No agreement on how to fund medical watchdog unit

St. Louis Post-Dispatch / Associated Press, February 5, 2013

Illinois officials and the physicians they regulate are at odds over how to fairly cover the costs of a watchdog unit that investigates complaints against doctors. The two sides have offered competing proposals to fix the finances of the struggling medical unit of the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, which was forced to lay off more than half of its employees last month when the legislature declined to bail it out. Gov. Pat Quinn's administration wants to more than double doctors' licensing fees and to borrow millions of dollars, a proposal a House committee will consider Monday evening.