Illinois 2023 Spring Session Update

This week, ICS Director of Government Relations, Ben Schwarm provides an update on the 2023 Spring Legislative Session at the Illinois Capitol.  Watch the video to learn more!

Transcription:

Hi, this is Ben Schwarm. I am the Director of Government Relations for the Illinois Chiropractic Society. I’m standing out in front of the State Capitol in Springfield here today. It’s Wednesday, May 24, as both the House of Representatives and the Senate are inside, convening their legislative session for the spring. And hopefully, this is going to be the end of the spring legislative session. As they look to prepare and to pass a state budget, the actual adjournment date was set for last Friday. But the budget was not ready for consideration at that time, so they push things off to this week. So from what we are understanding that the fiscal year 2024 budget is being put together and should be ready for vote today and tomorrow here in Springfield.

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So as far as the ICS goes into legislative session, we have been monitoring a lot of a lot of bills having to do with medical licensure, or with insurance issues. There were a couple of bills, talking about criminal background checks for medical license applicants, and we have been monitoring all those very closely throughout the spring. We also had a bill introduced that would allow chiropractic physicians to be eligible for a couple of student loan forgiveness and scholarship programs that are currently on the state books. Last year, there was a bill introduced the equity and health care act that includes similar type programs for student loan forgiveness for medical students, and for some scholarships for physicians who promised to serve in underserved areas across the state.

Last year, we noticed that that bill did not include chiropractic physicians. So we had the bill amended to include chiropractic physicians. That was included in the bill. It passed both the House and the Senate last year and was signed into law. So when we looked at the current statutes, we found a couple of other similar programs. Also, that did not include chiropractic physicians for the programs. So our bill, Senate Bill 1590, does exactly that. It includes chiropractic physicians to be eligible to apply for these programs. The bill passed both the House and the Senate earlier this spring unanimously and will be sent to the governor for his consideration this summer. So we will continue to monitor what’s going on here inside the Capitol. Once everything wraps up, we will have a full legislative review for you to look at. So you’re totally up to date on what’s going on. So until then, that’s it from the Capitol.