•April 3, 2019•

By Grant Morgan
Capitol News Illinois

Legislative momentum is in place to bring sports betting to Illinois.
But it will take weeks for all interested parties to get their opinions to lawmakers.
That process started Thursday, with more than three hours of testimony during a House Revenue and Finance Committee hearing.
Committee members balanced the opinions of various representatives of the state’s gambling, horse racing, sports and technology industries.
Industry representatives, meanwhile, were tasked with choosing the best of five different plans to legalize sports betting in the state.
Those plans take shape in five separate amendments added to Rep. Michael Zalewski’s (D-Riverside) gaming bill, House Bill 3308.
They can be separated into two categories. Four plans would have legalized sports gambling overseen by the Illinois Gaming Board. One would put all sports betting in the state under the Illinois Lottery’s authority.
Advocates for the Lottery plan, led by Rep. Lisa Hernandez (D-Cicero), say it could benefit the more than 10,000 small retailers, such as convenience stores and gas stations that already sell Lottery tickets.
But the plan does not allow for hugely popular online or mobile betting, and would limit the types of bets that can be made.
For example, the lottery system could not accommodate in-game sports betting like whether a basketball player makes a free throw, or whether a football player gains a certain number of yards. Read More

•March 20, 2019•

By Rebecca Anzel
Capitol News Illinois

Lawmakers on Tuesday successfully passed a bill through the House raising the age to purchase tobacco products to 21.
The legislation moves to the Senate for a vote expected next week. There it will likely receive enough support to land on Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s desk.
Although the governor has not definitively indicated whether he supports the measure — which would raise the minimum age to purchase cigarettes, e-cigarettes, vapes, chewing tobacco and other products containing nicotine in Illinois — his spokeswoman said in a written statement that Pritzker “looks forward to reviewing the legislation to raise the smoking age.”
And Senate President John Cullerton, a Democrat from Chicago, indicated at a press event in early February that Pritzker would sign the “Tobacco 21” legislation if both chambers approved it first.
The bill’s passage comes as a victory for sponsor Camille Lilly, a Democratic representative from Chicago. This is the fourth time in as many years a version of this measure was introduced in the General Assembly, where historically it would succeed in the Senate only to fail in the House.
During the previous legislative session, both chambers approved “Tobacco 21.” When former Gov. Bruce Rauner did not sign it, only the Senate was able to override his veto. Read More

Quicker payments to safety net hospitals among proposals

•March 13, 2019•

By Peter Hancock
Capitol News Illinois

Democratic state leaders said Tuesday that Illinois’ “managed care” Medicaid system is threatening the viability of hospitals and access to health care in many parts of the state, and they are pushing legislation they say would reform the system.
“We have a broken managed care program in Illinois, and it’s threatening the very future of our health care providers and the patients they serve all around this state,” Senate Majority Leader Kimberly Lightford said during a news conference unveiling the legislation.
Under the managed care system, which Illinois launched in 2011, insurance companies are paid a flat, per-patient monthly fee to manage the care of most Medicaid recipients. These managed care organizations, or MCOs, are required to reimburse health care providers and make sure patients receive follow-up care with specialists, therapists or rehabilitation facilities following a medical procedure.
In theory, the managed care system is supposed to improve patient care and lower costs by avoiding preventable emergency room visits or hospital readmissions.
But Lightford, a Democrat from the western Chicago suburb of Maywood, argued that neither of those goals has been achieved. Instead of managing care, she argued, the MCOs are merely managing costs through excessive denials of claims and delayed payments, especially for facilities known as safety net hospitals, which serve large numbers of Medicaid and uninsured patients, and small, rural “critical access” hospitals that have 25 or fewer beds. Read More

•March 6, 2019•

By Grant Morgan
Capitol News Illinois

Capitol News Illinois reported on Springfield GOP Rep. Tim Butler’s bill to change how Illinois allocates its Electoral College votes for president last week.
Somewhat forgotten, however, is a decade-old law which already binds the state to change its electoral process without having to do anything more.
That law, signed by former Gov. Rod Blagojevich in 2008, included Illinois in a multi-state alliance to effectively bypass the country’s Electoral College.
Rather than award their electoral votes to the winner of the statewide popular vote, the compact requires member states to award their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote.
If enough states sign onto the compact to push their cumulative voting power to more than 270 electoral votes – the amount required to win the presidency, the compact will take effect in the next presidential election cycle. Read More

•February 27 2019•

By Jim Nowlan
NP Guest Columnist

Based on what I hear from atop my perch in rural central Illinois, I worry that my farmer friends may become but serfs to Big Agriculture. That is, farmers provide the labor, soils and risk in service to a very few global chemical and other ag companies. The farmers must buy their inputs from these few companies, yet the companies call most of the shots and reap the rewards, it seems.
I grew up a “town boy” in a tiny farm town; never knew much about ag, still don’t. After a career away, I moved back to my hometown. I love my farmer friends and appreciate the bounty of American agriculture, so I yearn to be proved wrong about all this.
The following is what I observe and also hear from my farmer friends at the back table at Connie’s Country Kitchen in my town.
The farmers buy seeds, but don’t own them; they cannot plant with seed they have harvested. They used to own and work on their equipment; now farmers often lease, because it’s too expensive to buy.
Well, you say, at least farmers can decide what crops they want to plant. Yes, to paraphrase Henry Ford, they may plant any crops they want so long as they are corn and beans. That is because nothing much else is protected by subsidized government crop insurance, which includes some price protection. Thus, the bankers who hold the loans on land and for spring planting needs insist that the farmers buy this insurance, which also indirectly protects Big Ag. Read More