinois can
get the health care they need, and nearly $2 billion in new federal
funds for hospitals will help us get there. I want to thank HHS
Secretary Michael Leavitt, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, Senator
Jeff Schoenberg, Representative Barbara Flynn Currie and all the
members of the coalition that fought for this assessment, including
the Illinois Legislature, the Department of Healthcare and Family
Services, and the Illinois Hospitals Association."
Senate Bill 157, sponsored by Sen. Jeff Schoenberg, D-Evanston,
and Rep. Barbara Flynn Currie, D-Chicago, created the three-year
assessment of Illinois hospitals. The law, which the governor signed
in July 2005, replaced the former hospital assessment program, which
provided $430 million in federal funding and ended on July 1, 2005.
A hospital assessment program is a federally permissible method
for states to leverage their resources in order to attract
additional federal matching funds into their state health care
systems. Revenue generated by the assessment will boost the amount
the state receives in matching funds from the federal government.
Illinois will leverage additional federal resources of $600 million
to the state's health care network in years 2006, 2007 and 2008. The
state's hospitals will benefit by $470 million per year.
Additionally, the state will use $130 million per year to help with
additional Medicaid health care needs, such as funding for nursing
homes, the developmentally disabled and other Medicaid services. The
proposed assessment plan will end on July 1, 2008.
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 Each region of the state will receive a substantial share of the
benefits of this program:
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Chicagoland: $855
million over three years, a yearly increase of $90 million from
the last assessment.
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Quad Cities: $57
million over three years, a yearly increase of $9 million from
the last assessment.
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Rockford: $60
million over three years, a yearly increase of $8 million from
the last assessment.
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Peoria,
Bloomington-Normal: Nearly $72 million over three years, a
yearly increase of more than $6 million from the last
assessment.
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Central Illinois:
$165 million over three years, a yearly increase of $26 million
from the last assessment.
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Metro East: $120
million over three years, a yearly increase of more than $16
million from the last assessment.
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Western Illinois:
$18 million over three years, a yearly increase of $2 million
from the last assessment.
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Southern Illinois:
$63 million over three years, a yearly increase of nearly $5
million from the last assessment.
Additionally, $390 million over three years will be distributed
throughout the state for other Medicaid needs, including nursing
homes and funding for the developmentally disabled.
Before last year's successful assessment, it had been over 10
years since Illinois submitted a hospital assessment plan to the
federal government for approval, in turn forgoing hundreds of
millions of federal health care dollars from coming into the state
of Illinois. The Blagojevich administration was able to forge a
broad-based, bipartisan coalition in 2003 that led the effort to
getting an assessment plan approved by the Illinois General Assembly
and the federal government.
[News release from the governor's
office] |
