We don’t have to wait for Congress to act on universal healthcare. We can start by being more efficient with the healthcare we provide here. Working with Illinois, we can create a city health insurance plan here, one that provides the same coverage, lower prescription cost, and expands access to quality care for Chicagoans.

My Proposal

• Create an affordable public opt-in insurance option for Chicago residents, workers, unions, small businesses, and public employees that negotiates directly with hospitals, doctors, pharmaceutical companies, and other providers to reduce premiums, medical bills, and prescription drug costs.
• Establish a transparent public pharmacy program that purchases medication in bulk and eliminates unnecessary middlemen and hidden fees.
• Work with the State of Illinois and willing partner states to share technology, pool risk, reduce administrative costs, and strengthen our bargaining power.
• Expand the program responsibly, step by step, until every Chicagoan has a reliable and affordable path to healthcare.

Healthcare should be organized around the needs of patients—not the profits of insurance companies. Chicago can lead the way.

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Housing has been unaffordable for many people in Chicago for decades. It has lead to hundreds of thousands of residents leaving the City. The current measures taken by the previous administrations and councils simply has not been adequate enough to control the city’s housing market. Many people face evictions by anonymous landlords that may not even live in the city, and the ability to purchase a home keeps many people in the rental market. Chicago has the ability to directly make housing more affordable for all Chicagoans at every income level.

Tax increment financing uses property-tax growth produced by our communities. That money should be governed as public money with full transparency, meaningful public participation, and clear priorities that improve life for working families. TIF reform is not about choosing between neighborhood development and public services. It is about democratizing both. Chicago can invest in communities without privatizing the benefits, displacing longtime residents, or allowing decisions involving billions of public dollars to be made behind closed doors.

Chicago should reform TIF so residents can see where every dollar goes, help determine how neighborhood funds are spent, and prevent public resources from being stockpiled or handed to private developers without proof that a project truly needs assistance. Development should serve the public, not the other way around.

My TIF reform plan will:

• Open Source: Create a searchable, public TIF dashboard showing current balances, projected revenue, proposed commitments, contracts, project performance, jobs created, and money scheduled to be returned to taxing bodies. Information should be available before not after decisions are made.
• Give residents a binding vote: Dedicate a meaningful share of available neighborhood TIF funds to participatory budgeting, allowing residents to propose, evaluate, and vote on investments such as affordable housing, schools, libraries, parks, public health facilities, transit access, community-owned businesses, and cultural infrastructure.
• Put public needs before private profit: Require an enforceable “but-for” test, independent financial review, community-benefit agreements, labor standards, affordable-housing requirements, and clawbacks when subsidized developers fail to deliver promised results.
• End unnecessary stockpiling: Establish firm deadlines for committing TIF funds. Money without a viable, publicly approved project should be declared surplus and returned to Chicago Public Schools, the Chicago Park District, libraries, and other public services that property taxes were intended to support.
• Build community ownership: Prioritize public, nonprofit, cooperative, and community-controlled development including social housing, community land trusts, worker cooperatives, neighborhood commercial spaces, and municipally owned infrastructure so public investment creates assets that remain accountable to the people.