Not much costs the same as it did in 1987. An exception is a license to practice medicine in Illinois. One effect has been that the fund for the office that licenses and disciplines doctors has dried up, so much so that the state laid off eighteen of the 26 people who worked there.
A House committee has approved a bill to restore those jobs by raising the license fee from the current $300 to $750. Licenses both now and in the proposed legislation are good for three years.
There has been some publicity about the perils the state is facing; not only does the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation want to be at full staff, but the state is in danger of not being able to put medical residents in its teaching hospitals.
The bill passed a House committee, as did another bill which would, among other things, get $675 million to the Illinois Department of Transportation to participate in the latest federal road program, passed after the current budget became final.
HB 193 (medical licenses) and HB 190 (supplemental appropriation) have passed the House Executive Committee.
(posted 2/5/2013 at 11:44am, Illinois Radio Network)
