2025 Spring Legislative Session Initiatives

Guided by our clients’ stated needs and experiences, Legal Council routinely undertakes legislative advocacy. We have a small but highly effective policy and advocacy team that works to address systemic health barriers that disproportionately impact low-income communities of color.

In Springfield this legislative session, Legal Council is putting forth an ambitious agenda grounded in health and racial equity to help ensure access to quality care for all Illinoisans.

Fighting Medical Debt: Advocating for HB 3593 to protect Illinois patients from unfair bills

We continue to advocate to avoid medical debt for patients who get care as inpatients in hospitals and at emergency rooms. In partnership with the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, we support HB 3593 which would protect patients from bills (often thousands or tens of thousands of dollars) from clinicians and service providers who provide care to inpatients or patients in the ER but who are not currently covered by hospital financial assistance laws.

As hospitals contract out their on-site care to private companies, including those owned by private equity, Illinoisans who are eligible for hospital financial assistance are increasingly being charged for care that is not covered and that they have no ability to decline. Patients have no way to know or control for their emergency room doctor, anesthesiologist, radiologist, or other service providers billing them for care that would be free if the hospital employed those providers.

HB 3593 is proceeding through the Illinois House and represents a first step in trying to address this medical debt challenge and ensure that low-income Illinoisans can reasonably and safely access hospital care without sacrificing their ability to pay for basics like food, housing, and utilities.

Advocating for educational equity: supporting legislation to enhance student services and protections

In addition to our work to protect patients from unfair medical debt, we are also actively supporting bills to improve services for students with IEPs, limit settlement agreement waivers, align literacy professional development with state plans, and collect data on early reading screenings in Illinois schools:

• HB2537 requires schools to explain the ramifications of graduation for students with IEPs (loss of IEP services) and discuss options for remaining in school past age 18. This bill passed out of committee unanimously and is headed to the House floor.
• HB2337 limits settlement agreements that include a waiver of prospective claims to waivers relevant to the specific issue and the specific child who is the subject of the settlement. This bill passed out of committee unanimously but with the understanding that we would work on an agreement to address concerns about overly broad language. Read more about this proposed bill in Chalkbeat.
• HB1368 requires ISBE-approved professional development providers in literacy to align their instruction with the IL Comprehensive Literacy Plan. The bill passed out of committee unanimously.
• SB1672 enables ISBE to collect data from all IL elementary schools about the early reading screener the school uses to identify students who may be at risk of specific learning disabilities in reading. The bill required signficant changes, but the amended version has now passed out of committee unanimously.

Stay tuned for updates about our legislative initiatives and ways that you can get involved.