Costs of delays in paying Medicaid bills

For years, the public has heard all sorts of horror stories about Illinois' slow pace of paying Medicaid claims. A new report by Auditor General William Holland shows it's worse than anyone realized. The Department of Healthcare and Family Services has a backlog of on average $1.5 billion in unpaid bills.

The delays are more than just an inconvenience to health care providers and a reason for them not to want to take Medicaid patients. The delays are costing the taxpayers millions of dollars in interest payments -- $81 million in accrued liabilities since fiscal 2000.

Critics are asking the obvious question again: How can Gov. Rod Blagojevich propose expanding state-provided health care when we can't afford and properly operate the system already in place?

Blagojevich, not surprisingly, won't answer questions about the audit.

An overreaction

An e-mailed joke making light of the Rev. Jesse Jackson and his wife being killed in a shot-down plane was exchanged by Secret Service agents. Its discovery has prompted Jackson and his son, U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., to demand the release of all Secret Service documents in which they are mentioned.

While their anger is justified, we can't see what bigger purpose this information would serve other than to satisfy curiosity. A civil rights lawsuit against the Secret Service turned up this e-mail, and we suggest the Jacksons try not make this about themselves but about the potentially bigger problem of racism and sexism in this federal agency.

…That's particularly true when the agency in question has been sued for civil rights violations by 10 of its black agents.

On so many levels, this is infuriating. Still, we can't help but think Jackson and his father, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, a one-time presidential candidate protected by the Secret Service, may be overreacting with the demand they be given every Secret Service document that makes reference to them. Pragmatically, we can't see what purpose it would serve other than satisfying curiosity and providing fodder for retribution.