Illinois is seeking to better insulate itself from changing politics at the federal level by transitioning to running its own health insurance marketplace. Last year, the state awarded $6.5 million to health care organizations, as part of a navigator program, to help enroll people in Affordable Care Act health insurance this open enrollment period. And during the next open enrollment period, consumers in Illinois will select plans from a state website rather than from the federal HealthCare.gov.

In addition to Illinois, the attorneys general of Massachusetts, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oregon, Tennessee and Washington are plaintiffs.

The governor signed an executive order last month to appoint a housing solutions director. “Across every relevant state agency, we will identify and eliminate unnecessary barriers to housing construction,” Gov. JB Pritzker said.

Researcher Jamie Seale said Illinois placed 48th in the ranking, ahead of only New Jersey and New York. “Illinois has pretty high taxes and when people respond to our questions about what makes a state desirable, it’s low cost-of-living and low taxes, and so they are going to maybe prefer a state like Florida or Texas,” said Seale. Asked about the top cities in the country, Chicago placed 5th from the bottom ahead of only Riverside, California; Cleveland; Philadelphia; and Detroit.

State Rep. Dan Ugaste urged for more fairness to ensure Republicans’ constituents have their voices heard. Despite Republicans urging to hold the rules Thursday, so their proposals fostering fairness could be considered, the rules passed along party lines. Without debate, the Senate approved their rules along party lines.

The legislation gives state regulators more authority to balance the budget for a key renewable energy financing tool, partially by shifting financial risk to electric utility customers. It also sets up a study of energy storage technology that is intended to form the basis of a new bill later this year.

234 homeless outreach organizations across the state of Illinois sent in a joint request to Gov. JB Pritzker, to provide new funding with the goal of reaching zero functioning homelessness.

Economic conditions took a turn for the worse late in the year for small businesses in Illinois. The small business network Alignable reported that nearly half of the small business owners in Illinois (48 percent) said they could not pay their rent on time and in full in November. Only one other state, Arizona, had a higher percentage.

That law signed this week by President Biden eliminates the so-called Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and the Government Pension Offset (GPO), which reduces or even eliminates social security payments to some retired workers who have public pensions and potentially their spouses. Illinois is among the 12 states with the largest proportion of affected workers because public pensions in this state do not contribute to Social Security.

“Rivian is very much on its feet and doing well and I don’t want the federal government to interfere with the success of any business in Illinois,” Gov. JB Pritzker said.

“We need to go back to Nov. 5 and what happened that day,” U.S. Rep. Eric Sorensen said speaking of the 2024 presidential election. “This is the American people telling the government that they wanted it done a little differently. I don’t believe that what we are talking about here is a mandate to stop everything that we have done.” Rather, he said, he thinks it’s more about finding out what the public wants — lower costs to things, better wages and jobs, secure borders and better education. Those

Jim Dey: “The report (released by the legislature’s Commission on Economic Forecasting and Accountability) provides additional evidence of Illinois’ continued economic woes, as reflected by its above-average debt and unemployment numbers, population declines and its below-average economic growth.”

In its annual budget, the city of Chicago projected Bally’s would generate nearly $243 million in adjusted gross receipts at the temporary casino in 2024, yielding about $35 million in local gaming taxes. Bally’s Chicago made it about halfway to the city’s target, generating $125 million in revenue and $16 million in local taxes last year, according to Gaming Board data.