* Back in 2014, gubernatorial candidate Bruce Rauner wrote this on his Personal PAC questionnaire…
“I fundamentally believe that abortion should be a woman’s private decision, hopefully in consultation with her loved ones and her faith community, and that decision should not be impeded by government,” Rauner wrote in reply to Personal PAC’s questionnaire.
“This principle should apply to all women, regardless of income level or location of residency. As governor, I will work to ensure equal access to contraception and abortion services. It is my hope that by increasing access to reproductive health services we can reduce the incidence of abortions in Illinois, while ensuring that women who do make this decision receive services in a timely manner,” he wrote.
Rauner added: “My highest priority in this area will be to ensure effective administration of the laws regarding access to contraception and provide that access regardless of income. I dislike the Illinois law that restricts abortion coverage under the state Medicaid plan and state employees’ health insurance because I believe it unfairly restricts access based on income. I would support a legislative effort to reverse that law.”
Additionally, Rauner checked “yes” boxes on questions about whether he would sign bills repealing the so-called trigger law as well as legislation about lifting Medicaid and state-employee insurance restrictions. [Emphasis added.]
As you already know, Gov. Rauner recently made it known that he will veto HB 40, which would repeal the trigger law and expand Medicaid and state employee health insurance coverage of abortion.
* The governor was asked about his flip-flop today…
Expanding taxpayer funding, expanding taxpayer funding is a very divisive issue. It’s a very controversial issue. What we need to do is focus in Illinois. We need to protect existing Illinois law, but we need to focus on jobs. We need to focus on reducing property taxes. We need to focus on education funding. We need to focus on getting term limits on elected officials. These are difficult issues. We need to focus on, this has everything, we need to focus.
It has everything to do with focus. What we should not do is take on controversial, divisive issues right now, when we don’t have a balanced budget, when we do not have proper school funding, when we do not have economic growth and job creation. We should not take on divisive, controversial issues and expanding taxpayer funding is a controversial, divisive issue.
We should protect existing law, protect women’s reproductive rights in the state of Illinois. That is not controversial, at least for the majority of folks. Changing and expanding taxpayer funding, very controversial, very divisive and we need to focus. We need to focus on jobs, we need to focus on relief for property taxpayers, we need to focus on proper school funding and we need to focus on fixing our political culture by putting term limits on elected officials.
* He was then asked: “Did you not know in 2014 that this was a divisive issue, and what changed between then and now?”
The governor’s response…
We need, we need to focus. What we don’t have is a balanced budget in Illinois. What we don’t have is structural change to grow jobs, to protect our property taxpayers and bring down our property taxes. What we don’t have is proper school funding in the state of Illinois, and we still don’t have term limits, even though the people of Illinois overwhelmingly want term limits to fix our political culture. We have got to, we have got to focus. We have got to focus, we’ve gotta get this done. Thank you.
…Adding… From a friend…
As a woman, it sounds like all other state problems are more important.
* Just for clarity, the governor’s budget office filed a fiscal impact note two years ago on a bill with the exact same Medicaid and group health insurance language as HB 40…
Balanced Budget Note (Office of Management and Budget)
This bill is anticipated to have minimal savings to the State.
* This is GOMB’s current fiscal note on HB 40…
Balanced Budget Note (Office of Management and Budget)
An accurate cost assessment for this bill cannot be completed at this time because it does not mandate the State to fund these services. However, by removing these prohibitions it opens the State up for significant cost liabilities to incur. It is unknown how often these services would be utilized by Medicaid enrollees or State employees, the exact cost to health insurance plans, or how many new grant requests the Department of Human Services would receive as a response to this, and future related legislation.
*** UPDATE *** From Sen. Daniel Biss…
“There is no more fundamental issue than what you can do with your own body. Only an arrogant billionaire who thinks he’s accountable to no one would say the liberty of half the people of our state is a distraction.”
He also had this to say on Twitter…
