Illinois lawmakers receive generous, life-long health insurance

Illinois taxpayers spent $1.23 million this past year to provide health insurance to state lawmakers.

Illinois taxpayers spent $1.23 million this past year to provide health insurance to state lawmakers, despite the fact that the jobs are part-time and the state is broke.

This perk of office is under fire from a surprising source — a group of state lawmakers.

“This is a part-time job. There is absolutely no reason that it should have health insurance and a pension provided, especially at a time like this when the state is hurting financially,” said State Rep. David McSweeney, R-Barrington Hills.

McSweeney, along with 33 other lawmakers — about one-fifth of the General Assembly — are refusing to accept the health insurance benefits.

“If it is more generous than what other people are getting, they should at least scale it back, but I say eliminate it,” he said.

Illinois lawmakers have afforded themselves one of the most generous health insurance plans available; far better than that of most of their constituents who are ultimately paying for it, said Naomi Lopez Bauman, a health policy analyst for the Goldwater Institute.

In fact, the plan is so generous that it is considered a “Cadillac plan” under the Affordable Care Act. In 2018, the state could begin paying an excise tax to the federal government for the lawmakers’ health insurance plans.

Bauman said such generous health plans have become increasingly rare in the private sector.

“This plan legislators are taking isn’t even available to most people,” she said. “It doesn’t seem right that they would burden taxpayers with paying for a plan they can’t purchase for themselves.”

But some lawmakers dispute whether the plan they receive is all that generous.

“I’m not getting any ‘Cadillac plan.’ What I receive, I pay for. They take it right out of my checks,” state Rep. Mary Flowers, D-Chicago, said.

According to state records, Flowers’ contributions cover 17 percent of the total cost of her health insurance premium.

Unlike other jobs, lawmakers can continue to receive the health insurance benefits for the rest of their lives — after serving in the Legislature for as little as eight years.

In the private sector, departing employees rarely have this option.

An Illinois News Network analysis of legislator insurance benefits found that the 143 lawmakers receiving the benefit contributed a combined $251,000 toward their insurance premiums but taxpayers paid the rest of the tab to the tune of $1,237,512.

Rep. Flowers said this is a benefit lawmakers deserve.

“I’ve been doing this job for 31 years and I’m still waiting to find the ‘part-time’ part of it,” she said. “These people who aren’t taking health insurance from the state are getting it somewhere else — from a spouse or another job. I don’t have that luxury. … So how would it save the state money if I showed up at the doctor or the emergency room without any insurance?”

Flowers, who receives $78,163 as a state lawmaker, said she couldn’t afford to buy insurance on her own.

Others see things differently.

“I don’t think it fair that legislators receive extremely generous pensions and extremely generous health care benefits,” state Rep. Jeanne Ives, R-Wheaton, said. “Other part-time workers don’t get that. I don’t think taxpayers should be saddled with those expenses. That’s why I’ve refused this benefit. I think this is a benefit that should go away.”