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Lawmaker: Some form of governor's health-care plan a must

Posted July 20, 2007 11:00 pm

Adriana Colindres

A scaled-down version of Gov. Rod Blagojevich's universal health-care proposal would ensure coverage for low-income, uninsured Illinoisans and pave the way for the private sector to offer reasonably priced insurance to individuals and small employers who otherwise could not afford it, a key lawmaker said Friday.

"If we don't begin to curb the unnecessary costs in health care, we're going to continue seeing the prices go sky high," said Sen. David Koehler, D-Peoria. "We can't afford not to do this."

Koehler has been closely involved with legislative discussions on the health-care issue. He co-sponsored Senate Bill 5, the "Health Care for All" plan, and served as vice chairman of the Adequate Health Care Task Force that issued a report the governor reviewed in putting together his proposed initiative.

Lawmakers from the House and Senate, as well as the governor's staff, have been collaborating on a reworked version of Blagojevich's health-care plan, Koehler said. The original version would have been funded with a new tax on business's gross receipts, but few lawmakers warmed to that idea.

The new version would be funded only by an assessment on employers who offer little or no health coverage to employees, Koehler said. That assessment will generate an estimated $900 million to $1.2 billion, he said.

Scaling down the plan will cause it to be "rolled out more gradually, and I think that's good because that way this can be all monitored as we go," he said. "I think it's a much safer way to roll out a major plan like this."

The new plan basically features two components, Koehler said. Illinois Covered is designed to offer reasonably priced health insurance for people and small businesses that might not otherwise be covered. Illinois Assist targets uninsured people who are at or below poverty level but who do not qualify for Medicare or Medicaid.

Such a plan would manage health-care costs more efficiently, leading to a savings of $3 billion to $4 billion a year, Koehler said.

Senate President Emil Jones, D-Chicago, who said Thursday that the governor would have to accept a smaller version of his health-care plan, followed up on those remarks Friday.

"Government is structured for compromise, and so we wanted to get something accomplished and so forth, and sometimes you have to negotiate on certain things," Jones said.

Blagojevich, Jones and other legislative leaders, who still have not agreed on a new state government budget, met behind closed doors Friday for a little more than an hour, talking about capital-project needs such as roads and schools. They reviewed a list showing about $7 billion worth of proposed capital projects.

"We didn't talk about revenue so much, as just what the capital needs were," Deputy Gov. Sheila Nix said afterward.

House Republican Leader Tom Cross of Oswego said he was pleased with the discussion, considering lawmakers have not passed a capital plan in years.

"There's just one little hole," he said. "We don't know how to pay for it."

House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, echoed that sentiment when asked if the state could fund $7 billion worth of capital projects.

"That's the $64 question that we're grappling with, one of the reasons we're still here, so I don't have the answer today," Madigan said.

Dana Heupel of GateHouse News Service's State Capitol Bureau contributed to this report. Adriana Colindres can be reached at (217) 782-6292 or adriana.colindres@sj-r.com.

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