Buckner Enacts Reforms to Make Healthcare More Affordable, Expand Access to Care

CHICAGO – Illinois families will have access to better and more affordable health care coverage under new laws backed by state Rep. Kam Buckner, D-Chicago, aiming to reduce costs and hold big insurance companies accountable.

“The Health Care Protection Act represents a major step closer to the goal of getting every Illinoisan affordable healthcare,” Buckner said. “Quality healthcare is a human right, and high prices keep it out of reach of low-income families. That is an injustice we cannot allow to fester in underserved communities. While today is not the end of the fight on this issue, this is a milestone that will surely bring much-needed relief to countless deserving people.”

The Buckner-backed House Bill 5395 and House Bill 2499 were signed into law Wednesday, delivering a series of major reforms to make health care coverage better and more affordable. The new Health Care Protection Act would create a rate review process requiring insurance companies to justify premium increases, and empowering state watchdogs to reject unwarranted hikes that simply pad profits.

Additionally, the measure curbs gimmicks insurance companies use to deny access to medically necessary treatments, procedures, and prescription medications, including step therapy—where insurance companies require a patient to ‘try and fail’ with cheap, ineffective treatments before covering the prescribed treatment or medication. Under the Healthcare Protection Act, doctors and patients will now be empowered to make important medical decisions—not insurance companies.

These measures also stop insurance companies from selling inadequate short-term healthcare plans that provide little or no coverage.