[JustTheNews] After more than a year of digging, Statehouse candidate Bailey Templeton’s most public records collection shows 1,085 Illinois children under 18 without SSNs had Medicaid bills of $66 million in 2025. That’s up 725% from $8 million for 450 children in 2021.
A candidate for the Illinois Statehouse worries there could be a dark side to the 725% increase in Medicaid payments for children without Social Security numbers.
After more than a year of digging, Statehouse candidate Bailey Templeton’s most public records collection shows 1,085 Illinois children under 18 without SSNs had Medicaid bills of $66 million in 2025. That’s up 725% from $8 million for 450 children in 2021.
“It's roughly $40 million spent on inpatient treatment, that's a lot of time for children to be in hospitals,” Templeton told The Center Square Friday.
The data only generates more questions for Templeton.
“It raises questions about what would be called medical trafficking, where things are conducted on to children when they're too young to be able to consent to these things,” she said.
Templeton said she has further FOIA requests pending.
The Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services didn’t immediately respond to questions on why there was a 725% spike in such payments.
Templeton, who is running for Illinois 94th House District Republican primary, said she isn’t aiming to take away care for migrant children. She said they just happen to be the most vulnerable.
“And if they don't have anybody watching out for what's best for them, you never know what could be happening to them,” Templeton said. “And yes, it is a really dark side, but there are really dark things happening in this country and across the world, and we are all aware of that.”
Documents Templeton received from the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services show inpatient hospital costs for children without SSNs in 2021 were $1.9 million. That jumped to $39.3 million in 2025. Outpatient hospital costs went from $3.4 million in 2021 to $10.6 million in 2025. Other categories that also increased in costs were pharmacy, physician/clinic/APN, and social worker/psychologist/LCPC.
“I think the taxpayers deserve answers 100%,” Templeton said. “We are paying for everything that is coming forth through this overpayment system, that's coming from your money, that should be going to you and your family directly.”
The Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services didn’t immediately respond to questions about the spike in payments.
Other Freedom of Information Act requests Templeton has filed include determining how many children on the radar of the Department of Children and Family Services are missing. A follow up FOIA by The Center Square found 193 youth in care missing in 2025.
Another FOIA response Templeton collected showed there are 20,000 children getting taxpayer funded Medicaid without having SSNs. She said her latest FOIA showing the costs doesn’t square with previous information she’s gathered.
“When I found out that only 1,085 of them are in Illinois DCF’s care, it raises questions about the other 19,000 children in whose care that they are in, and who is overseeing the hospital treatments,” Templeton said.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited
[Regnum] Three people were injured in a shooting at St. John's The Baptist Club in Massachusetts, Times Now reported on January 24.
The incident occurred in Carver, Plymouth County, at approximately 7:30 PM local time on January 24 (3:30 AM Moscow time on January 25). At least three people were shot, and one of the victims suffered multiple facial wounds.
Police and firefighters arrived at the scene and requested several ambulances and two medical helicopters. The injured were hospitalized, but their condition is unknown. Silva Street, where the club is located, is closed.
The district police clarified that the incident was not random and there was no threat to city residents. The suspect in the shooting has been detained, and his motive is being determined.
Earlier, two people were injured in a shooting at the Shoshone County Sheriff's Office in the United States; the organizer of the shooting was killed.
A 23-year-old man is facing murder charges after he allegedly shot four people — killing two — during a child’s birthday party at a social club in Carver on Saturday evening, officials said.
Police arrested Nicholas Meuse a short distance from Saint John the Baptist Club, where the shooting occurred, Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz’s office said in a statement Sunday. Meuse is scheduled to be arraigned in Wareham District Court on two counts of murder, two counts of armed assault with intent to murder, and multiple firearms charges.
Meuse allegedly opened fire toward the end of the party, shortly after 7 p.m., when 20-30 people were present, the Globe reported. During a presser early Sunday morning, Cruz said Meuse and the victims knew each other and that the shooting "was not a random act."
Sounds like a family feud.
The Count identifies the victims and has a photo of the feral yoot killer here.
[Federalist] Vice President JD Vance kicked off his second year in the White House with a return as the top speaker at the March For Life. In his headline speech, the Republican not only celebrated the victories that have saved countless babies from abortion over the last several years, but also committed the Trump administration to continuing its partnership with the pro-life movement.
"Our vision is simple. We want life to thrive in the United States of America," Vance said mere days after he and Second Lady Usha Vance announced they are pregnant with their fourth child.
Vance used most of his time on the March For Life’s National Mall stage to tout the Trump administration’s pro-life track record including historic pardons for the prayerful protestors persecuted and prosecuted by the Biden administration, undoing Biden-era taxpayer-funded abortion at home and overseas, and expanding conscience protections for medical professionals with religious or moral objections to ending life in the womb.
The VP also made sure to credit President Donald Trump and the U.S. Supreme Court for the historic Dobbs v. Jackson decision that overturned 50 years of abortion under Roe v. Wade.
In March 2025, Democratic Reps. Sean Casten and Jan Schakowsky of Illinois and Jerrold Nadler of New York headlined the 75-member letter demanding that Bondi "fully enforce the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act and ensure women and health care providers are not threatened, harassed, or abused while trying to enter reproductive health care facilities."
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] Daredevil climber Alex Honnold has revealed he was paid an 'embarrassingly small' fee for his death-defying ascent up a 101-storey tower in Taiwan.
The 40-year-old American successfully scaled the 1,667 feet Taipei 101 skyscraper - formerly the world's tallest building - on Sunday morning without any ropes.
His nerve-shredding stunt was broadcast live by Netflix, although the feed was on a 10-second delay in case tragedy struck.
Cheers erupted from a street-level crowd as Honnold reached the top of the spire of the tower about 90 minutes after he started. Wearing a red short-sleeve shirt, he waved his arms back and forth over his head and took selfies.
But, according to The New York Times, Honnold only received a 'mid six-figure sum' for agreeing to take part.
Although he did admit he would have done it for free if Taipei 101 was willing to give him permission to do the climb without Netflix's involvement.
[IsraelTimes] Zhang Youxia, 75, also reportedly probed over efforts to build his own sphere of influence within Communist Party, is latest top official targeted in Xi Jinping’s purge
The Chinese military’s top general is reportedly being investigated for leaking information about Beijing’s nuclear weapons program, amid a long-running purge of military officials by the country’s leader.
China’s Defense Ministry announced on Saturday that Zhang Youxia, 75, the senior of the two vice chairs of the powerful Central Military Commission, was being investigated for suspected serious violations of discipline and law, but did not provide details.
But people familiar with a briefing attended that morning by top Chinese officers told the Wall Street Journal on Sunday that Youxia has been accused of sharing key technical information on China’s nuclear weapons with Washington.
Further details were not shared at the briefing, the sources said.
He is also being investigated for alleged efforts to build his own circles of influence within the Communist Party’s top military decision-making body, the Central Military Commission, sowing division in the organization, according to the sources.
Gu Jun, the former general manager of China National Nuclear Corp., the state-owned company that runs China’s nuclear programs, provided some of the evidence against the top general, people familiar with the briefing said.
Gu is also under investigation for offenses against the Communist Party.
A front man at Washington’s Chinese Embassy told the Journal the investigation shows that the party’s leadership has "a full-coverage, zero-tolerance approach to combating corruption."
Neither Zhang nor Gu could be reached for comment by the Journal.
Analysts believe the purges are designed both to reform the military and to ensure loyalty to Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who also chairs the military commission. They are part of a broader anti-corruption drive that has punished more than 200,000 officials since Xi came to power in 2012.
Another member of the commission, Liu Zhenli, has also been placed under investigation by China’s ruling Communist Party, a Defense Ministry statement said. Liu is the chief of staff of the commission’s Joint Staff Department. The commission is the top military body in China.
Zhang, who is 75, joined the People’s Liberation Army in 1968 and is a general from its ground forces.
The Communist Party expelled the other vice chair of the commission, He Weidong, last October and replaced him with commission member Zhang Shengmin.
In 2024, the party expelled two former defense ministers over corruption charges.
The Trump administration released a new National Defense Strategy on Friday, acknowledging China as a military power that it said needs to be deterred from dominating the US or its allies.
"This does not require regime change or some other existential struggle," the strategy said. "Rather, a decent peace, on terms favorable to Americans but that China can also accept and live under, is possible."
China’s war readiness questioned
Taiwanese authorities said they were monitoring “abnormal” changes at the top of China’s military after the stunning dismissal of the country’s leading general. Chinese leader Xi Jinping placed Zhang Youxia and another senior officer under investigation for corruption, an astonishing shakeup of military leadership: Zhang reportedly leaked nuclear secrets to the US. Taipei said it was on alert because the threat from the mainland, which regards Taiwan as a renegade province, remained high. The move further consolidates power in Xi’s hands but raises “doubts about the country’s war readiness,” The Economist noted. “The PLA is in a major crisis,” one expert warned, “with a level of leadership instability unseen since the heyday of the Cultural Revolution.”
Or this Xi's plan for taking Stalin / Mao type ctighter ontrol of the military for a global war footing?
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
A 23-year-old man is facing murder charges after he allegedly shot four people — killing two — during a child’s birthday party at a social club in Carver on Saturday evening, officials said.
[Federalist] Vice President JD Vance kicked off his second year in the White House with a return as the top speaker at the March For Life. In his headline speech, the Republican not only celebrated the victories that have saved countless babies from abortion over the last several years, but also committed the Trump administration to continuing its partnership with the pro-life movement.
