by Drew McKinley Last week the Illinois House passed HB1698, which attempted to reform Illinois’s broken workers’ compensation system. In the bill, the key mechanism for reducing spending is to cut payments to physicians and specialists by 30%. However, studies have shown that cutting reimbursements to physicians actually increases the cost of care. For example,...

by Drew McKinley As the Institute noted this week, Illinois is currently suffering from the thirdworst job loss rates in the nation. Also this week, the CME Group announced it was considering leaving Illinois. The corporate tax hike passed during the most recent lame-duck session of the state legislature is poised to cost the CME Group $50 million...

by Brian Costin A new study out by the Mercatus Center of George Mason University shows that Illinois ranks poorly when it comes to Freedom amongst the states. This study comprehensively ranks the American states on their public policies that affect individual freedoms in the economic, social, and personal spheres.   Here’s Illinois’s rankings in each of the categories. 27/50 regulatory policy...

Over the past decade, only Michigan and Ohio had worse private sector job growth than Illinois. The Prairie State’s private sector job growth was down 7 percent. That means 363,100 jobs disappeared between April 2001 and April 2011 — that’s equivalent to disappearance of Delaware’s entire private work force.