Sen. Bomke's Week in Review

March 10-14

[March 15, 2008]  SPRINGFIELD -- Facing a March 13 deadline to move bills out of Senate committees, lawmakers worked during the week to advance their measures to the Senate floor for further debate, said state Sen. Larry Bomke, R-Springfield. Meanwhile, several Senate Republican lawmakers unveiled an ambitious Medicaid reform package.

The Medicaid reform initiative advances a series of reforms targeting the state's rapidly expanding and increasingly burdensome Medicaid obligations. If signed into law, the measures would reduce the growing backlog of $1.7 billion in unpaid bills to health care providers and further improve the level of service the patients receive.

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

The package includes the following initiatives:

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

• Senate Bill 2846: Phases out the "Section 25" loophole in Illinois law over a 10-year period. The loophole has allowed governors to pay a previous year's Medicaid bills with the current year's budget.

• Senate Bill 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.

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

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

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

At the end of a busy week, the members set aside time to remember the Feb. 10 passing of Sen. Adeline Jay Geo-Karis at the age of 89.

Members from both sides of the aisle spoke fondly Thursday 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 the Thursday 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 (Senate Bill 2176) did not pass, though a bill that would allow smoking in private or semiprivate rooms in veterans homes was approved (Senate Bill 1999).

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

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

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

Other bills approved by Senate committees during the week:

• Senate Bill 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.

• Senate Bill 1900: Creates a mandate requiring insurance coverage for nonmedical costs associated with autism, including psychiatric care, rehabilitative care and therapy.

• Senate Bill 2072: Allows individuals with disabilities to apply for the same homestead exemption as senior citizens.

• Senate Bill 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.

• Senate Bill 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.

• Senate Bill 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.

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

• Senate Bill 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.

• Senate Bill 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.

[Text from file sent on behalf of Sen. Larry Bomke by Illinois Senate Republican staff]