Pritzker. He also addresses increase of Asylum Seekers and migrants into the state and criticized Texas Governor greg abbott for busing migrants to major cities all over the country without warning. This is just under an hour. [applause]■i members and guests, the honorable governor of this great state the honorableb pritsker. [applause]■a [applause] thank you very much. Thank you all very much speaker welch, president harmon, Lieutenant Governor members to have 103rd General Assembly, chief justice tice and, of course, all the members of the supreme guests, the first lady of illinois, my soulmate mk. [appla] and all the people of the great state of illinois, i am so grateful to be here today to deliver my sixth state of the state and budget address. I love my job, i love living in illinois and spendingveworking f our residents in a world seemingly filled with chaos its a privilege to bringing stability and progress. We live in the state thats filled with people decency and here in springfield one of the most interesting guys i know is ian hunt, head of acquisition at the Abraham Lincoln museum and if you ask ian, he will tell you ones an original version of lincolns gettysburg address. Its known as the copy. One only five to have been handwritten by Abraham Lincoln its named after former massachusetts governor. At gets berg onfo■ november 19, 1863evertt was the other guy who spoke. He gave a twohour speech that almost no one remembers. Whenever it was finished l twoe speech that has never been forgotten. A life lesson for every politician. [laughter] the everett copy of linken gettysburg address remained in hands for almost 80 in 1943 where the world war raging across the globe word came to dwight green t everett copy had2u passed away. So his administration came to av agreement with the sell the other purchase it for 60,000. The problem was illinois didnt have 60,000 to spend on gettysburg address in 1943 and governor greene knew this so he did something unusual. He enl■. ■ isn of illinoiso collect pennies and nickels. There was skepticism that kids were going to come up with enough money to buy the gettysburg in the middle of a world war and at the heels of the Great Depression but no one should ever doubt the children of illinois. [aears ago a newspaper interviewed a springfield man named gene who noted that as young boy 1943 he sacrificed saturday afternoon movie for a few months so that he could give his weekly allowance to donation drive. It took the cinois only 6 months to raise 40,000, marshalfield the third, grandson of department magnate helped with the rest. In 1944 almost exactly 80 years ago fou soo presented the handwritten gettysburg address to the Illinois StateHistorical Library and it has been our mosr since. I love this story. It has everything, imagination, ingenuity, sacrifice, patriotism and elected officials that didn stop at no and children with a vision beyond their years doing something important for our future. Its a how penny by penny illinoisans wasnt shaved something important. Its a story about our past but also a story about who we are today because penny by penny we are still working together saving important things for our state. 5 years ago when people said we couldnt do it, many of us went to work eliminating our buildback log and balancing 5 state budgets in a row, we created a 2 billiondollar rainy dayd, credit upgrades and in the face of pandemic and high inflation we delivered historic tax relief provided record levels of rental and mortgage assistance and reduced interest cost by paying off. [applause] weve also grown illinois economy to over 1 trillion, thats more than most nations. [applause] in 2023 alone we attracted billions of dollars in new busiss investments and created tens of thousands of new jobs. Average a new business moved to illinois or expanded here every single day last year. [applause] thanks to our bipartisan tax credit legislation illinois is lds fourth Largest Data Center market and we broke an alltime record for film and tv production revenue, tousm las Hotel Industry set record 5. 5 billion. [applause] in the midwest we are now the number one state for workforce0 states we are number 2 for infrastructure. Number 2 for education, number 3 for power grid reliability, we r two best Business Schools in the country and since 2018 weve moved a whopping 13 spots in cnbcs best state for business. [applause] these are the things that matter to businesses looking for aorkforce can live, work and play afford by and with worldclass healthcare and education. Now we have a lot of work left to do but we together have met this moment that we are in. Do not let the doom■5 steal your optimism about whats ahead for illinois. Our future is bright and opportunity lies ahead. [applause] last year we launched alled e illinois the best state in the nation for preschool, child care, Early Intervention and home1b visiting. [applause] its already making a huge difference for young families would be able to add 5,000 preschool seats by the end of year one, we exceeded that goal bywe created 5,823 nel spots. [applause] all of which are options that parents didnt have before as a result right now we have publicl classroom seats, the highest number in our States History and stayinge will achieve univel preschool by [applause] smart start also expanded access to Early Intervention and evidencebased Home VisitingHome Services for families with babies and Young Children by adding 26 more programs serving nearly 3,000 more kids and we established the nation lea workt Program Thanks to initial investment of 130 million stabilizing and raising wages forkf is primarily women and people of color. That helps providers maintain and grow staffing while still devering the quality care that illinois children deserve. Smart start is having the desired benefit for working parents and their childn, ratese higher than ever before with 1,670,000 children receiving services. There was a fear that our entire child c sm might crumble in the wake of the pandemic, insteadj its growin. Heather andrade is a rochester parent and when i recently her t start changed her childs life and after tremendous difficult prnaa into this world, a healthy, happy little baby. But as natalia grew heather noticed that she was pes in her development and in her speech. Heather knew that she needed help. Thanks to smart start elementary was able to open a full they Program OfferingEarly Childhood education and child care including early therapy, since natalias first day in that program her progress has been nothing short of remarkable. She can spell her name, she can write her natalia now talks so much that theyre even considering pulling her out of speech therapy. Natalia is]hrive when she enters kindergarten and her path ahead couldnt be brighter. Heathers success storyt9 as a m stands as a testimonial. It reminds us of all the parents throughout who need just a little extra help to give kids that smart start. Heather is here today and i ask you to give her a big round ofd applause. [applause] its with heather and natalia in plan that we increase our plan and start funding by 150 milonate 5,000 new preschool seats and continue growing child care and with critical Early Childhood services and i also ask that in this budget we begin the first phase of consolidating stategovd programs into one agency called the department of Early Childhood. [applause] with the 13 milliondollar investment parents and providers will have a onestop shop for resources and programs from finding child care and preschool to accessing Early Childhood block grants and day care ly every study shows that investing in Early Childhood isnt just about childs first n the k12 education and beyond. Every single year increase O Investments in education because a quality education is the strong society. Life and like majority leader lightferd and senator along with representatives dis and steward who have spent their entire careers fighting for our Public Schools all while weighing the tough choices to keep our b inr plan to see in 2. News ranked Illinois High School students number 2 in the nation in College Readiness anded illil for education. We notched our highest Graduation Rate in 13 years andq Teacher Retention was the the rate of ninth graders on track to graduate now exceeds prepandemic levels. Ni ec absenteeism is turning around and proficiency in english Language Arts and math increased drum atically. We can draw arom these results to last years budget. Our 45 milliondollar Teacher Pipeline Grant Program brought 5,384 new teachers into the field reaching more than 730,000 ■g the highest need. Teachers are the single most important investment we can make in our schools. [applause] so i propose that we invest another 45 million in the Teacher Pipeline Program bringing thousands more educators into the field. [applause] the evidencebased funding model is working so myt ebf laws recommendation increasing it again0 million and we will fully Fund Special Education and continue increasing funds for School Transportation by 30 million. [applause] Higher Education continues its tremendous upward trajectory the second year in a row the Illinois CommunityCollege System celebrated historic headd largest increase in enrollment numbers in the last 30 years and far higher than the rest of the United States. More illinois students are taking advantage of our Great Colleges and universities with wellfunded map grant and aim high scholarship programs. [applause] so the net tuition cost for most illinois students attending illinois schools continues to decline. Our Higher Education its important that year in and year out even in lean budget years we demonstrate a commitment to thesenstitutions which is why why my Budget Proposal includes more than 30 milliondollar increase in direct operating support Public Education institutions and thats on on top of continuing record Capital Investments that we are making through rebuild illinois. [applause] improving attainment and retention is assisting private illinois Workforce Shortage and its also having a similar effect on State Government. We are finally moving closer to achieving the Staffing Levels that we need to support our work. The department on aging, human services, health care and family has improved hiring to improve head count example, has achieved highest staffing in more than 15 years through a combination of funding, ingenuity and sheer hard work. Dcfs is more focused on how to best protect illinois children. Today nearly every call t abuse and negligent hotline is answered immediately. Thats up from only 50 in 2019. 99. 7 were indicated and initiated within 24 hours. And within 7■v days 96 of children have been seen by an investigator with the additional 14 million in funding in fy25 dcfs will reach head count of 4,000 staff for the first time in more than 2 decades. As always theres always more to do and dcfs doing it. I want to thank outgoing dcfs director for five years of service in the state east most difficult job and i welcome incoming director Heidi Mueller who served two administrations as the pioneering head of the department of juvenile justice. Ive visited many djj facilities over my time in office andtsibd admiration the state most Vulnerable Children have for her. We are lucky to have her in this new role. [applause] the people who work at dcfs ar witness t trauma and heartbreak every single day. Theyre rarely lotted for theirh successes and most often used as punching bag for larger societal issues and they work longhe herc workers have been subject of threat and violence. I want them to know that i see them and that i see their work and that i am incredibly grateful for their service and i ask each of you in this chamber to offer tmour gratitude too. Their dedication is worthy of recognition. [applause]. A safety net is been a goal ofm. But to do so we have had to work on transforming our healthcare ecosystem. After so many years of neglect we have begun to tur ts around by reducing the price of prescription drugs. Implementing hospital transformation and enacting a lowercost state basedealt insurance marketplace. I want to think fiddlers linda holmes, and westby as well as■e robin gable for their groundbreaking work on healthcare reform over the last few years. [applause] and now it is time we takeother. This legislative session im introducing a bill to curb predatory insurance practices. Putting thehe hands of patients and their doctors. [applause] it is called and protection act. It has three parts the first utilization management. Called what is utilization management . That its insurance speak for denying coverage. Companies to boost profits by requiring consumers that permission before they receive care but would not surprise you to know thosereque. One method of utilization management is referred to as prior authorization. A consumer must get permission from the Insurance Company to get treatment from their own dr. , their doctor hy necessary. And other was step therapy. A paties a less effective treatment and have that fail before doing the actual quality care there doctor doctorsays they needed in the ft place. Any dr. Will tell you how much they low that these practices and how often they used to denyy patients that they desperately need. Almost everyone has a horror story about prior. Lest you think im exaggerating let me share one such story. Onef our state employees was diagnosed by his cardiologist with serious Heart Disease and scheduled open heart surgery. The procedure, which take a month to schedule, the Health Insurer denied the prior authorization request. The insurance without consulting the doctor of the tht surgery was unnecessary. Or get treated. My office got involved at the family was afraid he could die the prior authorization is granted. That is simplyeptable. Doctors and the patient to be making decisions patient care. There should never be an instance where an Insurance Company who can deny coverage for something as serious as openheart surgery. We should never ever ever see these decisions to the winds of insurance executives whose focus is always on the bottom line. When it comes to patient care the only bottom matters is what needs to be done to keep people healthy. The legislation i am p would ban step therapy in illinois forced Insurance Companies to use the same definition of medical necessity that doctors use. [applause] among the other features of this bill illinois be the first state that he should to be in prior authorization adults and Children Mental Health care. [applause][applause] thatea patient suffering a Mental Health crisis can get the care they need without jumping through hoops designed to deny coverage. Going to make sure insurance pans publicly post all treatments that require prior shopping for coverage. We are also going to pro selling Short Term Limited Duration plans. Its also called junk insurance. [applause] these are plans offered lower premiums to bridge gaps in insurance coverage. Meet even the minimum standards of the Affordable Care act. Just not covered Maternal Health care. Healthcare. They do not cover Mental Health and Substance Abuse treatment for prescription drugs. But 12 other states in the nation is time for illinois to bay and junk insurance plans. [applause] the second part of the legislation covers adequacy. That is a standard Insurance Companies must meeto ensure there are enough in Network Doctors to treat consumers when and where they need healthcare. In recent years its in the rise of Ghost Networks in directory shows doctors and specialists within reality are not accepting new arent in network or do not exist at all. Health Insurance Company should be helping consumers them. To update their Network Directories of doctors to th