Latest Post | Last 10 Posts | Archives
Previous Post: *** UPDATED x1 *** SUBSCRIBERS ONLY - Staff shakeup continues
Next Post: New website asks why no women are running for governor
Posted in:
* Dean Olsen at the SJ-R…
A hoped-for academic pipeline at Springfield’s medical school to produce a steady stream of cancer doctors for patients in central and southern Illinois was quashed by the two-year state budget crisis.
Even though the crisis was resolved last week after the Illinois House and Senate overrode vetoes of Gov. Bruce Rauner, a proposal to establish an oncology training program now could take years to be resurrected.
The Springfield campus of Southern Illinois University School of Medicine had hoped to welcome the first two doctors this summer for a planned three-year fellowship program in oncology-hematology, according to Dr. Aziz Khan, executive director of SIU’s Simmons Cancer Institute.
But that plan — which would have cost about up to $450,000 per year for trainees’ salaries and benefits — was put on hold two years ago, Khan said. That’s when finances began to tighten for the medical school and the two Springfield hospitals that provide the school millions of dollars in financial support each year.
“This is a big loss, I feel, for the community,” Khan said.
posted by Rich Miller
Tuesday, Jul 11, 17 @ 11:42 am
Sorry, comments are closed at this time.
Previous Post: *** UPDATED x1 *** SUBSCRIBERS ONLY - Staff shakeup continues
Next Post: New website asks why no women are running for governor
WordPress Mobile Edition available at alexking.org.
powered by WordPress.
Confused, medicare pays for residents/fellows salary. Not the state.
Comment by Anonymous Tuesday, Jul 11, 17 @ 11:43 am
Maybe reading the post will clear up your confusion?
“But that plan — which would have cost about up to $450,000 per year for trainees’ salaries and benefits — was put on hold two years ago, Khan said. That’s when finances began to tighten for the medical school and the two Springfield hospitals that provide the school millions of dollars in financial support each year.”
Comment by In Urbana Tuesday, Jul 11, 17 @ 11:50 am
Deliberate sabotage with a predictable outcome by the governor of Illinois.
It’s governmental nihilism.
Comment by wordslinger Tuesday, Jul 11, 17 @ 11:53 am
So we - the State - has two medical schools in Springfield? U of Illinois and SIU.
Comment by rafaINchicago Tuesday, Jul 11, 17 @ 12:00 pm
Just SIU in Springfield
Comment by illdoc Tuesday, Jul 11, 17 @ 12:06 pm
rafaINchicago There’s this crazy thing called google
Comment by Rogue Roni Tuesday, Jul 11, 17 @ 12:08 pm
Rauner lied, Madigan was already a problem, people will die.
Comment by Blue Bayou Tuesday, Jul 11, 17 @ 12:09 pm
Folks- the budget delay didn’t cause Illinois’ fiscal problems. It is the reverse. Our fiscal problem caused by 40 plus years of mismanagement is what caused the budget delay since Rauner wzdnt willing to perpetuate Madigans fallacies of do called balanced budgets
Comment by Sue Tuesday, Jul 11, 17 @ 12:10 pm
There is only one Medical School in Springfield.
The School is Southern Illinois University.
The first year of the 4 year medical school is in Carbondale. The remaining three years are in Springfield. The Medical School is affiliated with both of the area hospitals who participate in help fund the cost of the school. In addition, the State of Illinois and of course the Medical Students pay as well. When the State does not pay its bills to the hospitals, nor its bills to the school, there is as expected…something reduced, deferred or eliminated. Residency for Doctors is funded in part by Medicare. Fellowships are additional training after Residency in sub-specialized fields of the specialty that a Resident Doctor has specialized. Fellowship are paid by the hospital that hosts them in an effort to get uniquely qualified Doctors to come to their hospital and hopefully remain after the Fellowship.
Comment by Exhausted Tuesday, Jul 11, 17 @ 12:15 pm
UIS offers some medical related degrees and concentrations,such as pre-Med and Med-Tech, and recently began hosting a Nursing School in association with UIC — but it’s not a full-fledged medical school.
Comment by IllinoisBoi Tuesday, Jul 11, 17 @ 12:16 pm
So Sue. The 15 billion in unpaid bills, generating 2 million a day in interest late fees, is good for Illinois? I’m failing to see how not passing a budget for two years benefited the average Illinoisan. Fiscal conservatism has taken a weird turn hasn’t it?
Comment by Anonymous Tuesday, Jul 11, 17 @ 12:16 pm
Sue, I love how you are gaslighting us with the rebranding on the budget impasse — the “budget delay” sounds so benign! What’s the problem, it was nothing, just a slight delay! You know, like being caught in traffic and a few minutes late for an appointment. No harm, no foul! Nothing damaging at all like using humans who need vital services and the people who serve them as political hostages.
Sorry — NO. You don’t get to smooth this over with a little rebranding. The budget impasse cost thousands of people their jobs and thousands more hardship and heartache. And possibly a few people, like those who ODed while on waiting lists for treatment, their lives.
Comment by pawn Tuesday, Jul 11, 17 @ 12:22 pm
Sue, not to pile on, but come on. A budget wasn’t delayed. It simply didn’t exist. For 736 days. People lost jobs. Children were put in harm’s way. That’s not a delay; that is a crisis.
You are correct in your analysis of whose choice it was to perpetuate the crisis.
Waiting for Oswego Willy to jump in in 5…4…3….2…
Comment by Emily Miller Tuesday, Jul 11, 17 @ 12:34 pm
This article and the story it tells hits home with my family.
A niece will be completing her PharmD degree and is is looking at residency programs to advance her career in a specialized area. Her younger sister is taking her GRE and will need to complete a MS or PhD to work in a medically related field. Neither are looking at Illinois programs, except maybe at the U of I, Chicago or Northwestern. But right now out of state programs are appearing far more attractive.
And their Mother has been a specialist with HSHS system for over 25 years!
So, just two more medical professionals leaving the state.
Comment by illini Tuesday, Jul 11, 17 @ 12:39 pm
It’s always difficult to follow you - Emily Miller -
To the Post, and to - Sue - in particular.
The extensive damage was exacerbated at such a rate, you look at Higher Ed and Social Services and the contracts (Higher Ed’s to the state, its students, their communities and that contract, Social Services to the actual signed contracts with the state and the services to those that require that need) Rauner refused to acknowledge by first the $20 million to control 2 Caucuses, to the “Brave 15″, “The Perfect 10″, Sen. Righter… That the plan was… not to have a budget and purposely destroy all Rauner could… passively.
Understanding the true intention, not the phony “30-40 years” pivot… It’s this and these type of destructions these past 2 1/2 years…
…you don’t deny members of the General Assembly the job of saving the state and then say “30-40 years” as the reason for the destruction.
Every time, especially these last few months, Rauner stepped in to continue the damage… that was the reason Rauner needed to own the Caucuses, and the reason the uprise is causing so many Raunerite changes.
Destruction is Rauner’s feature. It’s not the bug.
It’s those like Rich…
It’s this’d like - Emily Miller - …and the many more like her… it’s the Emily Millers that know all too well thus Rauner Plan was to squeeze, but also destroy.
Comment by Oswego Willy Tuesday, Jul 11, 17 @ 12:51 pm
- Anonymous - Tuesday, Jul 11, 17 @ 12:16 pm: as opposed to the $24 million a day interest payment on the pension debt? How many people would that have helped in the State, how much education at all levels would that pay for? $9 billion a year that we are paying for interest on the pension debt. One fourth of the budget, let that sink in.
Comment by Stand Tall Tuesday, Jul 11, 17 @ 1:05 pm
Lucky Pierre says we don’t need doctor’s or state funded universities. or I am sure he would have spoken out on this /s
Comment by JS Mill Tuesday, Jul 11, 17 @ 1:10 pm
Is that Sue, like in Slip ‘n’ Sue?
Comment by Cheryl44 Tuesday, Jul 11, 17 @ 1:13 pm
Stand Tall - and the budget impasse did what to solve the pension problem?
Not denying that Illinois has problems that outdate Rauner. But he’s unwilling to do the bare minimum in governing has made a bad situation and made it worse.
Comment by Rogue Roni Tuesday, Jul 11, 17 @ 1:19 pm
Could have been some needed reforms in many areas long before now to get a budget. Illinois near bottom in economic recovery long before Rauner became governor and really do not see that changing with no reforms. Didn’t click up with the last tax increase don’t expect it will click up much with this one either,
Comment by Stand Tall Tuesday, Jul 11, 17 @ 1:26 pm
Not saying the budget issue wasn’t dumb- what I am saying is that when the State has essentially lied to its citizens for 40 years claiming to have had balanced budgets when it ran up over a 120 billion pension deficit- the choice was to continue the charade or try a different path -Rauner failed to get the legislature controlled by Dems to pass reforms he thought would put Illinois on a better trajectory- the price was running up the unpaid bills - that’s on Rauner but let’s not forget it is the Dems who passed a Temp tax increase stating the added revenue would solve the problem and then failed to curtail spending. Absent passing the reforms Rauner is seeking what business will want to move to Illinois and make the investment. Don’t think Foxconn is going to put its 10000 new hires in Illinois when the States surrounding us are growing. Illinois lost like 100 thousand manufacturing jobs since 2000 while WI, OH, IN and IA all added them. It’s not a coincidence
Comment by Sue Tuesday, Jul 11, 17 @ 1:27 pm
“Absent passing the reforms Rauner is seeking what business will want to move to Illinois and make the investment.”
An absence of term limits is keeping businesses out of Illinois?
Nonsense.
– MrJM
Comment by @MisterJayEm Tuesday, Jul 11, 17 @ 2:09 pm
Mister - Illinois has highest workers comp and property tax costs in the nation- how about those reforms? The Dems are beholden to the trial Bar who make a fortune from workers comp and do I have to remind you whAt Madigzn’s firm specializes in
Comment by Sue Tuesday, Jul 11, 17 @ 2:15 pm
Sue, how do you explain that the bill backlog steadily decreased during the Quinn administration when the 5% tax was in effect? Or all of the cuts to human services during the Quinn era, including $2 billion out of Medicaid? Also, Quinn made all pension payments and was working on the pension debt problem. Did you think a pension debt dating back to Jim Thompson was going to be resolved in 4 years? I’m no Quinn fan, but the revisionist history has got to stop.
The truest words in your rant are “Rauner failed.” He failed to get anyone to buy into his “reforms” because he could never, ever show with real world numbers, how his ideological “reforms” would make a sizeable difference in the state’s economy. Rich Miller did a lot of work on this back in the day, using the most generous information provided to him BY THE GOVERNOR, and all he could get was a $500 million boost to the economy. Other unbiased objective analyses never showed any return on investment either.
And in the meantime, what you call the “price” and what I call a hostage strategy, was running up $500 million in new debt every 33-45 days, based on estimates of $11 million -$15 million in daily expenses over revenue.
Was it worth it? Not by any reasonable financial calculation, and certainly not when you take into account the human toll. To my mind, it was completely unjustified and the opposite of democracy. He did not have the votes, so he tried to use other coercive means to achieve his ends. In the end, he failed. Thank god.
Comment by pawn Tuesday, Jul 11, 17 @ 2:20 pm
Pawn- don’t be shocked if Rauner is reelected- all the Dems have to offer is higher taxes required to perpetuate the status quo/ Cullerton already said the recent tax hike will not be enough
Comment by Sue Tuesday, Jul 11, 17 @ 2:34 pm
- Sue -
Rauner has 58% disapproval, no signed budgets, the personal and passive destruction of social services, higher ed…
… and this whole next fiscal year, no budgetary successes paid for over his veto.
Not great.
- pawn -
===The truest words in your rant are “Rauner failed.” He failed to get anyone to buy into his “reforms” because he could never, ever show with real world numbers, how his ideological “reforms” would make a sizeable difference in the state’s economy. Rich Miller did a lot of work on this back in the day, using the most generous information provided to him BY THE GOVERNOR, and all he could get was a $500 million boost to the economy. Other unbiased objective analyses never showed any return on investment either.===
Very, very well said.
Needed to be said too.
OW
Comment by Oswego Willy Tuesday, Jul 11, 17 @ 2:40 pm
Sue - at 1:27 PM.
Anyone paying the least bit of attention for the last 40 years saw what was going on. But there were 2 things that the voters demanded - more services and no tax increases. Legislators and Governors who did either got voted out. So we voters (as a collective) trained the legislators and Governors to borrow from the pension funds in order to stay in office. We got what we demanded (by our actions) and now the bills are coming due.
Comment by titan Tuesday, Jul 11, 17 @ 2:45 pm
Sue, what does Rauner have to offer? Failed leadership? A plan that can’t get enough votes and doesn’t have any evidence that it will work? Counter evidence, in the form of Kansas, that it hurts states where it is tried? Inability to govern or compromise? Lack of ethics or morals? A willingness to throw entire communities, like Eastern Illinois University, to the wolves?
What exactly are his big budget ideas and why hasn’t he unveiled them yet? His own budgets required the tax increase that a bipartisan group of legislators negotiated. Go back and look in the FY18 budget proposal where it says “$4.5 billion from working together on a grand bargain.”
I am terrified that Rauner will be re-elected, not complacent. After all, he has shown that he has no problems lying through his teeth and hurting innocent people in his quest to enact his ideology. I can’t even imagine the depths he will sink to, to be re-elected.
Comment by pawn Tuesday, Jul 11, 17 @ 2:46 pm
Have no fear, the working poor and middle class are here…..again.
Comment by blue dog dem Tuesday, Jul 11, 17 @ 2:47 pm
–“Absent passing the reforms Rauner is seeking what business will want to move to Illinois and make the investment.”–
“No little plans: More than $20 billion of megaprojects in Chicago’s pipeline”
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/columnists/ct-mega-developments-ryan-ori-0625-biz-20170621-column.html
In 2016, Illinois was third in the nation, behind Texas and Ohio, in the number of new or expanded facilities that had at least $1 million in private capital investment and created at least 20 jobs.
http://siteselection.com/press/releases/170301_Governors_Cup_2016.htm
Illinois’ GDP growth is higher than all neighboring states except Michigan.
https://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/regional/gdp_state/qgsp_newsrelease.htm
Comment by wordslinger Tuesday, Jul 11, 17 @ 3:00 pm