Durbin, Pritzker Travel the State

Voters must put pressure on congressional Republicans to avoid cuts to social services, Governor J-B Pritzker and Senator Dick Durbin say.

Capitol News Illinois reports that Durbin and Pritzker made separate stops throughout Illinois this past week to highlight how proposed federal spending cuts could affect Illinois.

At a hospital in Taylorville on Thursday, Durbin said cuts to Medicaid could force some rural hospitals to close. And Pritzker says hundreds of thousands of residents would lose health care coverage if cuts were made.

More than 3 million people in Illinois are covered by the traditional Medicaid program. More than 700-thousand people are covered under an expansion. Pritzker says the costs of the programs are too high for the state to make up if Congress reduces them.