Illinois Governor issues amendatory veto of anti-markup legislation

Illinois governor Pat Quinn has issued an amendatory veto of SB1630 leaving the fate of the anti-markup legislation unclear. SB1630, which was passed by the Illinois Senate 51-4 on April 1, 2014, and the Illinois House 91-16-1 on May 8, 2014, was sent to Governor Pat Quinn on June 6th. He had until August 5th to either sign or veto the bill, and he chose to veto it. Alternately, he could have done nothing and the bill would have become law. In his letter to the General Assembly, Gov. Quinn cites the American Medical Association Code of Ethics Opinion 8.09 which says, “A physician should not charge a markup, commission, or profit on the services rendered by others.” In addition, the governor says, “At no time should patients be subject to unnecessary markups in their healthcare costs.” He then goes on to say he is vetoing the legislation because he would like to see language added that would empower the Department of Financial and Professional Regulation to take action against physicians who improperly markup anatomic pathology bills. If the bill does not pass the house and the senate by November/December when they meet for 6 days only to deal with throwbacks like this from the governor, the bill is completely dead.