State Senator Laura Fine – 9th District
As the Senator in the 9th District, I serve as the Chair of the Senate Behavioral and Mental Health committee and Vice-Chair ofthe Insurance committee. Supporting residents with mental health and health care needs has been my longstanding priority, and my work reflects a focus on facilitating access to quality care, ensuring the state’s insurance marketplacereflects the needs of Illinoisans, reducing barriers for mental health services and addressing workforce shortages.
2024 Spring Legislative Session
This past session, I passed multiple pieces of legislation into law focused on expanding behavioral health accessibility for kids and adults, including improving the quality of care and patient safety, and establishing a state-based insurance marketplace to address financial barriers to health care.
The Fiscal Year 2025 budget, which prioritizes mental health, education, public safety, economic development, socialservice and local governments. The budget includes:
- $6 million to prioritize mental health care on college campuses
- Funding to support a successful rollout of the new state-based health care marketplace, which will allow for amore consumer-focused health insurance exchange
- $155 million for safety net hospitals to help communities that experience significant health care disparities
- $5 million for the Human Services Professional Loan Repayment Program to provide assistance to human services professionals working at community-based human services providers
I also supported legislation that facilitates mental health services to our most vulnerable populations including, but not limited to:
SB 3268: Psychiatric rate increase for Medicaid
- To increase access to psychiatric care for kids and adults on Medicaid, this measure includes several changes to Medicaid coverage, including rate increases for psychiatrists who accept Medicaid, as well asprosthetists, dentists, dialysis providers and children’s health
SB 726: Children’s Behavioral Health Transformation Initiative
- To streamline access to behavioral health services for children in Illinois, this measure requires the IllinoisState Board of Education and other stakeholders to outline their strategies to measure capacity and readiness to carry out universal mental health screenings of students helps that centralizes access and promotes earlyintervention for young
2023 Spring Legislative Session
Last year, we built on previous investments to transform the behavioral and mental health care system for children.Here are highlights from the Fiscal Year 2024 budget:
- Invests nearly $23 million to implement the new Children’s Behavioral Health Transformation Initiative
- Provides $200 million to better serve llinoisans with developmental disabilities
I was proud to support mental health, developmental and educational measures, including but not limited to:
SB 57: Community Behavioral Health Professional Student Loan Repayment Program
- This measure expands student loan repayment assistance for professionals in the behavioral health community to include professionals with master degrees or bachelor’s degrees in psychology, counseling or social work who work at behavioral health centers, substance use treatment facilities or state-operated.
HB 2847: Mental Health and Wellness Act
- Ensuring everyone can benefit from mental health wellness, this measure requires health insurance plans to cover annual mental health checkups and wellness visits starting in 2025. Age-appropriate screenings will be provided to identify mental health issues, discuss mental health symptoms and evaluate adverse childhood Additionally, this measure requires the Illinois Department of Public Health to create an educational campaign to raise public awareness of mental health and wellness.
SB 2223: Harm reduction drug education in public schools
- To further educate young people on the dangers of drug overdose, this measure improves the state’s curriculum on substance abuse for school-age students. Also known as Louie’s Law, this measure is named after a suburban youth who died as a resultof an It requires the Illinois State Board of Education to develop a standardized curriculum around the dangers of substance abuse with an emphasis on harm reduction and cultural competency. Additionally, the bill connects youth with supportand medical assistance for those who may otherwise find themselves in a dangerous situation.
SB 99: Accommodations for students with disabilities in public universities and community colleges
- To improve accessibility accommodations for students with disabilities, this measure requires all Illinois higher education institutions to provide necessary accommodations if they meet transparent eligibility requirements. The bill establishes a process for students with disabilities to receive reasonable accommodations from public colleges and universities, as well as requires these institutions to adopt transparent policies regarding disability services and share the information with students and families soprospective students can make informed decisions about the quality of services a university can provide them.
Office Resources
Our office staff is available to assist from 9:00am to 5:00pm. Monday through Friday. We are ready to help you withstate services and programs like Medicaid.
If you would like to make an appointment for our staff to assist with state programs or have concerns you would like to share,please email my team at info@senatorfine.com or call us at 847-998-1717.
Sincerely,
