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Kennedy talks money, healthcare

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* WCIA’S Mark Maxwell interviewed Chris Kennedy the other day. Click here to watch it all, but here’s an excerpt…

MAXWELL: Your recent polling, your internal polling, said you were a frontrunner, but yet it’s a big fight. You’ve got a long way to go. Seven other candidates gunning for that top spot, and there’s a lot of money in this race. JB Pritzker has $21 million already that he’s self-funding in his campaign. Are you going to be able to catch up there? How’s fundraising going lately? I know you brought on Bill Daley.

KENNEDY: Yeah, Bill Daley’s been incredible, and we’ll have the resources to compete. I’m not worried about the money.

MAXWELL: Are you going to cut a check?

KENNEDY: If you look at the number of donors we have, the number of volunteers, the support across the state is incredible. I know I’m ahead in the polls, but I’m gonna run this like, uh, like I’m the underdog and I think that’s an important message to people as well.

Bill Daley’s arrival was announced on July 19th…

“It was a bad quarter, no question about it,” Daley told me. “There was a lot of political outreach. (But) there wasn’t even a finance committee, just a committee of stakeholders.”

Fixing that is the first thing on his agenda, Daley said. A full finance committee is being assembled (Daley declined to disclose any names), with an initial meeting set for next week. Lists of fundraising targets will be assembled, and regular calls and contacts made, he continued. Some of that will involve the candidate himself. “Chris has to spend more time on it.”

Since then, Kennedy’s campaign has reported just $34,700 in contributions. Now, he could be holding back his deposits in order to make a big splash at the end of the quarter. But you’d think a candidate who’s been under fire for not raising enough money would want to get out in front of that story by rolling out some big donors.

* On to healthcare…

MAXWELL: I want to ask you about healthcare for a minute because a lot of the candidates are weighing in. There was a recent fight over single payer, public option. And I want to see if I can get you to weigh in here. What direction would you like to see the country, and what direction would you like to see the state of Illinois go in how it provides healthcare for people?

KENNEDY: I think there are, there are, there are great examples to us around the country. I don’t think we need to invent it all ourselves in Illinois. I think if you at what happened under Governor Romney in Massachusetts and the expansion of Medicaid there and the ability for the state to provide great coverage to people at all economic levels.

MAXWELL: We’ve expanded Medicaid in Illinois. One in four residents in this state are on Medicaid.

KENNEDY: And I think we can continue to do that, and in effect migrate towards a single payer system. I think we need to free up Medicare and Medicaid to negotiate pricing.

MAXWELL: That sounds like a slow incremental process you’re describing, migrate towards single payer. How long do you think that would take?

KENNEDY: I don’t know. But I think we’re moving, we’re moving in that direction. It’s clear to me that that’s where we’ll end up, both as a state and as a country over time. And we ought to be on the front-burner here in Illinois.

MAXWELL: You’re describing it as inertia, something that’s already on the track, and maybe a spectator. Would you push that faster?

KENNEDY: Oh, I’d definitely push it faster, absolutely. And I think we should continue to expand as best we can by negotiating with the federal government what, uh, what issues and who can be covered in Illinois, then do a better job recruiting people who haven’t signed up to sign up for the available care in our state now. And I think that’s how we get full coverage for everyone. There’s coverage, I mean, the fact is that we’re just handling it poorly. People are getting sick and going to emergency rooms, and it doesn’t have to be like that. The problem with the state is largely we look so, we look inward and not outward, and we ought to look to other states and see what great outcomes are occurring there. We could provide better coverage and better healthcare for people in our state.

MAXWELL: So you mention Massachusetts, RomneyCare. It’s a deep blue state there. They’ve had some trial balloons and things on the national healthcare scene. Any other states or any other practices that you’ve seen in relation to how you’d lower drug prices or how you would make medicine more affordable for average Americans?

KENNEDY: I think some of the things they’ve done in California are helpful. And California, places like California and Texas have massive populations, and they’ve begun to negotiate. And I think we can create a consortium with other states, cooperate. I know that we’re competitive with the people in Indiana and Wisconsin and Iowa, but we can work with them and create regional competition, or regional buying power, that allows us to use the market to drive down pricing.

I’m not sure I completely follow, but OK.

posted by Rich Miller
Tuesday, Aug 22, 17 @ 10:48 am

Comments

I cant quite tell if Chris Kennedy is just clueless, and has no idea what he’s talking about, or if Chris Kennedy just refuses to take a position on anything.

The MA/RomneyCare point is absurd. The ACA IS RomneyCare, just at the national level. If you implemented RomneyCare in IL, you’d basically have what we have now.

Comment by JoeMaddon Tuesday, Aug 22, 17 @ 10:55 am
Kennedy has filed only 2 A1s since last quarterly report filed with 3 donations, including one from MA and one from CT. Not impressive.

Comment by Lakeviewlawyer Tuesday, Aug 22, 17 @ 11:00 am
I saw the interview. I cant figure out the burning reason why CK is running. As a result, i cant figure out why someone should be motivated to support him, much less be passionate about him.

Do any polls we have seen show him ahead? Or is it just name recognition. Doesnt seem he is raising enuf to run for congress, much less vs deep pockets. Coyness about writing a check is annoying

Comment by Langhorne Tuesday, Aug 22, 17 @ 11:02 am
**Do any polls we have seen show him ahead.**

Yea, every public poll that we have seen shows Kennedy ahead. That Kennedy name is golden…

I believe it was Rich that said that the best thing Kennedy could do for his campaign is disappear for awhile.

Comment by JoeMaddon Tuesday, Aug 22, 17 @ 11:05 am
I really want to be enthused about a Kennedy candidacy again, but I’m not. And he doesn’t seem to be moving in that direction.

Comment by Anonymous Tuesday, Aug 22, 17 @ 11:11 am
If Kennedy’s internal polling still has him at 44% or so and not falling with Pritzker surging from “zero” to wherever that poll has Pritzker…

… I’d wait too

“Why?

It’s going to come down to, for Kennedy, keeping that 44% and then getting that 44% locked in and voted and unwavering. For the Kennedy Crew, it’s about doing enough, with arguably the worst burn rate with little seen in return, to get to December/January and using a big splash then in Ads, name ID, in pulling on “you know the name, and as a Dem, you know Chris is with you”… and build upon this ameba of an unseen base of voters come March.

Let Rauner fight with Drury as the proxy, and go after Pritzker with 10,000 cuts.

Kennedy, today, just needs to seem within that 44% reality that he (Kennedy) is the candidate others are chasing…

… with really poor fundraising numbers and no clear and identified base of voters.

So “wait”. It’s not hurting. Yet.

Comment by Oswego Willy Tuesday, Aug 22, 17 @ 11:14 am
Kennedy is great on a deep level–read his Democrat Day speech. On the “shallower” levels of practical politics, he is terrible.

Comment by Quiet Sage Tuesday, Aug 22, 17 @ 11:16 am
Oh yes, we need the state that can’t pay it’s bills, that can’t craft budgets that are even close to balanced, that makes tens of thousands of people with disabilities wait years for services, that can’t figure out how to pay schools, that can’t eliminate unneeded local government, that can’t keep up with infrastructure needs (and the list goes on and on) to be in charge of our healthcare system. Oh that will work well won’t it? (says with mouth slightly open and the laughs barely contained)

Comment by NeverPoliticallyCorrect Tuesday, Aug 22, 17 @ 11:17 am
The one conversation I’ve had with a Kennedy campaign higher-up was … illuminating. They are essentially convinced that no matter how “unpolished” the candidate is, they’re going to win the primary because of his current polling and (last) name recognition.

Despite seeming to have lost both the progressive and establishment wings of the party to other candidates, they are assured they have this thing sown up. Which pretty much tells you everything.

Comment by PJ Tuesday, Aug 22, 17 @ 11:21 am
Hi my name is Kennedy, K-e-n-n-e-d-y. Um thats all, thanks, thats Kennedy….. Kennedy.

Comment by Ghost Tuesday, Aug 22, 17 @ 11:25 am
All Kennedy can hope for at this point is that his name and his big early lead will carry him through. I expect a poll to become public right away if Pritzker is ever clearly in the lead. Haven’t seen one yet, so he’s probably not there yet. But I wouldn’t be surprised if Pritzker is leading in their polling but still inside margin of error territory. Kennedy doesn’t even have the luxury of polling at this point.

Comment by TopHatMonocle Tuesday, Aug 22, 17 @ 11:55 am
One in four Illinoians is on Medicaid……is that a case of heading in the right direction?

Comment by Keyser Soze Tuesday, Aug 22, 17 @ 12:37 pm
Rauner probably wants to face Kennedy (or anyone) rather than Pritzker. But I’m not 100% convinced that he does. And I’m not 100% convinced that all dark money attacking Pritzker will be from Rauner allies. Are progressives going to stick with their hopeless candidates, or are there going to be some backroom deals where they serve as attack dogs for future sway with Kennedy (Madigan sure ain’t cutting them in for any meaningful power). Kennedy might not want to risk his “happy warrior” image himself.

Comment by lake county democrat Tuesday, Aug 22, 17 @ 1:07 pm
I would not be so sure Kennedy’s at or near 44 with all candidates in the field. Notice he released head to head only. I wonder why…

Comment by Anonymous Tuesday, Aug 22, 17 @ 2:41 pm
And that health care answer was completely nonsensical. ACA is Romneycare. Clearly Kennedy doesn’t want anyone to know his actual positions from pot to health care to taxes.

Comment by Anonymous Tuesday, Aug 22, 17 @ 2:43 pm
One important reform would be to put as many insurance pools on the Medicare payment rates. Medicare / CMS has the nation’s best payment schedules for basically every single thing any doctor or hospital or nurse would ever bill for. And they are reasonable. We should put all public employees and retirees on that same Medicare / CMS payment schedule. Every provider knows how to bill Medicare. Let’s expand on what we have that works reasonably well.

Comment by Dan Johnson Tuesday, Aug 22, 17 @ 2:47 pm
The right direction? From 1.6 million to less than 900 thousand uninsured in 3 years in Illinois- yes, that is unequivocally the right direction.

Comment by igotgotgotgotnotime Tuesday, Aug 22, 17 @ 4:07 pm
Rauner would obliterate Pritzker in a general. Only reason Springfield insiders like him is for his money bags and because he’s found a way to cozy up to Madigan. Kennedy actually has a shot at beating Rauner. Healthcare will be decided in Washington. Don’t see the need for this question really.

Comment by Anon312 Tuesday, Aug 22, 17 @ 4:45 pm
Rauner would obliterate Pritzker, but Kennedy might have a shot? Maybe the Dems should convince Mr. Generic, who’s currently up 12% over Rauner to run. He’s got great name recognition, too.

Comment by Anonymous Tuesday, Aug 22, 17 @ 5:44 pm
If Dems don’t nominate someone with a spine willing to speak out against Madigan, then they don’t understand the IL electorate and they don’t deserve to win. Kennedy seems to be only candidate with enough sense (and name recognition) to win on this platform. He can steal Rauner’s anti-Springfield thunder, run as outsider against Rauner and Madigan. Pritzker is just too entitled and out of touch.

Comment by Anon312 Tuesday, Aug 22, 17 @ 5:59 pm