With just hours remaining before a midnight deadline to pass a state budget, a federal judge in Chicago ordered Illinois to come up with hundreds of millions of dollars it owes in Medicaid payments that state officials say the government doesn’t have.
The ruling and the state’s continued budget impasse come as Illinois is on the brink of losing its investment-grade rating. Judge Joan Lefkow ordered the state to come up with $586 million per month and $2 billion toward a $3 billion backlog of payments the state owes to managed care organizations that process payments to providers.
