Despite solid support and championship of HB 3236 by the Small Business Advocacy Council (SBAC) along with a strong coalition of other business groups and consumer organizations, the Illinois Senate adjourned on Thursday without addressing the legislation.

HB 3236 implements health care cooperatives (co-ops) in an effort to control excessive health insurance costs that are so often shouldered by small business. The legislation was passed with large bi-partisan support across the state by the Illinois House earlier this year, but remained stalled in the Illinois Senate. The bill must first be reviewed and passed by committee before the Senate as a whole can vote.  Fortunately, the status of the bill will remain in effect during next year’s session and the legislation will not need to be re-introduced.

Over the last several months the SBAC Health Care Committee, led by Steve Banke of 3Points, served as a catalyst for driving effective advocacy strategies to build coalitions and gain legislative support. With the help of countless SBAC members, a coalition was built of over ten business groups and consumer organizations including the GOA, numerous Chambers of Commerce, the Big Ooga, Illinois PIRG, and Jewish B2B Networking.  Due to direct contacts by SBAC and coalition members, an additional 15 senators signed on to co-sponsor the bill. The SBAC is grateful to those co-sponsors, including Senators Jeffrey Schoenberg, Annazette Collins, Jacqueline Collins, Susan Garrett, Linda Holmes, Dan Kotowski, Emil Jones, III, David Koehler, Steven Landek, Terry Link, John Mulroe, Antonio Munoz, Michael Noland, Martin Sandoval, Ira Silverstein and Heather Steans.

Though disappointed in the Senate’s inaction during veto session, Steve Banke was very optimistic about the future outcome of HB 3236: “This bill is far from dead and we will continue our fight in January.”

Steve Banke also identified additional advocacy strategies the coalition will implement to push HB 3236 forward, including:

• identification of legislators by member and company locations
• designation of member liaisons to legislative offices
• expansion of SBAC across the state, and
• identification and continuation of previous successful educational and promotional efforts.

Stay tuned to the SBAC blog for additional updates about progress with this legislation and how you can support efforts to pass this legislation into law.

This entry was posted on November 12, 2011 at 3:49 pm and is filed under Advocacy, Health Insurance, Healthcare. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.