Health Insurance / Healthcare Website and Blog

The Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability projects that, if Governor Pat Quinn's budget proposals are adopted without modification, Illinois state workers and retirees could face huge increases in insurance premiums.

A state employee in the preferred provider health insurance program might be paying $309 per month from July (instead of the $89 now). For retirees not yet old enough to qualify for Medicare, premiums will be $582 a month (now it is $12.98).

Managed-care state health insurance programs will be cheaper, but even they will cost more than they do today.

A spokesperson from the governor's office said the proposals are an attempt to reduce the amount taxpayers pay as subsidy for the more expensive preferred provider health insurance.

Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus (D-Montana), who is expected to write the health care bill, says he is hoping to get it ready by the end of June.

Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), the top Republican member of the committee, said if the bill is not passed this year, it is unlikely that it will be passed the next four years.

Issues related to insurance, however, are yet to be sorted out and the health care bill is expected to be a battleground, with Democrats supporting at least a government-run insurance plan if not a single-payer system. Republicans say that government run insurance will destroy private health insurance and ultimately it will be bad for the industry.