CHICAGO – A $1.6 billion Medicaid spending cut that Gov. Pat Quinn signed into law Thursday takes a bite out of a relatively generous program and will leave the state with a level of services already familiar elsewhere in the nation.

The new cuts to the health care safety-net program eliminate extras like chiropractic and dental care for adults. Many other states dumped or limited these extras in the wake of the recession – or never offered them at all.

More than 25,000 Illinois working parents will be thrown off the program, but even that change can't be viewed as extraordinary, policy experts said, because Illinois historically has been more generous than most other states, covering parents at higher income levels.