The Illinois Department of Public Health owes the federal government an estimated $24 million for debt that piled up from a complicated state program to vaccinate poor kids, according to WBEZ radio in Chicago.
Illinois came up with a plan under the Rauner administration to get vaccines for roughly 130,000 low-income children. The state had been using free vaccines from the federal government for kids in the Children’s Health Insurance Program, known as CHIP. But then the feds called for states including Illinois to pay for those doses.
Gov. JB Pritzker is now trying to unwind his predecessor’s efforts while negotiating with the feds on how to pay down the state’s big debt.
