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“No Kids,” and nobody else, either - UPDATED x1

Thursday, Aug 31, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller

This development means that new All Kids clients won’t be getting any appointments at two of the best hospitals in the Midwest.

Pediatricians at a nationally recognized children’s hospital in St. Louis will schedule young Medicaid patients from Illinois “in the last available appointment” beginning Friday because the state is six months behind in making payments.

However, a spokeswoman for the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services said that under a new policy, all doctors who treat Medicaid patients “will now receive payment for their services in no more than 60 days from the time bills are received by the state.”

The chairman and vice chairman of the pediatrics department of the School of Medicine at Washington University in St. Louis sent a letter to referring physicians that detailed the plan to delay appointments for new Illinois Medicaid patients. The medical school’s doctors are the exclusive staff for St. Louis Children’s Hospital, as well as for Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis. […]

“Currently, Illinois Medicaid physician reimbursement does not cover costs,” the letter states. “In addition, (the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services) has not reimbursed any physician in the Department of Pediatrics in more than 200 days.” […]

An e-mailed statement from the medical school Wednesday said, “Unfortunately, over the last two years we have seen the lag time in reimbursement from Illinois Medicaid grow past 150 days, past 175 days, and after exceeding 200 days for several months, the lag time is currently at about 180 days.

“By contrast,” the statement continued, “Missouri Medicaid reimburses us on average in about 34 days, and Medicare reimburses us in about 25 days.”

UPDATE: The governor’s office responds. Via e-mail from a spokesperson:

First of all, this provider is NOT 200 days behind in getting paid.

They are being paid within 60 days if they’re docs covering adults and paid within 30 days if they treat kids. Here’s the problem with the situation laid out by the provider in today’s story: they’re counting Medicaid claims that are in DISPUTE with HFS — claims that have actually been PAID, but the provider feels that we didn’t pay them enough for the service they provided. So, this 200 day backlog in bills they’re claiming does not represent bills that are sitting at HFS going unpaid. They are claims already paid, but are in dispute because the provider wants us to pay more for the services they provided.

HFS has to follow federal guidelines to a “t” when processing claims for federal reimbursement. Every provider must demonstrate and document that the claims they’re submitting for reimbursement are medicaid-eligible. HFS will only reimburse for what is discerned as Medicaid-eligible services. Any provider can dispute claims that were rejected for reimbursement by HFS, but for the provider to characterize this situation as HFS being “behind” in making payments is very misleading. And, this group has been paid $2.7 million since the beginning of the current fiscal year.

HFS discovered what the specific situation was only after the SJR filed their story. Otherwise, HFS would have taken pains to describe the facts.

  38 Comments      


More shorts - UPDATED

Thursday, Aug 31, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller

[Updated and bumped up because of some interesting new content.]

· There may not be any blogging tomorrow because of the holiday. So while I’m waiting on the guv’s campaign to e-mail me its response to Rauschenberger’s piece, I figured I’d clean out my inbox.

· Senate President Jones has doubts that JBT can pass her casino idea.

A top Democrat from Chicago says it’d be difficult to get enough votes in the Illinois Legislature for a possible casino in the city.

State Treasurer and Republican gubernatorial candidate Judy Baar Topinka has proposed a plan to license a casino in Chicago to generate billions of dollars for Illinois.

State Senate President Emil Jones says some legislators from downstate won’t take kindly to that idea.

“It’s very difficult because you got several areas that want it, you know. So, it’d be very difficult. Very difficult,” he says.

· A southern Illinois school official was put on the hot spot this week and may have said more than he intended.

Despite invitations and despite being in the same town, Gov. Rod Blagojevich declined to visit Carterville High School Wednesday to see firsthand the conditions of the worse-for-wear facility desperately awaiting the passage of a capital bill. […]

The governor said he is well aware of the problems Carterville and many other construction-starved school districts are experiencing. However, he said the issue should be brought up instead with the Republicans, who would not extend the necessary votes to bond the capital bill projects during the spring legislative session.

I think the governor has been very plain as to where he stands,” [Carterville District 5 Superintendent Tim Bleyer] said. “We can’t get leadership to get Republicans and Democrats to work together to do what’s best for the state and what’s best for the kids.”

· AFSCME scored a big win this week when it forced an employer to give up the ghost.

Striking drug-abuse counselors at a LaSalle County prison agreed Tuesday to return to work after the private company that employs them decided to sever its ties with the state.

State officials will replace Gateway Foundation, which provides substance-abuse treatment programs at Sheridan Correctional Center, with a new company by the time Gateway’s contract expires Dec. 31.

About 40 of 53 counselors at Sheridan, which is devoted to treating drug-abusing offenders, walked off the job June 6 after failing to reach a contract agreement with Gateway. The non-profit Chicago operation continued to offer programs at Sheridan with management employees.

· And the governor’s campaign is making some bold statements about law-breaking by the Topinka campaign.

Topinka failed to meet the basic requirements of current campaign finance law on a report she filed last month which was loaded with violations in every section of the report. One month has passed and Topinka’s campaign has yet to amend her report to fix multiple violations of election law. Some of the violations include hiding payroll expenses for the month of June, and failing to find critical information on over 80 donors and improperly reporting of expenditures such as payments made directly to Judy Baar Topinka, in violation of rules for expenditure of that type.

· UPDATE: The Illinois Green Party will be on the ballot. From a Rich Whitney press release:

This morning, the State Board of Elections voted unanimously to certify the Green Party state slate to appear on the November ballot. The people of the State of Illinois will now have a third, and better, choice of candidates for all state constitutional offices. […]

Whatever one may think about me or my proposals, I think that we have at least established that I am a serious candidate for governor. We have demonstrated this by making the monumental effort to get on the ballot and beating back the petition challenge. We have also demonstrated this by providing voters with detailed proposals and position statements on all of the major issues facing the people of this state. The voters deserve to hear the points of view of all ballot-qualified candidates in the debates. […]

At least one sponsor of an upcoming debate, the Illinois Radio Network, has informed me that, as of now, I am not being invited to participate in a debate scheduled for October 2nd. However, they also informed me that their position could change if the other two candidates agree to include me in that debate. Unfortunately, we cannot seem to get a straight answer from the Blagojevich campaign regarding whether I should be included in
future debates. When asked by reporters, Mr. Blagojevich has repeatedly dodged the question. On the other hand, at least one Blagojevich spokesperson has stated that the decision is up to the debate sponsors. So if a sponsor tells us it’s up to the other candidates and one other candidate tells us it’s up to the sponsors, I hope you can appreciate that this creates quite a dilemma for us.

  20 Comments      


“Report cards” issued

Thursday, Aug 31, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller

A+ Illinois has just released its “report cards” of the education plans put forth by both Gov. Blagojevich and Judy Baar Topinka. The following is from a press release with the “grades” added in brackets:

A+ Illinois graded the strength of each candidate’s proposal in four key areas:

* Fair and adequate school funding that meets the recommendations of experts at the state’s Education Funding Advisory Board and provides increases for inflation; [Blagojevich “D+” and Topinka “B”]

* Sustainable school funding source that provides reliable, stable long-term resources for schools; [Blagojevich “D-” and Topinka “D+”]

* Meaningful property-tax relief for homeowners and businesses that shifts the burden of school funding away from local property taxpayers; [Blagojevich “F” and Topinka “C-”]

* Strategies to close Illinois’ student achievement gap, one of the highest nationwide; [Blagojevich “B-” and Topinka “B+”]

* A plan to improve the state’s ailing fiscal health and protect funding for essential programs such as health care and human services. [Blagojevich “F” and Topinka “D”]

The full Blagojevich “report card,” which explains the grades, is here. Topinka’s report card is here. [pdf files]

  23 Comments      


Jerry’s friends

Thursday, Aug 31, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller

I just about spit out my coffee when I read the lede on this press release.

The campaign manager for 11th District congressional candidate John Pavich today drew attention to 6-term incumbent Jerry Weller’s acceptance of a campaign contribution from a man described as a “world-class phone sex operator,” and challenged Weller to explain actions he took on behalf of the contributor. […]

Pavich’s campaign manager was speaking in response to news that in April 2005, Congressman Jerry Weller, who serves as Vice Chairman of the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, of the House International Relations Committee, personally delivered a letter on behalf of his donor, Jeffrey Prosser, to the prime minister of Belize in an attempt to reverse the seizure of a Belizean telephone company owned by Prosser.
The story was carried by The Hill, a Washington based newspaper. […]

Prosser, whose Atlantic Tele Network traffics in phone-sex calls on a 900-number, contributed $2,100 to Weller on June 30, 2005 after Weller made a personal visit to Belize on Prosser’s behalf. Prosser’s wife contributed an additional $2100 in September, 2005, and Prosser declared bankruptcy earlier this month. […]

Please see this for information on how Mr. Weller wrote a letter on April 1st, 2005 on behalf of Mr. Prosser’s company, which he personally delivered to the prime minister of Belize.

Please see this and type in the name Prosser to search for the Prossers’ donations to Weller’s campaign just months after Weller’s personal actions on Mr. Prosser’s behalf.

Please see this in regards to Mr. Prosser’s Atlantic Tele Network and “substantial percentage” of revenue that comes from sex calls.

The Columbia Journalism Review did a story several years ago on Atlantic Tele Network and Presser, claiming he “makes much of his money from a phone-sex business.” Prosser recently filed for bankruptcy.

It should be interesting to see if the big media picks this one up.

  20 Comments      


Filan fires back

Thursday, Aug 31, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller

First we saw the Topinka budget plan. Then Budget Director John Filan lambasted it. Then Sen. Steve Rauschenberger slammed Filan’s criticism. And now we have Director Filan’s retort, done on his own time.

Thank you to Senator Rauschenberger for providing a little more information on Judy Baar Topinka’s spending and revenue proposals. But it still doesn’t add up. Taxpayers need to know how Topinka calculates her proposed revenues and cuts, rather than just taking her guesses at face value, and how much is she really going to invest in education and health care. Unfortunately, the Senator’s response still does not present a clear picture of either the details of Topinka’s proposals or of how the spending proposals and the revenue proposals, when put together add up to a balanced budget in each of the next four years. This stands in clear contrast to the Governor’s budgets, which have won national recognition in consecutive years for being clear and complete by Government Finance Officers Association.

More information helps citizens make an informed judgment about the competing priorities of the candidates, and it also exposes the real problems with Topinka’s budget analysis. Unfortunately, many of Senator Rauschenberger’s comments show the same flaws as Topinka’s plan. The comments, and the Plan, misleads taxpayers, relies on inflated revenues and unrealistic assumptions, and shows continued policy flip-flops.

1. Education

Misleading Taxpayers. If the Topinka budget plan assumes including teacher pension spending in its “education” spending, it is misleading. It provides school districts with an inaccurate estimate of how much they can expect to receive from the State, and claims money for education that actually will be used to pay interest on pension payments prior administrations failed to make. In addition, Topinka has said that she would spend more on schools than the Governor. To the extent that her plan would spend $8.2 billion and also pay for the pension costs of teachers, this is impossible. She should come clean about her spending plan – you can’t say that the same money is going to both pensions and schools, you can’t spend the same money twice.

2. Property Tax Reimbursement

Misleading Taxpayers. Topinka’s property tax proposal continues to mislead taxpayers and local governments. Despite the fact that Topinka claimed $2.4 billion in property tax relief, real tax relief based on historical property tax growth associated with schools from her proposal is only $1.8 billion over 2 years. Moreover, this spending binge will create a harsh hangover in 2010, as the first “unfrozen” school property tax bill will rise by an estimated $1.8 billion, which will be three times as much of an increase as the current property tax our taxpayers have been paying. As the Chicago Sun-Times noted yesterday, “her proposal is akin to pulling a drowning victim into a leaky boat: It merely prolongs the inevitable.” (See: Richards, Cindy “Neither school plan deserves an ‘A’” Chicago Sun-Times 8/30/2006)

3. Cutting Healthcare

Misleading Taxpayers. There is no reason why “Medicaid math” would work differently than ordinary arithmetic. Medicaid eligible individuals are real people who receive healthcare, and the State pays hospitals and doctors based upon the rates they charge, then gets reimbursed by the federal government. To cut these costs, you have to serve fewer people or reduce the rates that hospitals and doctors are paid, or both. Simple math. And if you do this math, you realize over four years 450,000 children, 275,000 parents, or 100,000 seniors could lose needed medical care.

Unrealistic Assumptions. The Topinka plan shows no detail on how these savings will be realistically achieved. But there is one reason that these cuts can’t occur immediately: moving to a block grant requires federal approval, and this takes time. This means that the cuts won’t be achievable in 2008, which means that actually the State would need to cut Medicaid spending by nearly $1 billion- with a B- each year to meet the Treasurer’s claimed targets. Because of federal reimbursement, described below, this means that actual services provided will have to be reduced by as much as $2 billion a year (a quarter of the size of the current Medicaid program). To achieve the savings Topinka claims, the plan also assumes no growth in healthcare costs while this approval process occurs.

Unlike the Topinka plan’s lofty assumptions, the only real solution to controlling healthcare cost increases is to implement realistic cost-controls, like prescription drug controls that are working now, and the primary care case management and disease management managed care initiatives that the Governor has implemented this year, leading to liability growth of 4.4%, significantly lower than historical averages, or what Topinka would have you believe. Republican Governors had 25 years to implement statewide managed care- we’re doing it after just 3 years.

4. Lost Federal Revenue

Senator Rauschenberger notes increased federal receipts from a block grant. The Topinka plan does not provide substantiation for this in its materials, and there is no basis to believe that total federal reimbursements would increase under a block grant. The Bush Administration has been trying for the past three years to significantly reduce State Medicaid funding, not increase it, including recently reducing funding for special education to Illinois schools. In fact, Topinka’s support of block grants (like the Medicaid Block Grant Program President Bush announced in 2003) will reduce federal revenues to the State significantly- which is the Bush Administration’s goal, less money for healthcare, not more. For an example of a non-partisan analysis of California’s attempt to move to a block grant, (See:
http://www.cbp.org/2004/0407medicalrestructure.pdf).

Misleads Taxpayers. Illinois receives 50% reimbursement from the Federal government for most medical services it pays for. Under a block grant, this federal reimbursement will disappear, and by making cuts, our reimbursement would also be reduced, by nearly $500 million a year. It is misleading to suggest that moving to a block grant will allow spending cuts that will offset this lost revenue, in fact such cuts would have to be twice as deep.

Unrealistic Assumptions. In addition, block grants do not allow for intergovernmental agreements or assessments, and the Topinka plan is proud to eliminate this revenue. The assumption that the federal government will replace these revenues is unrealistic. Eliminating transfers and assessments will cost the State and its healthcare providers in the following ways, with a total cost to Illinois (and its healthcare providers) of more than $1.3 billion. The Topinka proposal indicates that it will get rid of these revenues:

Cook County IGT- The State receives $317 million in 2007 from this transfer, and Cook County receives approximately $270 million from this transfer. The State and the County would have to find ways to make up for this lost revenue.

Hospital Assessment Tax - Illinois generates over $600 million from this assessment, of which Illinois Hospitals will receive almost $500 million, GRF receives $80 million, Illinois Nursing Homes receive $40 million and the Illinois developmentally disabled community receives $40 million.

University of Illinois IGT - The State and the University of Illinois share the $48 million that this transfer generates.

DD Assessment - Illinois developmentally disabled community receives an additional $40 million as a result of this assessment. Though GRF is not impacted by the assessment, this will leave a hole in community funding that GRF spending would need to be increased to replace.

Nursing Home Assessment - GRF receives $15 million and Illinois nursing homes receive an additional $30 million from this assessment.

5. Gaming

Flip-flop from Prior Position. Some of the details of Topinka’s gaming plan have only recently been received. While $1 billion in one-time revenues may be plausible given the massive expansion of gaming that Topinka proposes, Topinka provides no detail to support this assertion. More importantly, she provides no detail for recurring revenue assumptions either, and these assumptions seem to fail to take into account relatively obvious results of such an expansion. The Topinka plan would increase overall gaming positions in the state from just over 10,000 to 30,000, supposedly without expanding gaming, and assumes that this expansion will magically create more discretionary dollars to be spent on gambling, rather than competing with the current gambling that exists in the State, as well as, other businesses that rely on consumers discretionary dollars.

Inflated Revenues. When you increase the gaming opportunities in the State as much as Topinka has suggested, these opportunities begin to become counterproductive. That is, casinos are luring the same dollars statewide, and these dollars will begin to be split among facilities, rather than moved from other facilities. Some market share will be taken from Indiana and Wisconsin casinos, and as a result, we estimate based on studies by Deloitte Consulting, LLC and the Illinois Department of Revenue that about $600-700 million annually may be obtained from recurring revenues, about half the $1.25 billion annually that Topinka predicts. There is absolutely no empirical support for an additional $1.25 billion in revenue per year.

Unrealistic Assumptions. The Topinka budget also makes another misleading prediction in its four year plan. It assumes that new positions can be built immediately, and that the legal hurdles that have tied up the tenth riverboat license for years will be immediately surmounted and a new Chicago casino immediately constructed. As most of us know and as suggested in the discussion about capital above, it takes time to build additional space, we estimate very aggressively no less than 9 months for existing casinos and 18 months for the Chicago casino. This means that the full value of the gaming expansion won’t be available until 2010 or 2011- at the earliest. And this doesn’t even take into account the amount of time the 10th license will remain in limbo.

6. School Construction

Unrealistic Assumptions. As the Senator points out, debt service costs will mature at the same rate as the underlying capital spending. However, contrary to his assertions, school construction spending historically has occurred much more quickly than ordinary capital spending. This is also because Republican obstruction to a school capital bill has left our schools desperately in need of improvements, and these improvements need to begin in the next 18 months, not over a period of 5 years. Otherwise, the Topinka plan would unnecessarily delay the commencement of repairs critical to our children’s safety and ability to learn.

7. Pensions

Misleading the Taxpayer. The listed pension increase includes planned increases to POB debt service (at a rate which is consistent with the 1995 funding plan and is GRF funded), as well as increases in required contributions and includes all funds. However, Senator Rauschenberger is apparently unaware that 90% of our pension funding comes from the State’s general funds, and that over 95% of POB debt service does. A GRF value for FY08 is not $520 million, depending on employee payrolls, it will be over $600 million in FY08, and will rise similarly in FY09 and FY10. And, despite her claims, Topinka’s plan would not “fully fund” the pensions- it would only fund the pensions at the level proposed by the flawed Republican 1995 payment schedule, which underfunds the pensions each year until 2035.

8. New Hiring

Unrealistic Assumptions. The hiring of 400 correctional officers over 4 years is a departure from Topinka’s previously public support for the AFSCME proposal to increase correctional officers by 600 immediately and to increase statewide staffing (See: Chambers, Aaron “Union: Forensic shortage hinders evidence analysis” Rockford Register Star 3/28/2006). As AFSCME’s entire proposal was to increase statewide staffing by 2,000, rehiring was based on that calculation, and includes both salaries and related costs (pension, health insurance, social security, fringe benefits), raising average cost of employee to approximately $75,000 per employee (on average over four years)- the very number Topinka used in her August 17, 2006 budget cuts proposal. Her assumption that her budget can be based on a lower number is not credible in this context.

9. Pay Raises

Flip-Flop from Prior Position. “Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka, the Republican candidate for governor, got big cheers from the crowd when she said non-union workers should get the same raise as union employees. Then she tells the IAMG that merit comp employees deserve a raise” (Finke, Doug, “Statehouse Insider” Copley News Service, 5/14/2006).

10. Energy Plan

The estimate simply includes $45 annually as debt service in support of $500 million in capital spending Topinka has proposed in her energy plan, as well as $15 million in one time spending proposed in the energy plan.

11. “Pork”, “No-Bid Contracts” and Firing State Employees

Misleading Taxpayers. The Topinka Plan also attributes $200 million annually in savings to “reducing pork”, eliminating “no-bid” contracts, and getting rid of merit compensation employees. These “savings” were not included in the initial critique of the plan because they are misleading and even her plan shows that they will be unlikely to occur.

Flip-Flop: Pork- Although Topinka claims that she can save $100 million a year by eliminating “pork” from the budget, she does not state what this “pork” includes and cites only tiny examples of what she claims is $100 million a year. Instead, in her description of one-time spending, she promises to allocate funds to “pay-as-you go local projects”- in other words pork. Topinka can’t both promise to pay for pork and eliminate it at the same time- that is a flip-flop.

Flip-Flop: No Bid Contracts. Although Topinka claims that the State can save $75 million a year on eliminating “no-bid” contracts, the Treasurer’s office from 1995-2006 has a significantly higher rate of issuing contracts that were not competitively bid than the Governor’s Office. If Topinka had wished to end “no-bid” contracts, she could have started with her own office, especially with contracts awarded to her campaign contributors. The contracts that Topinka would reduce also affect core state services, such as vaccines for poor children and the ability to get service for Medicaid recipients at Children’s Memorial Hospital, once again a tiny portion of her $300 million claim.

Unrealistic Assumptions. Topinka’s estimate that it can save money by firing merit compensation employees hired over the last four years shows an inability to understand the business of governing and is yet one more unrealistic assumption to base savings on. The 350 employees that Topinka would fire (and not replace any) are in many cases long-term state employees who have changed agencies, or whose term has expired and has taken a non-term position. Firing all of these employees would leave a vacuum that other employees would have to fill, not unlike the vacuum created by George Ryan’s $3.5 billion ERI mistake of 2003.

12. Economic Development Plan

Unrealistic Assumptions. Topinka’s Economic Development Plan makes unrealistic assumptions, and like most other giveaways to large corporations, will actually cost the Illinois taxpayer money. There are already plentiful tax credits that provides hundreds of millions of subsidies to these industries. Though Topinka seems lately to intend for this plan to apply only to incremental manufacturing jobs (or in the case of the new jobs credit, all jobs), in any given year the average job growth is made up of a lot of new jobs and job losses. Unfortunately, Topinka’s plan would provide credits to the new jobs (and make these credits transferable, so even large corporations who outsourced jobs to India could take advantage of them), but not provide a counter measure to offset the lost jobs. This doesn’t make sense, and is estimated, depending on how the plan is structured (whether or not retaining current manufacturing jobs) to cost between an incremental $90-450 million per year, growing each of Topinka’s four years.

13. Elimination of Fund Transfers and Chargebacks

Flip-Flop from Prior Position. Topinka has previously opposed the administrative chargeback procedure and blocked it for over a year (See: Sweeny, Chuck “Topinka blames gov for ‘dysfunctional’ state” Rockford Register Star, 4/21/2006), but now Topinka has flip-flopped and appears to support it, though she has publicly claimed to end “fund raids”. The estimate provided for lost revenue in total is an average of four years of transfers from FY2004 through those anticipated in FY2007. After opposing this practice for four years, we welcome her support if she currently supports processing administrative chargebacks to special funds.

Misleading the Taxpayers. However, Topinka’s opposition to fund transfers is also misleading. Fund transfers are approved and determined by the General Assembly, and Topinka has had and will have no ability to prevent them, short of vetoing fund transfers authorized by the legislature and creating a deficit.

We have responded to the unrealistic and misleading numbers thrown together in the Topinka proposals. However, like the public, we have little or no information. Topinka needs to answer the question – “How did you determine your revenues and budget cuts? Are they real?” Even Topinka’s spending is misleading and needs clarity, especially her education spending. Claiming it doesn’t make it true. Her budget just doesn’t add up.

I would like to thank both campaigns for putting the effort into these highly detailed pieces. This electronic budget “debate” is unprecedented in Illinois. If either side feels the need to continue this, I’m completely open to more.

  39 Comments      


Poll: 71% favor big box ordinance

Thursday, Aug 31, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller

I got this press release from several members of a coalition backing the big box ordinance:

Despite a million-dollar media blitz and vocal opposition from the Mayor, an overwhelming majority of likely voters in Chicago support a living wage law for large retailers according to a citywide poll released on Wednesday. According to the poll, 71% of Chicagoans favor the Big Box Living Wage ordinance, which would require stores like Home Depot, Target and Wal-Mart to pay a living wage of $10 an hour and provide $3 an hour in benefits like health insurance by 2010.

The poll comes after months of heated debate on the Living Wage ordinance. Large retailers and the Mayor have enjoyed repeated press coverage of their opposition to the ordinance, mounted a million dollar advertising campaign against the ordinance, and called 200,000 people to try and convince them to oppose the ordinance. Still, support for the living wage is both broad and deep. Of the 71% of Chicagoans who favor the ordinance, about 9 in 10 said they “strongly favor” it. […]

The ordinance’s broad support shows that the 35 Aldermen who voted in favor of the ordinance reflect the feelings of Chicagoans, while Daley’s opposition is out of step with almost three quarters of the city.

The Mayor’s work to convince Aldermen to switch their votes may make Aldermen politically vulnerable in February’s election. According to the poll, 68%of Chicagoans would view their Alderman less favorably if they took their own pay raise and voted against the Living Wage ordinance. […]

Conducted by Lake Research Partners, a highly respected Washington D.C. firm, the poll determined whether respondents were likely voters, then started with this question:

Now, I am going to read you a proposal that was recently passed by the Chicago City Council. It is called the Big Box Living Wage and Benefits Ordinance. This ordinance applies to any large retailer operating in Chicago with revenues of 1 billion dollars a year or more and 90,000 square feet or larger. This includes stores like Target, Home Depot and Wal-Mart. It requires these large retailers to pay an hourly wage of at least 10 dollars an hour and at least 3 dollars an hour towards benefits like healthcare by 2010. Do you favor or oppose this ordinance?

The poll of 500 registered voters has a margin of error of 4.4% was conducted Lake Research Partners, a nationally recognized polling firm based in Washington, D.C. The poll was funded by Chicago’s UFCW local 881 and Wal-Mart Watch, a national organization dedicated to improving the retailer’s business practices.

Topline results are here. [.doc file]

I’ve requested the crosstabs, and if I get them I’ll post them in the subscriber-only section.

  28 Comments      


Protected: SUBSCRIBERS ONLY - Murphy; Gordon; Target News Feed (use all CAPS in password - use YESTERDAY’S password)

Thursday, Aug 31, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

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Question of the day

Thursday, Aug 31, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller

No, this is not another caption contest. It’s just a humorous illustration.

Question: What would you do if you ran the Illinois government zoo?

  39 Comments      


The baby sitter’s gotta go, says Dillard

Thursday, Aug 31, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller

The saga continues.

Republican state Sen. Kirk Dillard called Wednesday on Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich to remove his children’s baby sitter from the Illinois Civil Service Commission.

The call for Betty Bukraba’s resignation from the panel that decides state employee disciplinary cases came after the Daily Herald reported that Blagojevich appointee Betty Bukraba is the some-time baby sitter for his two daughters.

“It’s unconscionable that taxpayers are paying over $20,000-a-year to reward yet another Blagojevich crony whose fairness and judgment are compromised by her close relationship with the Blagojevich family,” said Dillard, the DuPage County Republican chairman who was speaking as a surrogate for Republican governor candidate Judy Baar Topinka. […]

The civil service commission is poised to decide a key case involving two downstate personnel workers Blagojevich officials fired after accusing them of fixing hiring tests to get jobs for politically-connected applicants. The attorney for the two workers, who are trying to get their jobs back, says the duo was just following orders from Blagojevich higher-ups. The case is unfolding during the middle of a governor’s race as Blagojevich fends off a widespread federal probe into his administration’s hiring practices.

The governor’s office makes a good point, however.

Blagojevich spokesman Abby Ottenhoff defended Bukraba. […]

She said Bukraba is qualified to serve on the panel, pointing to the 14 years she spent as the director of personnel services in the Cook County Circuit Court Clerk’s office before retiring.

It doesn’t matter. The baby sitter’s decision in the crucial Dawn DeFraties case will be severely tainted, so she should probably step down.

  32 Comments      


Back and forth

Thursday, Aug 31, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller

The personalilty conflicts will always lead the stories.

The two Chicago-area candidates for governor took turns Wednesday wooing farmers’ votes in a sea of central Illinois corn, touting competing energy plans that would replace oil with ethanol and chiding each other for ignoring rural communities. […]

The governor’s new, $1.2 billion energy plan, featured this week in campaign commercials throughout the southern half of the state, would put ethanol-based fuel in all Illinois gas stations in 10 years.

“I have nothing against oil . . . , (but) if we want a lasting solution, it has to come from the heartland of America,” he said.

Minutes after Blagojevich left the event, Topinka took the stage to accuse him of being a late convert. She noted she came out with an ethanol-based energy plan several weeks ago, “and 10 days later, the governor presented almost the same idea and immediately began running television advertisements.”

But there is a legitimate policy difference here, too, that mostly gets pushed down to the bottom, as it was in this piece.

“I believe that if we’re successful in November, that we’ll get some sort of bonding program to do this sort of thing as well as build the schools and the road projects that are critical to our state and our infrastructure,” said Blagojevich, who also toured construction sites at Illinois State University during his visit Wednesday to Central Illinois.

Topinka, however, scoffed at any idea of borrowing more money. She said Illinois has special-use funds generated by agriculture-related business to build ethanol plants but the governor raided those funds.

“I’m going to use renewable energy dollars to build new renewable energy projects. I’m not going to raid those funds,” she said.

  9 Comments      


Barney Fife strikes again

Thursday, Aug 31, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller

This is one of the worst cases of bureaucratic foolishness that I’ve seen in a very long while.

The governor’s inspector general flunked thousands of state employees on an annual ethics exam because they rushed.

Letters sent to 5,000 or more state employees rescinded “certificates of completion” on the ethics review because they didn’t spend the minimum amount of time on the computerized program.

A spokesman for an employees’ union called the situation “preposterous.”

Some employees spent less than 10 minutes on the program, which includes 80 pages. Inspector General James Wright’s office said employees, on average, spend more than a half-hour reviewing the training.

The governor’s inspector general’s office established a minimum time for taking the exam, but they won’t say what those minimums are and didn’t bother to tell the test-takers that they’d better study long and hard before they took the goofy little exam at the end of the packet. Now, thousands of state workers face disciplinary action for pretty much no reason whatsoever.

The IG’s office ought to be ashamed of itself for being such a bunch of cruel nitwits. Unfortunately, like any bureaucrat without a clue of how to accomplish their mandates, and flush with their own authority (and eager, like Barney, to finally take that bullet out of their shirt pocket), they are probably patting themselves on the back right now.

  34 Comments      


Gone?

Thursday, Aug 31, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller

Expect to hear a lot of cursing and moaning soon from just about every ex frat boy in the state.

After 80 years, Chief Illiniwek on Saturday will begin what is likely to be his last year of dancing at University of Illinois football games, university sources said.

The chief, who will appear at the season opener at Memorial Stadium in Champaign, will also dance at home basketball games this winter.

But after that, he will no longer be an official university symbol, the sources said

The Sun-Times also has a timeline of the Chief’s existence. According to the paper, the mascot was created in 1926.

My father once gave me a very old edition of The Illio, the official U of I yearbook, that he bought somewhere. My copy is from 1921, five years before the Chief was “created.” Back then, one of the officially sanctioned “inter-fraternity junior social organizations” on campus was the “Klu Klux Klan.” Here’s a scan:

Am I equating the Chief’s creators with the U of I chapter of the KKK (which I doubt is even the “real” KKK because it’s spelled differently, but you get the idea)? No. But it’s important to realize that there was pretty much no such thing as racial sensitivity back then. I doubt anyone cared in the 1920s if the Chief caused offense. We’re supposed to be different now.

Also, I’m perfectly aware that some Illini fans are gonna get all kinds of upset at me for this. So, again, I’m not equating the U of I’s officially sanctioned KKK chapter with the Chief. But I am suggesting that we should use it to think about the racial mores of the time period in which that currently racially controversial mascot was created. That way we might better examine the legacy that era has bequeathed us.

  88 Comments      


All is not as it seems

Thursday, Aug 31, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller

On the surface, at least, most of the political hacks hired by some city departments appear qualified.

Ninety-seven percent of employees in seven departments at the center of the City Hall hiring scandal meet the minimum qualifications for the jobs they hold — whether or not they got them through clout, a $76,000 audit has concluded.

Virchow, Krause & Co. LLP reviewed the personnel files of 405 employees in the departments of Aviation, Buildings, General Services, Sewers, Streets and Sanitation, Transportation and Water Management to determine whether workers met city standards. […]

The audit was conducted by perusing personnel files for driver’s license, commercial driver’s license, union journeyman’s card and resumes.

However

The audit did not examine the process by which the workers were hired or attempt to determine whether they were the best candidates for their jobs, said Ron Huberman, chief of staff to Mayor Richard Daley.

And Cindi makes a good point.

Cindi Canary, executive director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, said the audit reveals very little.

“This report certainly is good as far as it goes,” Canary said. “It just certainly doesn’t go very far.”

“I think the question back at the city is, “How is the hiring process working?’” Canary added. “Are they in fact, in each search that they do, making sure that they are hiring the best-qualified person?”

  2 Comments      


Morning shorts

Thursday, Aug 31, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller

· Mayor dodges 6th-term question

· The same Congress that has put our nation trillions of dollars in debt has the gall to come to Illinois and criticize how we handle our pension funds. Granted, Illinois is not doing a great job with the pension funds, but Congress ought to get its own act together before casting a stone this direction.

· “In a show of how far immigrants have moved to fulfill the American dream, scores of immigrant advocates will skip their barbecues and lakefront picnics this weekend to join in a 44.9-mile walk from Chinatown to the home office of House Speaker Dennis Hastert in Batavia.”

· Blagojevich, Topinka tout alternative energy plans

· Selling to state is roundtable topic

· “Visiting ISU for the first time during his term as Illinois governor, Rod Blagojevich set out to talk about the importance of higher education and to congratulate ISU for being an outstanding university, applauding in agreement with a statement made by ISU President Al Bowman who cited the university as the first and the best public university in the state.”

· “[Frankfort Township assessor, Paul J. Ruff] says he hasn’t paid up because “a bunch of Mexicans” working for Fence Outlet made more than $2,000 worth of mistakes, like installing part of the structure in his neighbor’s yard.”

  4 Comments      


Protected: SUBSCRIBERS ONLY - McKeon Replacement Named; Target News Feed (use all CAPS in password - use YESTERDAY’S password)

Wednesday, Aug 30, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller

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Question of the day

Wednesday, Aug 30, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller

Are you planning to work on any campaigns this fall? If so, which one(s) and what will you be doing?

  76 Comments      


Budget debate - Rauschenberger responds to Filan

Wednesday, Aug 30, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller

Within hours of Judy Baar Topinka releasing her budget plan last week, Gov. Blagojevich’s budget director, John Filan, was claiming that Topinka’s proposal would produce $5.7 billion annual deficits.

So, I offered Topinka’s budget point person, Sen. Steve Rauschenberger, an opportunity to respond to Filan’s claims. This is Rauschenberger’s full response. All emphasis is in the original. Topinka’s original proposal is here, and Filan’s response is here. Both are pdf files.

Thank you for the opportunity to respond to John Filan’s release on Judy Baar Topinka’s Financial plan.

Let’s look at the numbers one at a time.

Under proposed new spending.

Education $2.05 billion. It appears Filan has taken Topinka’s cumulative increase of $8.2 billion and divided by four years. For complicated reasons, that method doesn’t accurately represent the average increased spending per year. In addition, our 8.2 billion figure included teacher pensions, which he appears to double count below.

School Construction Debt Service $270 million. This appears to be an attempt to assign a debt service figure to Judy’s $3 billion school construction plan. This would be close to the level where debt service tops out, so they have picked the highest year to place in his table. I believe this figure is a shade high, but in the neighborhood. If this represents a “top-out” debt service figure, it would be applicable to perhaps FY12 or FY13 when the six year program is in full swing.

Funding Pension System at 1995 Plan $627 million. This might be John Filan’s estimate of the FY08 increase in pension payments. If that is the assumption, then he is close for an All Funds (including Federally Funded, University Income Funded, etc. employees) figure. Judy’s financial plan is a GRF plan, and the first year GRF increase is closer to $520 million.

Rehiring State Employees $150 million. Judy’s plan calls for rehiring 400 prison guards over 4 years. The funding for that initiative tops out at $16 million in FY11 if you assume $40,000.00 per guard per year. Filan’s figure would represent $375,000.00 per guard per year.

Pay Raises for Merit Comp Employees $33 million. Judy’s plan is silent on this issue (maybe John is feeling guilty and suggesting it), but she does believe pay raises for merit comp employees are important, if affordable.

Energy Plan $60 million. No one I know has any idea where this figure comes from.

Higher Education $100 million. This represents the incremental increase in higher education funding in the first year, FY08.

Local Property Tax Reimbursement $1.2 Billion. This is the total that will be spent on property tax relief in FY09.

John Filan appears to add these cherry-picked numbers from different fiscal years, and adds them up to call them “New Spending”.

Under Budget Cuts he lists only:

Cutting Healthcare to “Kids and Seniors” ($725 million). He appears to have taken the $2.9 billion four year cumulative spending difference between Topinka’s Medicaid plan and Blagojevich’s Medicaid plan, and divided by four. Unfortunately, Medicaid math does not work this way and this number is useless.

Filan fails to acknowledge the other budget savings proposed by Topinka’s financial plan including the elimination of pork spending and clout contracts and politically connected jobs.

Under New Revenue Filan lists:

Chicago Casino ($850 one-time, $250 annual per year starting in Year 2). Perhaps $850 million one-time is a reasonable estimate of the auction value of a 3000 position Chicago license… but in Judy’s financial plan they used a conservative estimate of $650 million. For the record Judy’s plan DOES NOT budget one-time revenues for the operating budget. She specifically reserves this resource for one-time spending needs, therefore the number should not even be on Filan’s chart.

As to operating revenue, John Filan is apparently assuming that a 3000 position casino in the heart of Chicago will yield $250 million in gaming taxes. According to the estimate by the Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability, the 1200 position riverboat in Elgin will generate almost $200 million this year. The financial plan’s estimate of $600 million per year is much closer to Mayor Daley’s own estimate of three years ago.

Additional positions at existing casinos $350 million. Filan’s own revenue estimates assume the 9 operating riverboat licenses will bring in $700 million this year. He seems to be arguing that allowing existing riverboats to expand up to 150% of there gaming positions (from 1200 to 3000) will yeild a revenue increase of just 50%… he is way to low.

Filan’s rebutal fails to acknowledge the new Federal revenue that would be realized by the implementation of the Medicaid Block Grant.

Under lost revenue as defined in Filan’s response.

Economic Development Plan (from Tax Credits) $1.5 Billion. No one I know (except perhaps John Filan) has any idea where this number comes from or what it ties to.

Restore Corporate Fees/Eliminate Chargebacks $408 million. Judy’s plan calls for the elimination of fund sweeps, but does not call for the elimination of Chargebacks. I do not know where he gets this number from.

Re-Open Corporate Loopholes $30 million. Topinka, I am sure would argue the characterization, but the number is close.

Lost Federal Revenue from Medicaid Cuts $775 million. Under Topinka’s financial plan, Medicaid is converted to a block grant. You cannot lose federal match under a block grant because the federal contribution is fixed and NOT subject to matching.

For fun, let’s assume that Filan missed the whole point on Judy’s Medicaid reform, how does he forecast a loss of $775 million in federal aid when he earlier asserted this same plan called for a $725 reduction in Medicaid spending?? If his number is right on the spending reduction of $725 million, the federal aid loss is 50% or $362.5 million; if his number on loss of federal aid is right at $775 million, the program spending must be reduced by $1.550 BILLION.

I realize John Filan was taking a vacation day when he worked up this response to Treasurer Topinka’s four year financial plan. I do not fault him for not completely understanding a rather complex series of financial documents developed over more than 10 weeks at first glance. I do believe he has a responsibility as both the Budget Director and as a Licensed Accountant to make every effort NOT to mislead people regardless of how rushed he is.

The response he has issued mixes permanent and one-time revenues, uses numbers from different fiscal years as if they can simply be summed. His response doesn’t document where any of his numbers come from. In short, I believe this response was designed to confuse the issues, not debate them. That is wrong for the Budget Director to do, wrong for an accountant to do. Using the cover of one’s official office to mislead the public and the press is wrong.

- State Senator Steve Rauschenberger

Director Filan’s office was e-mailed a copy of Rauschenberger’s statement yesterday afternoon and will be allowed an opportunity to respond here as early as tomorrow. I reserve the right to allow further responses.

  49 Comments      


Immigrant boom in suburbs

Wednesday, Aug 30, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller

These are amazing numbers.

The number of foreign-born U.S. citizens jumped by nearly 38 percent in the suburbs over the last five years — leaping almost 50 percent in DuPage County alone and doubling in Will and Grundy counties, according to an analysis of Census information by a pro-immigrant group.

Calling it “a fundamental sea change of where immigrant citizens are living,” the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights argues the changes have far-reaching political ramifications. […]

Most important politically is the rise in the number of immigrants who have become U.S. citizens, making them eligible to vote. In the last five years the number of naturalized citizens in Illinois rose 23.1 percent, to 736,161.

But the real growth has been in the suburbs.

While Chicago only experienced a 4 percent increase in naturalized citizens of voting age during the period, the suburbs saw a boom of 37.5 percent.

The 48.2 percent rise in DuPage County means that 14.4 percent of its voting age population are naturalized citizens. In Will and Grundy counties, the number of adult naturalized citizens doubled, making them 6.3 percent of the total voting age population.

Read the full report here, and read the full press release here.

  8 Comments      


Ace in the hole

Wednesday, Aug 30, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller

As I’ve said before, the governor desperately needs to win the Civil Service Commission case against Dawn DeFraties so he can claim that he’s been vindicated of allegations of patronage abuse and pin the whole blame on the whistleblower. Apparently, the guv had an ace in the hole.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich appointed his children’s baby sitter to a $21,507-a-year post on a panel that resolves state hiring disputes. […]

As a member of the Illinois Civil Service Commission, Bukraba soon could be asked to rule in a key case centering on accusations of political clout being used to fix hiring for state jobs.

Given the close relationship between Bukraba and the Blagojevich family, government watchdog groups question whether she might have a natural bias in favor of the Blagojevich administration.

“If I were appearing in front of the commission, yeah, I’d be concerned about her being on that panel deciding my fate,” said Jay Stewart, executive director of the Better Government Association. “(Bukraba) is not a stranger to the governor, some Democrat who had relevant experience, as those appointments are typically made.”

I think I read about this first in a comment posted here several days ago. I kinda sped by it and, stupid me, didn’t follow up.

  29 Comments      


Divide and conquer

Wednesday, Aug 30, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller

This leak…

Dorothy Brown, the clerk of the Cook County Circuit Court, intends to announce plans to run for mayor next year, according to a person close to her campaign committee.

Ms. Brown plans to announce her decision Thursday afternoon at the Hotel Allegro in downtown Chicago, months after forming an exploratory committee to eye a potential campaign for City Hall. The mayoral election is scheduled for February 2007.

…may have been caused by this

As for Dorothy Brown, Axelrod says she may be jumping in now because the word on the street is that Jesse Jackson Jr. is contemplating some type of announcement of his own in the next few days, and she wants to beat him to the punch.

…which undoubtedly triggered this leak…

Chicago Housing Authority Chief Terry Peterson is taking a leave of absence to run Mayor Daley’s re-election campaign in the first concrete sign that Daley intends to shake off recent corruption scandals and seek a sixth term, sources said Tuesday.

“Nobody’s heard him say it, but if you’re looking for tangibles, this is as good a sign as any,” said a Daley adviser, who asked to remain unnamed.

Meanwhile, there’s more division in the African-American community.

In an exclusive CBS 2 News report, CBS 2’s Mike Parker has learned that some leaders among the Democrats want Todd Stroger off the ballot for November and replaced by a stronger candidate to face Peraica.

“I’m going to win, and I don’t see any reason why I would want to bow out,” Stroger said.

But quietly, some Democrats have discovered that election law allows the candidate to refuse the nomination before Oct. 1. Party leaders would then select somebody else.

One possible alternative appears to be Interim Board President Bobbie Steele. In the wake of a patronage hiring flap, Steele issued an executive order Tuesday threatening to discipline anybody who hires, fires or promotes, based on politics.

  12 Comments      


Guv turns down tollway sale again, but it’s a whole lot of cash

Wednesday, Aug 30, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller

The governor said once again that he doesn’t want to sell or lease the tollway.

“We’re not going to sell the tollway. I’m not interested in that, for several reasons. We’ve done a lot of great things at the tollway to help commuters get to where they want to go faster. One of the problems with privatizing the tollway is the private companies whose motivation is to raise profits. They’re apt to raise tolls, and they may be less interested in maintaining the infrastructure,” said Blagojevich, a Democrat in his first term.

The governor said he doesn’t believe there’s enough support in the Legislature to pass a tollway privatization bill.

But some legislators who were briefed yesterday came away drooling at the possible $24 billion windfall.

Supporters of leasing out the tollway downplayed Tuesday the potential impact of related toll hikes as several suburban leaders appeared increasingly skeptical of the idea.

Yet, the prospect of raking in as much as $24 billion from the lease so intrigued lawmakers of all stripes during a hearing in Glen Ellyn that none would rule out such a sweeping deal.

“This is a unique opportunity,” said Republican DuPage County Chairman Robert Schillerstrom, who listed several caveats to leasing the tollway, before concluding, “I do not believe we should close the door.”

Steve Rauschenberger wasn’t impressed.

“You buy four or six years of political peace with that,” he said.

And some of the tax-eaters have already said what they want if the tollway is ever sold.

Schoenberg got an earful a week ago from AFSCME Illinois Council 31, Business Leaders for Transportation in the Chicago area, the Mid-West Truckers Association, the Transportation for Illinois Coalition, and the Laborers International Union of North America Midwest Region. Each offered wish lists for safeguarding wages, benefits, retirement and training of current tollway employees. They also urged caution in deciding how the extra state revenue would be spent.

  7 Comments      


Morning shorts

Wednesday, Aug 30, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller

· Illinois students improve in math, fall in verbal scores

· Poverty rises in Illinois, holds steady nationwide

· “[T]he handsome and flamboyant Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich proved that he could outshine any Bollywood star with his crowd catching demeanor and easy mingling with the people. He won everybody’s heart and induced other Parade Marshals like Dorothy Brown to emulate his example and mix with the crowd. ”

· Editorial: Slow down search for state school chief

· Topinka discusses funding for reading during daycare stop

· Topinka’s new robocall

· State retirees work to keep taxes at bay

· Editorial: The imperfections of man

· I pre-ordered the new Dylan album, and I agree with most everything in this review.

  7 Comments      


Roskam claims health care plan

Tuesday, Aug 29, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller

I’m posting this not only to give y’all a chance to pick it apart, but because I’m wondering if other Republican congressional candidates and incumbents will be using the same template.

Sixth District Congressional candidate Senator Peter Roskam outlined a 4 point health care agenda focusing on more choices, greater quality and reducing costs for suburban families and businesses. […]

“As the brother of 5 doctors, I am a natural advocate for finding innovative ways to make healthcare more affordable and accessible for suburban families and businesses,” said Roskam. “I believe Congress needs to give families and businesses more control over their own
health care decisions. I will work to provide healthcare consumers more choices and greater quality while reducing the cost of health care” […]

Roskam 4 Point Health Care Agenda for Businesses and Families

Step 1: Enact legislation to create Small Business Health Plans

Roskam will support legislation creating “Small Business Health Plans” which provide small businesses the opportunity
to band together to enjoy greater bargaining power and administrative efficiency.

* According to the Small Business Administration, 99% of all employers are small businesses and would benefit from these plans.

* Specifically, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that small businesses would see an average premium reduction of 13-25% under Small Business Health Plans (CBO, January 2000).

* This represents a real cost savings of $450 - $1,250 per employee. Most importantly, according to CONSAD Research Corporation, as many as 8.5 million previously uninsured workers would receive coverage thanks to Small Business Health Plans.

Step 2: Expand Tax Free Health Savings Accounts (HSA’s)

Roskam supports legislation expanding Health Savings Accounts by increasing contribution limits allowing families and businesses to contribute the maximum amount under their Health Savings Account.

* Co-Sponsor H.R. 5262, the “Tax-Free Health Savings Act.”

* Under this legislation, HSA’s would allow existing plans such as Flexible Savings Accounts to roll into HSA’s so they can take advantage of the additional benefits of this plan.

* HSA’s offer triple tax savings: 1) tax deductions when you or your employer contributes to your account, 2) tax-free earnings through
investment, 3) tax-free withdrawals for qualified medical expenses (U.S. Treasury Department, April 2005).

* In addition to healthcare cost savings, HSA’s have helped to combat the rising number of uninsured. According to the America’s Health Insurance Plan Trade Organization, 30% of individual HSA purchasers were previously uninsured. While critics seek to paint HSA’s as an option “for the rich only”, Assurant Health data indicates that 50% of purchasers have family incomes of less than $50,000.

Step 3: Promote healthcare efficiency and effectiveness with Health Information Technology

Roskam supports legislation to implement electronic health care records and health information technology.

* Researchers from RAND have concluded that effective health information technology and electronic health record implementation could save more than $81 billion per year, in addition to countless lives.

* Recently, the Health Information Technology Promotion Act of 2005 passed the House with 58 cosponsors and bipartisan support (H.R. 4157). Peter Roskam wholeheartedly supports this effort to provide quality healthcare at an affordable cost.

* Specifically, H.I.T. can reduce the rate of serious medical error by 55% and decrease the rate of potential adverse drug events by 84% (The Center for Health Transformation).

* Electronic Health Records offer a secure, portable way to maintain and share patient information between healthcare providers. These records have shown to reduce the rate of adverse drug events by 34%, decrease unnecessary lab utilization by 9%, and save over $44 billion per year (The Center for Health Transformation).

Step 4: Medicare

Roskam will work to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse and crack-down on those who abuse Medicare.

* The corrupt Medicare practices that are costing taxpayers as much as $54.5 million a day.

* According to the HHS Inspector General, waste, fraud, abuse, and improper payments drained as much as $19.9 billion from the Medicare Trust Fund in 2004 alone.

* Support the “Medicare Fraud Prevention Bill” sponsored by Congresswoman Judy Biggert which would reduce erroneous payments and strengthen law enforcement powers relating to Medicare abuse.

  31 Comments      


Protected: SUBSCRIBERS ONLY - McKeon; Tracy; Parnarauskis; Rita; Target News Feed (use all CAPS in password - use YESTERDAY’S password) - UPDATED x1

Tuesday, Aug 29, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller

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Question of the day

Tuesday, Aug 29, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller

What are your impressions of Sen. Barack Obama’s trip to Africa?

  62 Comments      


Bad news for IDOT leaders - Updated x1

Tuesday, Aug 29, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller

[Bumped up because it was posted so late yesterday.]

Have a look at this. [pdf file - fixed link] IDOT Secretary Tim Martin and two of his deputies appear to be royally screwed.

Martin, Mike Stout and Scott Doubet were sued by several former IDOT employees who claimed their firings were politically motivated.

“During the first months of tenure as governor, Rod Blagojevich publicly announced plans to fire employees that he associated with high-ranking members of the prior Republican administration on allegations that they participated in personnel transactions that would protect their continued employment,” states the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Springfield.

It also says that Blagojevich directed the hiring of people on contract “for the purpose of identifying employees in State agencies that could be targeted for firing based on alleged affiliation” with the administration of former GOP Gov. George Ryan.

The attorney general originally appointed Jenner & Block to handle the case, but J&B backed out and IDOT’s top lawyer ordered the firm not to turn over any documents to AG Lisa Madigan’s office.

The dispute went to court, and a judge ruled today in favor of Lisa Madigan, ordering J&B to turn over the files.

This is a lose-lose-lose for the defendants, who claimed that Madigan wasn’t representing their best interests. That’s pretty obviously happening, as Madigan appears to be representing the state’s best interests and not necessarily the three individual defendants. They have complained bitterly of this in various pleadings.

[As I just wrote in comments, it seems clear to me that Madigan believes or at least suspects that the defendants acted outside the scope of their employment or she wouldnt have done things like order three IDOT employees to turn over subpoenas and threaten them with contempt of court against the defendants’ wishes.]

[Parenthetical update: I just lost half this post after attempting to update on my Treo. From here on out is a recreation.]

The judge also ruled that they could not hire their own attorney unless they gave up indemnification, which isn’t much of a choice.

The Defendants, in their individual capacities, may always forego indemnification by the state and hire their own attorneys to represent them. If they do so, the Attorney General will still represent them in their official capacities since those claims are against the state of Illinois.

And in a final blow, the judge ruled that Mary Lee Leahy had to answer questions and was not protected by attorney client privilege. The plaintiffs and AG Madigan wanted Leahy to be deposed (which gives you another idea where Madigan is going with this.) Leahy had advised the governor’s office after Blagojevich was sworn in, and had met with top IDOT officials, apparently about the case in question.

Thus, the dispute about Leahy’s deposition is, once again, a strategic one about how to conduct the defense. The Defendants consented to the Attorney General conducting the defense and agreed to cooperate. The Defendants, therefore, gave the Attorney General the authority to make these types of strategic decisions. Again, the Defendants do not assert that the substance of Leahy’s testimony will be adverse to their interests. The Attorney General’s strategic decision to let Leahy be deposed, therefore, is not adverse to them and, so, does not create a conflict of interest between the Attorney General and them.

The Sun-Times wrote about this back in May in a story entitled “Gov muzzles his clout-buster.”

At his first press conference as governor, Rod Blagojevich announced he was bringing in a clout-busting lawyer to help take politics out of state hiring. But now the governor doesn’t want her talking about what she did. His lawyers are keeping attorney Mary Lee Leahy from answering questions about whether 17 state employees were bounced in 2004 because of their political ties. […]

Attorneys for the laid-off workers say the administration is muzzling Leahy because it broke rules designed to make sure politics is not a factor in the overwhelming majority of state jobs. The federal government has been investigating state hiring since last fall, when a wave of subpoenas hit the administration.

UPDATE: The AP has a story up now. Not much different than what I have posted, but go see it for yourself.

  66 Comments      


No respect should be expected

Tuesday, Aug 29, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller

Political scientists make the expected predictions.

A third-party candidate for Illinois governor will find out Thursday whether he’ll be on the ballot in November.

But even if the Illinois State Board of Elections rules in Rich Whitney’s favor, analysts say the Green Party candidate’s effect on the results of the election will be negligible.

“I don’t think there’s going to be a lot of impact,” said Chris Mooney, a political scientist at the University of Illinois-Springfield. […]

“He may siphon off a couple of thousand votes, but it’s not going to mean anything,” said Roosevelt University political scientist Paul Green.

The most likely scenario is that Whitney will pull votes away from Blagojevich, said John Jackson, an analyst with the Paul Simon Public Policy Center at Southern Illinois University.

Meanwhile, the Illinois Radio Network has turned thumbs down on inviting Rich Whitney to participate in the governor’s debate.

Jim Anderson of the Illinois Radio Network has told candidate for Illinois governor Rich Whitney that he will not be allowed to join the Oct. 2 debate with Gov. Blagojevich and Treasurer Topinka.

That’s not unexpected. The IRN hired burly security guards for a debate a few years ago to prevent an uninvited third party candidate from crashing.

The state Green Party opened its southern Illinois office this week.

Music, food, speeches and a dancing chicken named “Gov. Cluck-o-vich,” are all needed for a successful Green Party headquarters opening. The Greens, lead by gubernatorial candidate Rich Whitney, opened the doors to their Carbondale office Saturday afternoon.

Cluck-o-vich?

  27 Comments      


Weller

Tuesday, Aug 29, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller

This is classic DC politics.

Rep. Jerry Weller, a sixth-term Republican who grew up on a family farm, represents a district in rural Illinois that’s a far cry from the sandy beaches of the Caribbean.

But in the past three years Weller has become Capitol Hill’s go-to guy for issues dear to the U.S. island territory of Puerto Rico, from getting more federal money for its hospitals to lowering a manufacturing tax that business interests say prevents U.S. companies from locating there. […]

Weller’s 11th Congressional District has hardly any Puerto Ricans, according to a 2005 U.S. Census Bureau survey that estimated of its roughly 698,000 residents, only 677 to 3,569 are likely to fall into that category — less than 1 percent of the total.

In addition to the manufacturing bill, Weller has also co-sponsored legislation to increase Medicare reimbursements for hospitals in Puerto Rico that advocates say could bring the island by tens of millions of dollars annually and another bill that would let Puerto Ricans vote on whether they want to continue as a U.S. territory.

Meanwhile, back in his actual district

Today’s celebration of the 22nd anniversary of the Illinois and Michigan Canal National Heritage Corridor authorization is bittersweet.

Sweet because, through the years, the canal has become a backyard haven for tourists, history buffs, and outdoor enthusiasts, plus has sparked new commerce and jobs in communities along the 96-mile historic artery from Chicago to La Salle.

Bitter, because the U.S. Senate today has still not authorized $10 million in funding for the corridor in the federal government’s 2007 fiscal budget, noted Ana Koval, president and CEO of the non-profit Canal Corridor Association, which operates the NHC. […]

Koval said Congressman Jerry Weller, R-Morris, who authored the measure in the House, said this was agreed-upon legislation he thought the Senate would pass a couple days later.

“But, the Senate went home without doing it. Until the legislation is actually passed, it doesn’t put the canal in line to be added to the budget,” said Koval.

“Meanwhile, the clock keeps ticking. Next to our name now on the appropriations list is a big fat zero. The deadlines for requests is long gone - it’s far along in the budget process.”

And the Chicago Reader had a cover story last week on the Congressman’s marriage to the daughter of a former Guatemalan dictator. The two recently had a baby, and the child was born in Guatemala.

I’ve known Jerry Weller a long time. He’s a natural politician and a great campaigner. With a litany like I’ve just laid out, and with a district that just barely leans GOP, those skills are undoubtedly the main reason he’s not on any political target lists this year. At least, not yet.

  11 Comments      


Morning shorts

Tuesday, Aug 29, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller

· “The Fix” moves Illinois into play.

15. Illinois: Even Democrats acknowlege that Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) is vulnerable this fall. A cloud of ethical problems hovers over his administration and could counter the prevailing Democratic winds nationally. State Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka (R) is far from a world-beater but the race is likely to be focused almost entirely on the incumbent. Topinka has struggled to stay within financial range of Blagojevich — a trend that if it continues will make it tough for her to push her change message. (Previous ranking: N/A)

· Study: Ill. tollways lease could mean toll increases for drivers

· ‘Sweetheart‘ deal given to gov donor slammed

· Editorial: The Cook County jobs machine

· Shakman goes after county hiring

· Alleged ghost worker gets pension

· “Chicago politicians rarely get the chance to lecture others about honest government, and U.S. Sen. Barack Obama took advantage of the opportunity Monday when he urged Kenyans to fight against public corruption.”

· Hanania: Reversing Vote Is Not Answer To Big Box Crisis

· Apparently, the governor is in southern Illinois.

· “Patti Blagojevich laughed and said the DuQuoin State Fair is a place where kids can be kids. ‘This fair is cozier and more comfortable for parents with children,” Blagojevich said. “But still it has everything you can find in Springfield.’”

· State’s crime rate drops

· Jeff Trigg moves to the National Taxpayers United of Illinois.

· Chapman: The wrong road to fuels of the future

· Gov’s administration settles union dispute for $1 mil.

· “Democratic U.S. Rep. Melissa Bean and Republican challenger David McSweeney clashed on stem cell research and tax cuts but fundamentally agreed on the Iraq war and immigration reform at a Monday debate in Waukegan.”

  14 Comments      


PREVIOUS POSTS »
* Sunday roundup: Rep. Williams says no takeover; 'Guardrail' bill floated; More alderpersons sign letter; Biz weighs in; CTU president claims city pays the bills for 'every municipality in this state'; Progressive Caucus supports letter
* News coverage roundup: Entire Chicago Board of Education to resign (Updated x2)
* Mayor to announce school board appointments on Monday
* Reader comments closed for the weekend
* Isabel’s afternoon roundup
* Question of the day (Updated)
* Ahead of mass school board resignation, some mayoral opponents ask Pritzker to step in, but he says he has no legal authority (Updated x5)
* Governor’s office says Senate Republicans are “spreading falsehoods” with their calls for DCFS audit (Updated)
* Meanwhile… In Opposite Land
* Open thread
* Isabel’s morning briefing
* SUBSCRIBERS ONLY - Supplement to today’s edition and some campaign and court-related stuff
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