If there was any doubt
that Governor Rod Blagojevich will use his dramatic new healthcare program for
children as a core issue in his upcoming re-election campaign, a flier handed
out to state employees last week made things perfectly clear.
The flier touts a rally to
support the new initiative. The rally will be held Sunday afternoon, October
23rd at A. Finkl & Sons Co., a steel mill on Chicago's Northwest Side.
Blagojevich kicked off his first campaign for governor at the mill, where his
late father worked, used it as his election-night headquarters in 2002, and has
returned there several times since to talk about his blue-collar roots and
raise campaign funds.
Chicago Sun-Times gossip
columnist Michael Sneed originally reported about the October 23rd rally late
last month, asking in the piece whether the guv was "getting ready to kick
off his re-election" because he was planning a massive 10,000 person event
at the steel plant.
A spokesperson for the
governor said last week that the rally will not be political, but the event
will obviously be used to showcase the governor's heavy involvement in the healthcare
issue - which voters routinely say is very high on their priority lists.
The rally will be held
right before the first week of the fall veto session, when the governor hopes
his new plan will be approved. The proposal, which will cover children in
families earning too much to qualify for the state's KidCare Medicaid program,
is co-sponsored by House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President Emil
Jones. It appears to be on the fast track to passage, although some Republican
leaders have expressed strong reservations.
The insurance plan will be
paid for by requiring most current Medicaid recipients to enter into a
"primary care case management" plan. The shift will supposedly save
the state $57 million next year, and $45 million of that would be used to pay
for the new "All Kids" plan, according to the governor's
office.
Providing more healthcare
to the working poor has been a cornerstone of the governor's first term.
Indeed, whenever he is attacked by Republicans, his spokesmen almost always
spout the line that Blagojevich is much more concerned with "making health
care available for 324,000 working adults and their children" (as campaign
spokesman Pete Giangreco wrote several weeks ago in a guest column for my
subscription newsletter) than with politics. But healthcare and politics have
been intertwined in the Blagojevich administration since Day One, and the
governor has now kicked it up a notch with this new "All Kids"
plan.
The proposal specifically
benefits people most often ignored by government programs, but highly prized by
both political parties - middle class families. According to the governor's
office, half of all uninsured children fall into the KidCare qualifications -
families making less than $40,000 per year. Three-quarters of the rest, about
90,000 children, are in families making between $40,000 and $80,000 a year,
which is where All Kids is targeted. And every year, more and more families
lose their health insurance coverage as employers jettison the programs because
of their high costs. Small business owners - one of the fastest growing
demographics in the country - struggle to pay for insurance coverage because
they don't qualify for large insurance "pools" which help lower
costs.
Republicans who are
opposed to the idea say the state shouldn't be starting a new healthcare
program when it can't pay for its existing plans. The state is currently behind
on payments to Medicaid providers by more than $1 billion.
The opposed Republicans
also say they fear that uninsured families will flock to Illinois to obtain the
coverage, or say that a family making $79,000 a year shouldn't be placed into
government "welfare." But that could be a hard sell on the campaign
trail next year, especially when the governor uses his gigantic campaign war
chest and state funds to tout the new program, which will begin next summer
(just in time for the campaign season). Two gubernatorial candidates, Sen. Bill
Brady and Sen. Steve Rauschenberger, will have to vote on the plan this month.
Unless the Republicans can
find a better angle, this appears to be pretty smart politics on the part of
the governor. It probably won't immediately bolster his terribly sagging poll
numbers all that much, but it will be an effective tool next fall.
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Rich Miller also publishes
Capitol Fax, a daily political newsletter. He can be reached at
capitolfax.blogspot.com.