Blood To Be Extracted From Turnip

8:47 am, 10/7/05

Blood To Be Extracted From Turnip
In the Illinois of the future, every child will have health insurance:

Governor Rod R. Blagojevich today unveiled a landmark proposal that would make Illinois the first state in the nation to provide affordable, comprehensive health insurance for every child in the state. At a meeting with several middle-income families from the Chicago area who all make too much to qualify for state-funded healthcare, but cannot afford the high cost of private insurance, the Governor laid out his plan to ensure that every child in Illinois has access to affordable health insurance. Of the 253,000 children in Illinois without health insurance, more than half come from working and middle class families who earn too much to qualify for programs like KidCare, but not enough to afford private health insurance.

Noble intent, but remember when we were going to be the first state in the nation to let elderly buy Canadian pharmaceuticals, and it turned out the elderly didn't really care? Naturally, the program will involve a bureaucracy that will provide jobs for Blagojevich's favorite campaign donors:

The state is able to offer All Kids insurance coverage at much lower than market rates for middle-income families by leveraging the significant negotiating and buying power it already has through Medicaid....

The state will cover the difference between what parents contribute in monthly premiums and the actual cost of providing health care for each child, expected to be $45 million in the first year, with savings generated by implementing a primary care case management model (PCCM) for participants in the state's FamilyCare and All Kids health care programs.

A job as a Primary Care Case Manager couldn't go for more than, what, a grand, maybe two? Of course, the state already can't pay for the medical programs it has now, can't pay for insurance on the state vehicle fleet, in fact can't pay for anything at all, and apparently, the kids on the program will have to live in cardboard shanties.

"What good is water and sewer if you don't have anywhere to live?"

Williamson County Commission Chairman Wendell Fisher posed the question, but it could be a statewide refrain, if a proposed $3 million cut in housing rehabilitation is approved as part of a final budget.

At a public hearing hosted Tuesday by housing authorities for Illinois, area officials voiced their concerns with the significant decrease. The multi-million cut is being considered as part of Gov. Rod Blagojevich's Consolidated Action Plan, which goes into effect Jan. 1, 2006.

Seems to me that if we weren't sucking the economy dry to fund all these ridiculous government programs, business might pick up enough that middle-class people could afford decent housing and health insurance all by themselves.

On an unrelated note, some clever Flash developer out there should turn this picture into one of those "Wooly Willy" things:


You know, he may actually look better bald.