The Illinois House decided to go with its core competency—not voting—and did not vote on a number of thorny issues including a new statewide minimum wage and the creation of a state healthcare insurance exchange. You may recall that Illinois determined not to create its own healthcare exchange because the legislature and governor were confident that the federal government would be much better at it than they would.
That makes it quite unlikely that Illinois will create its own exchange for the foreseeable future. When the legislature goes into session no federal subsidies will be available to finance creating the exchange and the legislative environment will be even less favorable for the creation of an exchange than it is now.
I think that Speaker Madigan is making a wager here and it goes something like this. The PPACA is unpopular and will remain so; there’s really no political benefit to him in having the state create its own exchange. And he’s assuming the Supreme Court won’t declare the subsidies for those insured under the federal exchange for residents of states that didn’t create their own exchanges unconstitutional.
If he’s right he’s no worse off than he is now. If he’s wrong he’s going to make a lot of Illinoisans who formerly qualified for subsidies very unhappy. Maybe he doesn’t care. What are they going to do? Vote Republican?
I’ve no dog in this fight as I live in Texas, but why do the citizens of Illinois put up with Madigan? He seems evil personified. And I’d say that regardless of party affiliation. He seems interested in nothing else except the accumulation of power and the benefit of Mike Madigan. Illinois has suffered needlessly because of this man.