We applaud Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s commitment to tackle health insurance reform as outlined in his recent State of the State address. The governor has vowed to tighten up how payers conduct “utilization reviews,” which is the process insurers use to determine whether a medical service will be covered under the health plan. The governor is also promising to prohibit step therapy, another impediment that patients must endure while the insurance companies decide whether to grant permission for treatments recommended by their physician. As the governor said, doctors and patients should be making decisions about medical care, not insurance companies.
It’s time to hold these payers accountable. No more ghost networks that are misleading patients on available physicians within their insurance network and no more making patients and physicians jump through hoops so bureaucrats can make medical decisions or delay care.
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It’s welcome news that these efforts that the physicians of the Illinois State Medical Society (ISMS) have been fighting for years now have the full backing of the governor’s office. Both the Prior Authorization Reform Act (2021) and the Network Adequacy and Transparency Act (2017) were ISMS-backed legislative initiatives to improve patient care and access to the physicians Illinoisans need and deserve in their communities.
We look forward to working with the governor and members of the Illinois General Assembly to make sure the people of Illinois have access to quality healthcare and that the administrative burdens on physicians are lessened so that more of their time can be spent on delivering patient care.
Rodney S. Alford, president, Illinois State Medical Society
City, state should get ownership stake for new facilities
If the mega-wealthy owners of the Bears, White Sox or any other team want taxpayer dollars via government funding for new facilities (or related infrastructure), then the city or state should receive a commensurate ownership stake in the team in return. There have been more than enough no-strings handouts to millionaires and billionaires over the years, thanks. Typically, these trips to the public trough are premised on fantastical projections of economic activity and tax revenue, which never materialize at the promised levels.
The federal government insisted on receiving ownership stakes in auto companies when they were bailed out by the billions during the Great Recession, and taxpayers made a profit when those shares were eventually sold. This practice should be the rule, not the exception, when eye-popping sums of public money flow to private interests.
Jason Liechty, Lincoln Square
Unhoused Chicagoans shouldn’t be an afterthought
A report from The Chicago Coalition for the Homeless found that people living in Chicago without a permanent address, living on the streets, or in shelters exceeded 68,000 prior to the surge of migrants into the city beginning in 2022.
I commend the City of Chicago for rolling out the carpet and helping these immigrants by providing the basic necessities of life.
My only complaint is why we did not afford our own citizens, more than 68,000 of them, the same?
The level of help that we are providing now to the thousands of people without homes coming from across the boarder.
If Chicago truly is a sanctuary city, our homeless citizens should have been afforded the same necessities of life.
John Livaich, Oak Lawn
