Sarah Lee doesn’t see the basis for many of the health-care-related concerns state Rep. Linda Chapa LaVia (D-Aurora) raised in her role as the new assistant majority leader during a recent interview.
“I think the Trump administration’s policies have opened new avenues for states to administer their own health care regulations,” Lee, a Heartland Institute Healthcare Policy expert, told the Will County Gazette. “Some of the rule changes have allowed states to begin selling short-care plans that work to their benefit.”
Chapa LaVia struck a completely different tone during a Politics Tonight appearance during which she complained to show host Paul Lisnek about “federal attacks” on the overall health care system.
Lee said she has a hard time seeing why all the federal changes wouldn’t be having the same positive effects in Illinois that she says they are having almost everywhere else.
“From a federal standpoint, there shouldn’t be any difference,” she said. “What the Trump administration has done is allow states to decide. If Illinois is being impacted any differently than any other state, it would be because of things their local government has done.”
As far as the Illinois health care system is concerned on the whole, Lee said, she is convinced the state can make improvements to its Medicaid system and the level of service it offers by simply implementing a few additional requirements.
“Here at Heartland, we stand for things like work requirements,” she said. “We would definitely support things getting people working or volunteering to do things in the community.”
The Heartland Institute bills itself as an “action tank” with a mission to “discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems.”
The national nonprofit research and education organization also identifies itself as one of the “world’s leading free-market think tanks.”
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