Gov. JB Pritzker on Wednesday signed a bill that supporters say will eliminate health insurance programs that make it harder for patients to get the care they need.
“For too long, insurance companies have used predatory tactics to increase their profits at the expense of Illinois consumers. … For too long, poor networks, price gouging and overly complicated bureaucracy have prevented our families from getting the care they deserve,” Gov. Pritzker said at the signing ceremony on the Westside. “Today, with my signature, Illinois will address and fix this.”
The bill passed the state Legislature this spring by wide margins and with bipartisan support, marking a major policy victory for Pritzker, who pledged in February to be “all-in” in passing health care reform.
The new law includes a provision that would prohibit insurers from requiring insurance plans to use so-called “stepped therapy,” which requires customers to try different treatments or medications before taking one prescribed by a doctor. Doctors and patient advocates say the practice can make patients’ conditions worse and allow the insurance industry to control costs.
The law also prohibits insurers from seeking prior authorization in cases where such authorization is required before a patient can receive inpatient or overnight psychiatric care at a hospital, bans the sale of short-term, limited-duration health insurance plans that do not cover as many medical services as mainstream plans, and allows state insurance departments to reject unreasonable price increases offered by certain large group health insurance plans.
Supporter of the bill, Marilyn Zydlo, whose son Jimmy was diagnosed with aggressive stage 3 Hodgkin’s lymphoma at age 17, said at Wednesday’s event that the legislation would have helped Jimmy when he needed certain antibiotics to treat his disease.
“I wouldn’t have had to fight with the insurance company to get the prescription in the first place,” she says. Jimmy’s cancer is now in remission, she says.
Some parts of the law will begin to take effect in January, but other parts won’t go into effect until 2026.
The health care bill was the latest initiative the Pritzker administration pushed through the spring legislative session and was recently signed into law by the governor. Other initiatives included a measure aimed at wiping out $1 billion in medical debt owed to more than 300,000 Illinois families, creating a new Office of Early Childhood Education and approving incentives to advance Illinois’ position in quantum computing.
