Attorneys for the Illinois state government say payments to schools, services for foster children and even state employees could be in jeopardy if the state is forced to speed up payments to Medicaid service providers, who have threatened to stop seeing low income patients.

More than two dozen doctors, health care providers and insurance companies are warning a federal judge in Chicago that they may stop serving hundreds of thousands of poor patients in Illinois if the state government continues to delay its court-ordered Medicaid reimbursement payments.