Just a couple of weeks into a job that most people couldn’t imagine being held by anyone other than the guy who had it for decades, Illinois House Speaker Chris Welch is putting together a House that looks both familiar and different at the same time.
Welch’s first week included a rollout of his new leadership team, with a Black woman as speaker pro tempore and fresh faces throughout. By the third week, we’ll see committee membership rosters and vice chairs. The following week will be the new rules.
House Republican Leader Jim Durkin told reporters he was “pleased” that Welch was allowing his party some input on the rules. Durkin told the Chicago Sun-Times’ Rachel Hinton that Welch suggested the two get together regularly for coffee or breakfast. I seriously doubt Durkin ever received such an invite from House Speaker Michael Madigan.
Here’s what else happened in Chicago and around Illinois.
News
8:55 p.m. Positivity rate back down to Christmas levels as Illinois logs 6,652 new cases, 88 more deaths
Ashlee Rezin Garcia /Chicago Sun-Times
Illinois’ coronavirus testing positivity fell to its lowest point since Christmastime as public health officials on Thursday announced 6,652 new cases of COVID-19 and 88 more deaths attributed to the disease.
The latest infections were diagnosed among 118,036 tests submitted to the Illinois Department of Public Health, decreasing the seven-day average positivity rate to 6.8%.
That indicator of transmission has been on the decline for a full week after a steady post-holiday increase. It had topped 13% on Nov. 13 during the state’s record-breaking resurgence and fell to 6.8% by Dec. 26 and then edged back up to 8.6% as recently as Jan. 4.
Aetna drops Walgreens coverage for Illinois Medicaid patients chicagotribune.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from chicagotribune.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Members of the bipartisan, bicameral Restore Illinois Collaborative Commission met Tuesday to discuss the commission s accomplishments and future goals during its final meeting of 2020.
Canton Daily Ledger
SPRINGFIELD Building on its investments to fight against COVID-19, the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services announced $56 million in additional capital to community organizations and providers across Illinois. The funding comes from quality payments to its Medicaid Managed Care Organizations (MCOs): Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois, CountyCare, Aetna Better Health, Meridian, and Molina.
The money for these investments was substituted from the quality payments the department otherwise would have made to the health plans on a pay for performance basis. Each year the department withholds a portion of total money due to the five Medicaid health plans to allocate based on performance.