Its high season for solicitation letters from
your favorite nonprofit social service
organizations. But this year, if you are in
Illinois, you are likely to see something very
different. The request wont tout their
effectiveness and the need for you to open your
pocketbook just a little wider so they can do
more. The request will be a plea for you to open
your pocketbook a whole lot wider so they can
survive. This year your money wont be used to
expand and serve more clients, but rather to
fill the glaring gaps left by the States
failure to pay contracts since July 1, 2015.
Some of these nonprofit agencies will talk about
devastating cutbacks to staff and programming;
others will talk about being steps from closing
their doors. Many will tell you that this year
your donation could be the dollar that keeps
them in business.
For 13 months the State has forced hundreds of
social service companies and agencies to become
their creditors - gladly accepting their
services, but not paying their bills. Now the
social service agencies are turning to the
citizens of Illinois and asking - no, begging -
them to step in because of the void left by the
State. It seems that everybody is doing their
part to help the vulnerable populations of
Illinois. Everybody that is, except some of
Illinois elected officials.
While political bluster about the stopgap budget
- Public Act 99-524 - garnered lots of
headlines, it failed to solve the problem of
paying overdue contracts in full and
immediately. While some money has trickled in to
some social service agencies, its been
haphazard, erratic, unpredictable and certainly
incomplete. The result is that Pay Now Illinois
plaintiffs have no mechanism for the financial
planning that is part of best business practices
because they dont know how much payment to
expect, when to expect it or what will happen
next. All of this uncertainty - its no way to
run a business. But its exactly what the State
is demanding of the agencies and companies they
hire, but dont pay. Thats why we took our case
to Circuit Court to seek a preliminary
injunction for immediate and full payment of our
contracts. The next hearing date is August 31.
Pay Now Illinois - so we can get on with best
business practices.
Posted 12:46
2 comments
Insurance "Fraud"
In addition to this, Rauner stopped payment on
certain state-administrated health insurance plans
(mine is one). Here's how it works: I pay my
monthly premium to the State University Retirement
System for a PPO (administrated by Cigna), and
then the state does nothing. Cigna says they
cannot pay the doctor because the state hasn't
released the funds....but Cigna gets my monthly
premium regardless. So I pay my premium every
month. I pay my deductibles. If I go to the
doctor, the doctor does NOT get paid because
Rauner has blocked these payments. Therefore,
eventually the doctor's office (or dentist's
office or lab) starts hounding me for the
remaining payment, even after I've paid my
allotted share. E.g., I had a lab bill go into
collections not because it wasn't (eventually)
paid, but because the lab had to wait over a year
to get paid. I had to prove to the lab and to the
collections agency that the bill had been paid --
for no other reason than Rauner is a tyrant and
not a governor.
Basically what this means is that anyone on this
health plan gets the "pleasure" of paying a
monthly premium and then paying full-price for all
medical visits with the hope that at some point in
the future you'll get reimbursed by the state.
The state is taking my money every month for
health insurance that I basically don't get. How
is this not fraudulent?
