Over 40,000 Medicaid recipients were wrongly barred from crucial support services in October 2017, after an update to the Department of Human Services’ electronic enrollment system triggered widespread IT failures. 7 months later, there are still persisting problems with the system. Some vendors still have not been fully paid for emergency services to Medicaid patients. Health and Family Service employees are still buried under the mountains of paper applications, with a number of those growing up to over 150,000. Caseworkers within the department, benefit receipts and human services advocates have all gathered in Chicago on Monday, to offer testimony to the House Appropriations Humans Services Committee. The said that the lingering IT problems and resulting paperwork pile-up has become pervasive, since the 2nd phase roll-out of Governor Bruce Rauner’s technology consolidation plan was the Integrated Eligibility System upgrade. Witnesses told lawmakers that Deloitte’s $300-million system was supposed to ease the labor load on DHS’ sharply slashed workforce numbers, by automating certain date entry processes. This has instead doubled the work. Similar Deloitte creations have faced multi-million-dollar state government lawsuits across the nation.