NW Illinois News

State Rep. Tony McCombie (R-Sterling) is blasting Gov. J.B. Pritzker amid news his blind trust – set up to prevent conflicts of interest – earned huge profits from its shares of one of the state’s biggest medical contractors.

“Centene has made millions on serving our most vulnerable population under Medicaid, and it is not appropriate or ethical for the governor to be a known investor,” McCombie said in a post to Facebook.

The non-partisan Better Government Association reports the investment was made in 2020, or around the same time the administration made a series of decisions that bolstered the company’s standing as one of the state’s largest Medicaid contractors.

As a candidate, Pritzker, who boasts an estimated net worth of $3.6 billion, vowed to strip his personal portfolio of companies holding state contracts.

While the blind trust is designed to guard Pritzker from knowing when the investment in Centene was made, actions by his administration nevertheless benefited the health care giant.

In the first half of 2021, BGA reports Centene pocketed more than $2.6 billion from state Medicaid contracts and the company reported profits totaling at least $99 million from that portion of the contract.

During a recent stop at Navy Pier, the governor was asked about the situation.

“Centene had a contract with the state of Illinois before I became governor. It was the prior governor that signed that contract,” Pritzker told WGN.com. “That contract went into place before I went into office. So there’s no relationship in any way.”

In a statement, his campaign attorney Marc Elias said, “As far as the Governor’s interest in Centene as disclosed on his Statement of Economic Interests is concerned, if the Governor is entitled to receive a return on that investment he of course will be made aware and will make a corresponding charitable contribution. The Governor’s trustees and his independent compliance advisor continue to work together to determine if the Governor receives any returns on investments in companies that have state contracts.”

According to BetterGov.org, the state also oversaw Centene’s acquisition of state Medicaid contractor NextLevelHighPartners in June of 2020, which opened the door for the company to gain a foothold in the lucrative Cook County Medicaid market.

Just three months later, the state enrolled 36,000 juvenile state wards to a Centene subsidiary named YouthCare.

Lawmakers in Congress are considering an array of strengthened stock disclosure laws designed to prevent lawmakers from profiting from their access to insider information.