Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Friday introduced $140 million in federal grants to Illinois Medicaid suppliers to lend a hand offset sudden prices associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Across the state, federally funded well being facilities “have been performing heroically on the frontlines of this pandemic since the very first patient showed up with COVID-19, and they haven’t stopped despite months and months of truly grueling work and difficult circumstances,” Pritzker mentioned all through a information convention on the Howard Brown Health Center in Englewood.
The grant cash is from the coronavirus reduction invoice, the $2.2 trillion financial stimulus packaged signed into legislation previous this yr.
Theresa Eagleson, director of the state Department of Healthcare and Family Services, mentioned just about $60 million will pass at once to Medicaid suppliers who function in portions of the state disproportionately suffering from the pandemic.
Public well being knowledge display that communities of colour around the state had been hit particularly onerous through the virus.
Eagleson mentioned the cash is supposed to lend a hand duvet sudden prices incurred all through the pandemic, equivalent to worker danger pay or restocking non-public protecting apparatus.
The first grants are being allotted, even though Pritzker mentioned the state will quickly release a web-based portal for smaller well being care suppliers to use for investment.
“We’re giving direct dollars to our direct responders,” Pritzker mentioned.