Go Get ‘Em

11:56 am, 11/13/05

Go Get 'Em
Gag me with a spoon.

Gov. Blagojevich named Outstanding Elected Official of the Year by Illinois Campaign for Better Healthcare

Governor honored for success in expanding access to health care through All Kids plan, FamilyCare expansion, No Senior Left Behind, and I-SaveRx

We have one program Illinois isn't paying for, one program nobody knows how Illinois is going to pay for, another program nobody uses, and a fourth program that nobody has heard of. Yaay!

Families USA, a non-partisan national health care policy organization and participant in the Campaign for Better Health Care Annual Meeting, released a report earlier this month that found that the Governor's All Kids program could generate $87 million in new business activity and nearly $31 million in new wages statewide in its first year of implementation. According to the study, All Kids will capture approximately $37 million from the federal government in matching funds for covering more children eligible for Medicaid and SCHIP and for speeding up the payment cycle for all doctors who treat children in the state's children's health insurance programs. The $37 million in federal funds from All Kids will have a direct impact on the state's economy, as it's used to pay doctors, hospitals, clinics and other health-related businesses. Providers then use the payments they receive to buy goods and pay salaries which, in turn, adds more money to the economy that can be spent on other goods and services. Using a U.S. Department of Commerce input-output model, Families USA found this ripple effect, also called the "multiplier effect", is estimated to generate $87,561,000 in new business activity and $30,769,000 in wages in the first year of All Kids.

Also, $15,000,000 in new bribes and kickbacks. I guess somebody has to pay the doctors, hospitals, and clinics, because God knows the State of Illinois isn't paying them for the program we already have, in one case sending a pharmacy $6.27 to put toward a $2,000,000.00 accumulated debt. It's so bad that many providers are already considering refusing patients who use state programs, figuring that the State of Illinois' money is no good.

I think we really need to take a step back and realize what completely sad and sorry shape Illinois is in that it now requires tens of millions of dollars of federal subsidy to spur any kind of economic activity: Illinois' anti-business regulatory policies and crushing tax burden have murdered economic growth, and as I've said before, if Illinois had a functional, wealth-generating economy, we wouldn't need to help suburban parents who earn $80,000 a year find a way to pay for their childrens' health care. Instead, here's the Governor's office, like some third world despot, handing out a press release drooling about how much cash aid Illinois can "capture" from the Americans. "Federal handouts?! Wow! It's better than striking oil! Who needs to produce anything?"

Meanwhile, Blagojevich furthers the image of Illinois as a Shining City On A Hill by inviting the feds to wiretap his office:

Bring it on, Gov. Blagojevich says about people in his administration wearing hidden recording devices.

"Good. Find corruption. Go get 'em,'' the governor said Thursday when asked about recent Chicago Sun-Times reports of at least one person having worn a wire as part of a federal probe of his administration's hiring practices. "Find corruption. If it's there, we want to know, too.''

Yeah, sure, O.J., we'll help you look for the real killers. Hey, did you get that supoena they sent you?

Meanwhile, Blagojevich is busy hijacking state government to spread the good word.

First, the Department of Corrections had parole agents handing out letters touting Blagojevich's achievements in the field of criminal justice. Then it turned out that the Department of Children and Family Services considered having workers give foster families news releases and other materials extolling the governor's record on a variety of issues. The idea was scrapped before anything was distributed.

That must be because no one cares:

"Frankly, most people are busy working. They're not thinking about the governor, they're not thinking about Mayor Daley, they're not thinking about President Bush every single day to varying degrees," Blagojevich said. "But they hear a lot of different things and so they have some indirect thoughts. But campaigns are talking about specific issues.

Actually, Illinoisans continue to be busy not working, as Illinois' unemployment rate continues to hang at 5.7%, almost 20% higher than the national average of 5.0% and one of the highest in America, third worst in the Midwest, beaten significantly only by Michigan (6.4%), which has an excuse since it's run by a Canadian communist.