I am a health insurance counselor with the Iowa Insurance Division, but I am originally from Duluth and saw your question here. Although I am not familiar with Minnesota Care, I know that PCIP was created under the Affordable Care Act. In Iowa, our version of MinnesotaCare is called HIPIOWA, and the federal version of the PCIP is called HIPIOWA-FED. After a brief comparison of the programs, I can conclude that there aren't many differences between the Iowa and Minnesota high-risk state and federal programs.

One of the primary requirements for any high-risk insurance program is that the insured individual cannot have been covered by any health insurance over the required statutory period. Looking at MinnesotaCare, that requirement is 4 months, and the requirement for the PCIP is 6 months. I deal with this issue from consumers in Iowa several times a week, and unfortunately, there isn't much the government can do to get around this rule. I wouldn't recommend contacting a lawyer over this issue. Instead, try filing a complaint with the Minnesota Insurance Division. 

There is no charge for filing a complaint, and a member of the Minnesota Insurance Division should be able to provide you with a detailed answer either justifying your enrollment denial, or provide you with steps on how to file an appeal regarding your denial if they believe there is a chance it was improper. There is no need to pay a lawyer when there is a state program which provides the same service for free.

If an inter-state transfer provision exists in the statute, I would highly recommend that you contact the Minnesota Department of Insurance to file a complaint. They should be able to provide you with a quick and accurate answer for free. You probably aren't the first person who has had this problem due to there only being two high-risk government sponsored insurance plans, so they should have a standard procedure to deal with it. Keep in mind that if the transfer provision is in the Illinois program but not the Minnesota one, Minnesota may not be bound by it.