Davidsmeyer comments on House insurance bill

By Gary Scott on April 28, 2017 at 10:18am

A local State Representative disagrees with legislation that passed the House yesterday.

The Illinois House of Representatives approved a bill that will take $10 million in employer money from the Workers’ Compensation Commission Operations Fund and create a state-run Illinois Employers Mutual Insurance Company. This new company will compete with more than 300 Illinois private insurers.

Voting against the measure was Representative C.D. Davidsmeyer of Jacksonville. Davidsmeyer addressed the floor yesterday, and explains his concerns regarding the legislation.

“We are going to be openly competing with companies who currently pay taxes to the state of Illinois based on their profit. If their profits are so great, we’re going to be taking a decent amount of money out of the system as this not-for-profit company continues to grow. And I will continue to tell you that the people that are going to come to the government for insurance are going to be the people who can’t find it out on the open market. They’re going to be the people that have such high experience mods that they won’t be able to get their own insurance,” says Davidsmeyer.

Davidsmeyer says this is just another bad business decision for the state.

“If there is so much profit in this, 300 licensed insurance companies would be going after this business because there would be enough room to take a little bit of a cut in profit to make a great profit. So I would urge a no-vote. This is just another way for Illinois to become a bad business state,” says Davidsmeyer.

Davidsmeyer challenged the bill’s sponsor, Representative Laura Fine of Glenview.

“I guarantee the state’s going to get the most injured people, we’re going to lose money on this, and in two years, they’re going to be coming back to the well asking for another ten million dollars. Can you name one thing that the Illinois government is currently doing well? I’m not talking about new legislation. I’m looking for a bright spot, something that says that we can run an insurance company as well as we run the state of Illinois,” says Davidsmeyer.

Fine claims the non-profit, taxpayer-capitalized, mutual insurance company will bring more “competition” to the state’s 300-plus insurance carriers.