In the News

Springfield Journal-Register, May 9, 2007

Gov. Rod Blagojevich's quest to offer health insurance coverage to all Illinoisans won the endorsement of a Senate committee on a partisan vote Tuesday, but some senators on both sides of the political fence said they still have questions.

Senate Bill 5 would create three tiers of health-care coverage, providing insurance at nominal costs to those with the lowest incomes, offering incentives for businesses to insure their employees and implementing low-cost plans for those with moderate incomes who are not covered elsewhere.

It also would penalize businesses that don't offer insurance. Those with at least 10 employees that don't spend at least 4 percent of their payroll on health insurance would be taxed 3 percent of their payroll.

The governor's office has estimated that 1.4 million Illinoisans do not have health insurance.

Under the plan, insurance companies doing business in the state would develop a pool of coverage options. But Larry Barry, president of the Illinois Life Insurance Council, told the Senate Public Health Committee that there aren't enough details available for his group to determine how the program would work for them.

Members of the insurance association have met with Michael McRaith, director of the state Division of Insurance, "and we still have the same questions," Barry said. Too many of the details would be left to the state government's rule-making process after the legislation is signed, he said.

Several senators also said they had been promised answers to questions at an earlier hearing but had not received them.

During Tuesday's hearing, lawmakers and Barry asked about how various financial aspects of the governor's proposal, called Illinois Covered, were determined. Barry pointed to a news release from the Democratic governor that described in detail how much an employer and employees could save under Illinois Covered.

"The administration had to have some type of ... specific plan" to determine those savings, Barry said. He asked McRaith to provide the industry with those numbers.

Sens. Bill Brady, R-Bloomington, and Christine Radogno, R-Lemont, also sought specifics about whether insurance companies or taxpayers could lose money if the administration's estimates were wrong.

"There is not one aspect of this bill that would ask an insurance company to do one thing that would threaten its solvency," McRaith replied. He said he would talk to his staff and provide more financial information to the senators.

Democratic Sens. Susan Garrett of Lake Forest and William Delgado of Chicago said they, too, still had questions that weren't fully answered.

Despite their concerns, Garrett and Delgado joined other Democrats to pass the legislation out of committee, 7-3. It now goes to the full Senate, where it will receive another hearing. To become law, it must pass the House and Senate and be signed by the governor.

The legislation's sponsor, Sen. Carol Ronen, D-Chicago, told the committee that Illinois Covered would cost about $3 billion annually to implement. The assessment on businesses that don't provide health insurance for their employees would bring in about $1.1 billion, she said, and the remainder would come from state funds.

Blagojevich has proposed a tax on gross business revenues to raise money for the health insurance plan, education and property tax relief. That proposal is contained in separate legislation.