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First, the background:<\/p>\n
In Illinois, the city of Chicago has long been dominated by Democrats, but most suburbs have not been.\u00a0 Even up to very recently, the state legislators in my area had been a mix of Republican and Democrat, until 4 years ago.\u00a0 Our township trustees had been Republican for who-knows-how-long.\u00a0 And village board elections were non-partisan, or strictly speaking independent, not just \u201cofficially\u201d but also in terms of how the elections played out.<\/p>\n
This past week saw a set of dramatic reversals.\u00a0 Not only did Democrats take control of the actually-partisan township offices, but the winning village trustee candidates, though nominally-independent, were Democrats, were campaigning as such, had the direct support of local Democratic Party officials, and so on.\u00a0 The same outcomes played out in a number of other suburbs as the Democratic Party and JB Pritzker were quite open about their involvement in local races.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s more, the local State House Representatives, though very new, are very actively introducing new legislation, or are co-sponsors, sometimes among small numbers of co-sponsors, for controversial new bill.\u00a0 So for local readers, I\u2019m going to go through the list of bills they\u2019ve sponsored.<\/p>\n
First, Nicolle Grasse, from the 53rd district<\/a>.\u00a0 She was just appointed over the summer, and elected in November.\u00a0 She is a former hospice chaplain and some of her bills reflect this.<\/p>\n As to the bills for which she is the chief sponsor, some of them are fine, and of very little interest.\u00a0 For instance, she has sponsored a bill that would allow individuals to get their marriage license via zoom<\/a>, with an eye toward helping someone who is hospitalized or in hospice or long-term care.\u00a0 She sponsored a bill that would allow any employee of a hospice company to pick up a patient\u2019s prescriptions<\/a>, rather than requiring the employee to be a nurse.<\/p>\n Some of them are not concerning individually until you think of the ways they add up to growing state spending and involvement.\u00a0 For instance, she sponsored a bill to create the Task Force on Loneliness Act<\/a>, which would provide information and propose solutions to the \u201cepidemic of loneliness,\u201d with the Department of Public Health being tasked to do the work.\u00a0 To my understanding, this is going nowhere, since all bills must have been passed through committee by now to be passed this session.\u00a0 (There may be exceptions and some bills might have a companion bill in the State Senate which is making progress.)\u00a0 Another \u201cnot going anywhere\u201d bill was a proposal to give college students credit for serving as election judges<\/a> \u2014 a clever idea but a devaluing of higher education.<\/p>\n Looking at all bills for which she is a sponsor and in no particular order:<\/p>\n A bill which would require health insurance<\/a> to provide an \u201cearly egg allergen introduction dietary supplement\u201d and an \u201cearly peanut allergen introduction dietary supplement.\u201d\u00a0 These products certainly seem like a fine preventive step, and are available on Amazon for $25 for a 2 month supply<\/a> \u2013 but does the state really need to add endless items to the list of what\u2019s mandatory for insurers to cover, especially when they are not medical care items?\u00a0 This has significant unintended consequences, not only in driving up the cost of insurance through direct expenses and administrative costs, but in shifting employers into choosing \u201cself insured\u201d health care because that\u2019s regulated by the federal government.\u00a0 It could be worse \u2014 the initial version demanded that these products be provided without cost-share.\u00a0 As far as status, this one passed through committee, so it\u2019s on its way to becoming law.<\/p>\n An assisted suicide bill<\/a>.\u00a0 This one appears not to be going to make it out of committee, which is a pleasant surprise, all the more so since House Speaker Welch put his name on it.<\/p>\n A bill mandating coverage for all FDA-approved treatments<\/a> to slow the progression of Alzheimer\u2019s or other forms of dementia, with the exception that \u201cmanaged care plans that are under contract with the Department of Healthcare and Family Services\u201d (i.e., Medicaid) are exempt.\u00a0 This seems like a worthy measure but it refers in practice to certain treatments of $300K with very uncertain benefits where there\u2019s controversy around them having been approved by the FDA because the drugmaker seems to have cherry-picked the study results and even Medicare is not covering them.\u00a0 It\u2019s a classic example of not recognizing the complexity of medical costs.<\/p>\n The Health Care Availability and Access Board Act<\/a>, which would have created a board which would cap the prices of any prescription drug it deems otherwise too expensive.\u00a0 Did not make it past committee.<\/p>\n Another bill would Medicaid for disabled children and adults to pay for \u201ctherapeutic recreation\u201d<\/a> under the \u201cself-directed service model,\u201d which sounds great but is one more instance of states driving up the cost of Medicaid by expanding the scope of what it pays for beyond medical care.\u00a0 Other examples include Medicaid programs providing food and housing as \u201cdemonstration projects.\u201d\u00a0 This has been passed through committee because it seems like free money but of course it\u2019s not.<\/p>\n Another bill expands the scope<\/a> of the Department of Human Service\u2019s gambling disorders program, which is fine but it would sure be better if the state weren\u2019t trying at the same time to get as much revenue from gambling as possible.<\/p>\n The Commission on Youth Sports Act<\/a>, which would create a commission to promote \u201cthe creation of equitable, safe, and sustainable access for youth across the State to participate in sports that meet their skills and match their interests\u201d as well as \u201cthe promotion, development, expansion, hosting, and fostering of youth sports, youth sports programs, and youth sporting events and tournaments throughout the State,\u201d which ignores the fact that at the moment there is far too much emphasis on \u201cyouth sports\u201d particularly in the form of travel sports and tournaments, and the fact that there really is no need for the legislature to fund anther \u201cstudy\u201d on their expansion.<\/p>\n Another bill prohibits health insurers<\/a> from charging out-of-network rates for neonatal care at any hospital.\u00a0 It\u2019s not entirely clear how this is meant to work but it\u2019s an amendment to existing law that says that if an insured person goes to a non-network provider for an emergency, then the insurer either pays the bill in full, negotiates a lower rate, or goes to arbitration for an adjusted rate, and the patient pays based on the in-network provisions (coinsurance percentage, copay amounts) and the ultimate amount billed after negotiation\/arbitration.\u00a0 But the amendment in question is simply:<\/p>\n (o) Notwithstanding any other provision of law to the contrary, no health insurer may charge a patient out-of-network rates for neonatal care at any hospital.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n There is no clarification that the same arbitration procedures apply, and it pretty much appears as if the bill\u2019s author thinks that insurance companies control hospital costs.<\/p>\n The Homeschool Act<\/a> was the subject of a prior blog post.<\/p>\n Another bill aims to create \u201coverdose prevention sites,\u201d<\/a> that is, pilot programs in which drug users inject in a \u201csafe\u201d manner.<\/p>\n The Health Care Transparency Act<\/a>, which would have mandated (had it not died in committee), among other requirements, that hospitals which do not provide certain services for \u201cnonmedical reasons\u201d (that is, Catholic or other hospitals which do not provide abortion or sterilization services, or hospitals which do not provide mastectomies or hysterectomies to transgender-identifying patients for purposes of \u201cgender affirmation\u201d) must create a disclosure form as a part of the New Patient forms.<\/p>\n The HOPE Pilot Program<\/a>, which, cleverly hidden in the title, is a psychedelic mushroom decriminalization program.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t pass out of committee.\u00a0 It\u2019s tempting to just roll your eyes at this sort of bill, but it\u2019s still concerning that my town\u2019s supposedly mainstream representative supported it.<\/p>\n Another bill requires that insurance companies include coverage<\/a> for night guards (that is, to prevent teeth grinding) and retainers (which doesn\u2019t make any sense because that\u2019s an orthodontist\u2019s role).<\/p>\n Yet another bill requires that insurance companies<\/a> include \u201cmedically necessary prescribed vitamins.\u201d<\/p>\n Another bill requires that all public universities and community colleges with student health services programs provide contraception and abortion drugs<\/a>.\u00a0 The initial version of the bill required that those health centers have referral agreements for health care facilities in the event of complications from those abortion pills, but an amendment removed this requirement.\u00a0 This one passed through committee with one wrinkle:\u00a0 though it appears that when instructions are handed down from party leadership, no Democrat is permitted to vote against a bill in committee, they do occasionally choose not to vote or vote \u201cpresent.\u201d<\/p>\n So that\u2019s Grasse.<\/p>\n To add to the list, here\u2019s a selection of bills sponsored by Mary Beth Canty<\/a>, in office since January 2023, when she took a formerly Republican seat after a redistricting.<\/p>\n She is chief sponsor of a bill which would have had the Illinois EPA set energy efficiency standards on a whole host of appliances<\/a>.\u00a0 (Died in committee, and with a very small number of sponsors.)<\/p>\n She was also chief sponsor to a died-in-committee bill which would have mandated that insurance companies provide to their customers notification of any change in drug pricing<\/a>.<\/p>\n As to bills to which she added her name but wasn\u2019t the chief sponsor:<\/p>\n The same bills on drug price caps, assisted suicide, the Youth Sports Commission, homeschooling, and video marriage licenses as Rep. Grasse,<\/p>\n plus:<\/p>\n