Illinois Governor wants to wipe out medical debt for one million people

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker wants to wipe out the medical debt for up to a million people in the state over time.

And school employees in Iowa will likely be allowed to bring guns on campus for what’s billed as an initial line of defense during a violent attack.

Host Jim NIedelman gets into that with former Rock Island County Republican Party Chair Drue Mielke and former Rock Island Mayor Mark Schwiebert, a Democrat.

Pritzker is making the rounds to promote one of the priorities in his budget address: That is to wipe out the medical debt for 340,000 people in the state.

His current proposal would invest $10 million to wipe out a billion dollars in debt. He wants that to reach a million people over the next few years for a total of $4 billion.

We understand people with weak medical insurance can be saddled with tens of thousands of dollars in bills they can’t pay.

“There may be people that are going to be up in arms because it also, from what I understand, includes funding for migrants and health-care costs for undocumented,” Mielke said.

“I think the migrant thing is greatly exaggerated,” Schwiebert said. “It’s a very sound policy.”

To hear more of what our panelists think, click on the video.

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