Oregon

Illinois remains most expensive state in Midwest for workers’ compensation

By Michael Lucci
11/10/2016
The regulatory cost of doing business in Illinois remains the highest in the Midwest for workers’ compensation, according to the 2016 Oregon Workers’ Compensation Premium Rate Ranking study.[1] Illinois’ out-of-balance workers’ compensation laws contribute to the Land of Lincoln’s loss of industrial investment and blue-collar job opportunities. Illinois manufacturing firms often cite workers’ compensation as...

Chicago’s food-cart ban costs revenue, jobs

By Michael Lucci, Hilary Gowins
09/09/2015
Chicago’s ban on food carts is costing the city jobs and revenue. The city has fallen behind its peers: Street vending from food carts is already legal in 23 of the 25 largest cities in the U.S. The Illinois Policy Institute conducted a survey of nearly 200 Chicago food-cart street vendors to assess the social...

What D.C. lawmakers aren’t asking about ObamaCare

By Naomi Lopez Bauman
06/03/2014
The House Energy and Commerce Committee wants answers. According to a June 3 letter from committee leaders to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, lawmakers are seeking details on how and why several state-run health care exchanges have failed. They want to know why the administration awarded more than $1 billion...

Another state-funded ObamaCare health exchange goes up in smoke

By Naomi Lopez Bauman
05/06/2014
Before ObamaCare, there was RomneyCare, the Massachusetts model upon which ObamaCare was built. This week, Massachusetts announced that it is scrapping its failed state-funded exchange website. The state will simultaneously merge with the federal healthcare.gov site and attempt to build another state exchange website before open enrollment season for 2015 coverage which begins in the...

ObamaCare in Illinois: Just say no to a state exchange

By Naomi Lopez Bauman
04/22/2014
Some bad ideas just won’t stay dead. Despite reasonable opposition from both sides of the aisle in Springfield, some political activists are continuing to push the idea of a state-based health insurance exchange. Illinois has a state-federal partnership exchange currently. At a time when the state’s health-care bureaucracy was caught paying Medicaid benefits on behalf of dead...