Last week, the Illinois House impeachment committee heard round after round of testimony about how Gov. Rod Blagojevich abused power by expanding the FamilyCare program despite legislative opposition. The topic was raised so often that Rep. Barbara Flynn Currie had to remind the committee that the relevance of the program wasn’t up for debate. “We’re not that kind of jury, I’m sorry to have to tell ya,” she said at one point.
Because of Blagojevich’s reach, attorney Margaret Stapleton of the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law—who has been defending FamilyCare’s 537,000 enrollees—acknowledges that the image of the progressive, state-backed insurance program has been bruised.
“It’s troubling that parties in the case are so hell-bent on taking away health care from low- and moderate-income people,” Stapleton told us. “[FamilyCare] has radically improved access to healthcare. People are getting good care and like [the program].”
While FamilyCare has been mired in controversy since Blagojevich decided to flout a legislative committee’s recommendation against expansion for families earning up to $83,000 a year. It hasn’t helped that former GOP gubernatorial candidate Ron Gidwitz joined a business-backed lawsuit to repeal the expansion, raising the profile of the case as a political fight.
John Bouman, director of the Shiver Center, cautions that people shouldn’t get sidetracked by the political fighting. The decision to draw more people into FamilyCare was based on a demonstrated need, as he explains in an op-ed in the State-Journal Register:
The governor … knew from the research of the legislative Adequate Healthcare Task Force that there were a number of families with higher incomes (up to $83,000 for a family of four — a little higher than the median income) unable to find or afford insurance, usually because of a parent having a pre-existing medical condition. He decided to cover these higher-income parents in FamilyCare, too, for which the parents would pay very significant premiums. The administration put that program expansion into the same regulatory change as the provisions needed to access federal Medicaid funding for everyone already in the program.
Ironically, it wasn’t the lack of need or the way the governor went about expanding the program that prompted Cook County Circuit Court Judge James Epstein to rule against it in October. Had enrollees been asked how much they work or whether they’re in school, a requirement under the public aid code, Epstein wouldn’t have ruled to shut the program down. As far as Stapleton is concerned, the issue is irrelevant since higher-earning enrollees pay near market-rate premiums, meaning sustainable income is needed to cover the costs.
Still, Blagojevich issued a temporary stop-payment order following the judge’s order. Only after the Illinois Supreme Court stepped in last month did the state begin paying the bills again.
For months, Stapleton has told us it’s probably going to take action by the legislature to sort the mess out. She sees SB1415 as the answer. Essentially, the bill clarifies the public aid code. Once that’s done, the state can begin accepting people into the program again. That measure “has been hanging out there for a while” with no substantive action, Stapleton says. The push for support hasn’t been helped by the governor’s decision to administer the program under a shroud of secrecy, as was highlighted in an AP investigation this fall.
In the meantime, FamilyCare is stuck in limbo. No new families are being added at any income level. Amid mounting job losses, the need has only grown. Clearly, the General Assembly needs to take action. As for why it hasn’t happened yet, Stapleton takes a gander.
“I think that the answer is that members of the General Assembly are hesitant for being responsible for taking health care away from people,” she tells us. “And they should be.”
If you didn’t know anything about the American labor movement, FOX Chicago’s report last week on the political connections between Gov. Rod Blagojevich and the Service Employees International Union (whose Illinois State Council sponsors this website) would be a poor introduction.
While FOX Chicago generally provides decent coverage of the local political scene, this piece from investigative reporter Larry Yellen seemed tailor-made for the FOX News mothership, providing a platform for unchallenged right-wing arguments under the guise of objectivity.
Two experts are interviewed during the segment: Joe Calomino of Americans for Prosperity and Stefan Gleason of the National Right To Work Legal Defense Foundation. Yellen identifies the first organization a “government watchdog,” but fails to note that it’s primarily funded by the Koch Family Foundation, one of the largest single sources of funding for conservative organizations in the U.S. To get a sense of the group’s orientation, check out their Hot Air Tour, a campaign to prevent the scourge of “global warming alarmism.” National Right to Work isn’t much better. The nonprofit’s sole purpose is to launch legal actions against labor organizations.
Not surprisingly, Calomino and Gleason misrepresent the union’s motivation for working with the governor in 2003 to extend organizing rights to home health care workers employed by the state. Calomino suggests that it was a giant quid pro quo: Blago gave state-funded personal care attendants and home daycare providers the right to organize by signing two executive orders, SEIU netted 70,000 new members (and $11 million in additional member dues), and the union eventually donated $1.2 million dollars towards the governor’s reelection campaign. Gleason makes Calomino’s point even more explicitly: “SEIU wanted to turn them into union members who could be compelled to pay union dues,” he says, “and Blagojevich was happy to oblige.”
But absent from the FOX report—like the trio of ads from pro-business groups that surfaced last week—is any mention of the entire rationale behind labor unions: to fight for better wages, health care, and job security for the average worker. Unions aren’t profit-oriented ventures and the dues they collect are not an end unto themselves. SEIU, the United Auto Workers, and other labor organizations raise money from their members so that they can fight for the bargaining rights of working people.
Indeed, the Illinois home health care workers in question certainly needed someone to stand up for them. From Chris Hayes’ January 2004 In These Times article on the contract negotiated by SEIU:
Illinois’ 37,000 homecare workers may provide vital day-to-day care and assistance for 67,000 state residents, but the majority still make poverty-level wages and receive no health benefits. A study released by Local 880 in April showed that Illinois ranked 44th nationwide in pay rates for homecare workers, with a median hourly wage of $6.60. Nearly half have no medical insurance. And in a survey conducted by SEIU, 49.4 percent said that in the past year they had to choose between buying food and paying utility bills.
FOX called up SEIU for a comment, but officials couldn’t discuss the information because of their cooperation with the U.S Attorney’s ongoing investigation. Of course, countless voices from the labor community could have provided FOX with some contrasting views. Apparently, Yellen wasn’t interested in offering any critical context.
