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Years of Medicaid expansions coupled with increased state spending and a lack of significant revenue growth has pushed Illinois to the financial brink, Sen. Althoff said.  

The package includes the following initiatives:  

SB 2463: Places a moratorium on new or expanded Medicaid programs, unless approved by the General Assembly.

SB 2846: Phases out the “Section 25” loophole in Illinois law over a ten-year period. The loophole has allowed governors to pay previous year’s Medicaid bills with the current year’s budget.

SB 2466 and 2467: Creates a series of benchmarks for care, quality and finances for providers to meet in order to receive reimbursement for their services. It is estimated that moving to a performance-based managed care system would result in $110 million in savings in the first year.

SB 2464: Requires the Department of Healthcare and Family Services to use two pay stubs to verify eligibility for Medicaid.

SB 2465: Requires families to meet asset test standards for Medicaid eligibility, which senior citizens and those with disabilities must already do.  

SB 2468: Requires proving immigrant status eligibility for all All Kids applications, which senior citizens and those with disabilities must already do.

Members from both sides of the aisle spoke fondly on March 13 of their memories of Geo-Karis, who served for 25 years in both the Illinois House of Representatives and the Illinois Senate. The senators recalled anecdotes about their personal experiences with her as both a legislator and a friend.     Working with a March 13 deadline to get legislation out of committee, lawmakers moved even more initiatives forward during the week.

The state’s smoking ban was still a top topic in the Senate Executive Committee. A bill that would require people who registered complaints to provide their names (SB 2176) did not pass, though a bill that would allow smoking in private or semi-private rooms in veterans’ homes was approved (SB 1999).  

The Identity Protection Act also passed, which would require state and local governments to better protect the Social Security numbers of citizens (SB 2113).  

The Executive Committee also passed a bill targeting “alcopops” to expand the definition to include alcoholic beverages that include energy drink stimulants (SB 2472) and give them new labeling requirements.

A bill that would allow caregivers to provide medical marijuana for up to five patients without background checks (SB 2865) passed the Public Health Committee, with all Republican committee members voting against the measure.

Other bills approved by Senate committees during the week include:

SB 2282: Creates an income tax deduction equal to the expenses adoptive parents incur when adopting a child, including attorney fees, court costs and adoption fees.

SB 1900: Creates a mandate requiring insurance coverage for non-medical costs associated with Autism, including psychiatric care, rehabilitative care and therapy.

SB 2072: Allows individuals with disabilities to apply for the same homestead exemption as senior citizens.   SB 2148: Creates a Research and Development deduction on income an inventor may earn from a patent that creates a new product or process conducted in Illinois.  

SB 2400: Creates the Biometric Information Privacy Act, which requires state and private entities to develop policies to secure a person’s biometric information and prevent it from being sold.  

SB 2102: Allows local police access to employment information kept by the state’s Department of Employment Security to better track the addresses and place of employment of registered sex offenders.

SB 2365: Increases prison time and fines for aggravated battery committed by a prison inmate or person in custody against a corrections employee.

SB 2407: Requires the Department of Natural Resources to establish a one-year project to harvest Asian carp in the Illinois River, which are pushing out the native fish in Illinois.  

SB 2382: Increases penalties for those who engage in the solicitation of a minor through a computer and makes it an offense to travel to meet a minor.