Of particular concern is a Quinn Administration proposal that shifts nearly $500 million in Medicaid costs onto private employer plans. One way to reduce Medicaid costs is simply to pass them onto other payers. The Quinn idea is to mandate private insurance coverage for children with complex medical needs through the current law requiring minimum services and coverage for autism. The Governor’s Office clai ...

By Nancy E. Joerg, Esq., Senior Attorney and Shareholder, Wessels Sherman Joerg Liszka Laverty Seneczko P.C., www.wesselssherman.com Many employers do not feel comfortable firing employees because they are not sure they understand the "legal rules" pertaining to terminating (also called discharging or laying off) an employee in Illinois.  Be prepared (and confident) by reviewing the list below. In Illinois ...

By:  Jeffrey A. Risch – SmithAmundsen LLC www.salawus.com As we previously reported in our blog, the NLRB’s ambush (aka “quickie”) election rule went into effect on April 30, 2012.  The rule sought to dramatically shorten the time frame in which a union representation election will take place. In short, the rule limited the issues employers could raise in the pre-election process (i.e. determining which emp ...

By:  Jeffrey A. Risch – SmithAmundsen LLC, www.salawus.com, www.illinoisprevailingwage.com Having handled hundreds of prevailing wage matters and controversies over the years, here’s something I will never understand… Why on earth would a unit of local or state government (aka a “public body”) contractually require compliance with Illinois’ prevailing wage law in circumstances where the Illinois Prevailing ...

By Jonathon Hoag, SmithAmundsen   One of our blog followers recently submitted a question about whether there have been any recent attempts to repeal or dramatically amend the Pension Protection Act of 2006 (PPA), which instituted the most comprehensive reform of the U.S. pension laws since the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) was passed.  The PPA affected and continues to affect ...

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="(Photo credit: Wikipedia)"][/caption] In a remarkable document released this week, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan has called on the four legislative leaders to enact further workers’ compensation reforms, including addressing Illinois’ injury causation standard, long the Chamber’s top priority for workers’ compensation reform. A thorough, well re ...

By Nancy E. Joerg, Esq., Senior Attorney and Shareholder, Wessels Sherman Joerg Liszka Laverty Seneczko P.C., www.wesselssherman.com  Employers are busy people, and most don’t have the time to record (i.e., document) all the workplace incidents of employee misconduct which arise. But, then when the employer finally decides to fire the problematic employee, the employer often regrets that there is no “paper ...

Recently the Workers’ Compensation Appellate Court reversed over 100 years as to how a shoulder injury benefit was calculated (Will County Forest Preserve v. IWCC). With the assistance of our Workers’ Compensation Committee, the Council has submitted legislation to reverse this extremely damaging decision. HB 6145 is being sponsored by Rep. Dwight Kay (R-Edwardsville). HB 6145 signals to the court that calc ...