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WNIJ's summary of news items around our state.

Illinois Community Care Program Eligibility Levels May Be Raised

Flickr user TheeErin / "Good Read" (CC BY 2.0)

Republican Governor Bruce Rauner says he plans to raise eligibility levels for senior citizens in Illinois’s Community Care program. He says it’s necessary to address a budget Democrats passed without sufficient revenue. 

The program helps keep seniors out of nursing homes by providing in-home health care, which allows them to remain independent.

Gerardo Cardenas of AARP says the plan is short-sighted. He says Medicaid will be forced to cover the cost of nursing homes.  

"In reality, what these cuts are doing is creating a ripple effect and making things worse down the road at the taxpayers' expense, but not only at the taxpayers' expense, but at the expense of thousands of older Illinoisans whose lives are now endangered," Cardenas said.

The comptroller's office found for every dollar spent on someone in the Community Care Program, it would cost three dollars to pay for a nursing home. 

Rauner has not said what the new eligibility levels would be.

Lisa Ryan is a graduate student in the public affairs reporting program at the University of Illinois at Springfield. She previously worked at Indiana Public Radio and the college radio station founded by David Letterman. She is a 2014 broadcast journalism and political science graduate of Ball State University.