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Rules panel rejects Blagojevich health-care expansion

Posted November 13, 2007 10:00 pm

Mike Ramsey

A bipartisan group of state lawmakers on Tuesday rejected Gov. Rod Blagojevich's attempt to expand health-care rolls by 147,000 Illinoisans on an "emergency" basis.

The Legislature's Joint Committee on Administrative Rules voted 9-2 to suspend an emergency rule the state Department of Healthcare and Family Services filed last week. Democrats and Republicans on JCAR questioned the immediate need to increase health-care programs at such a pace when the state currently owes money to doctors who treat the poor.

"You're stressing a system that's already stressed," JCAR member David Miller, a Democratic House member from Calumet City, told Blagojevich representatives during a sometimes-contentious hearing.

It was the latest high-profile defeat for Blagojevich on one of his signature issues, the plight of the uninsured. Earlier this year, the Chicago Democrat failed to convince lawmakers to approve a larger, near-universal health-care program that would have been financed through a controversial business tax.

Rep. Lou Lang, a Skokie Democrat who sits on JCAR, said the governor, in his latest strategy, was trying to "broaden health care in Illinois ... in a way that end-runs the General Assembly."

"We're just not interested in that, and it certainly does not rise to the level of an emergency," Lang said after the vote.

Through the proposed rule change, the administration sought to loosen the income threshold - to 400 percent of the federal poverty level - under which uninsured parents or guardians can qualify for discounted medical treatment through the state's Family Care program.

Tamara Hoffman, chief of staff for the governor's Healthcare and Family Services agency, argued that the number of uninsured Illinoisans constitutes a crisis and justified the filing of the emergency rule.

Pressed about state resources, she insisted the administration could come up with the $43 million needed to pay for the expanded pool of health-care recipients through the current fiscal year. Hoffman did not provide details.

"How can you say we can pay for it when we already have a billion-dollar backlog (of medical bills)?" state Rep. David Leitch, R-Peoria, said.

JCAR members said they are particularly concerned about the welfare of one group: the estimated 15,000 to 20,000 Illinois residents who are at risk of being cut from a federal-state health-care initiative known as State Children's Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP. The program is the subject of debate in Washington between the Democratic-controlled Congress and Republican President George W. Bush, who vetoed a funding boost he considered too steep.

The at-risk SCHIP enrollees were included in the Blagojevich emergency rule. JCAR urged the administration to file a new emergency measure that would cover the smaller group only. Hoffman rebuffed the invitation.

"The entire population is the emergency," she said.

Blagojevich spokeswoman Abby Ottenhoff said later in an e-mail: "We appreciate (JCAR's) advice. We are working on ways to assure that people who need Family Care health-care coverage can receive it."

The Healthcare and Family Services Department had already signed up 500 families for the emergency expansion, Hoffman said. They would have begun receiving discounted health care on Dec. 1.

The Blagojevich plan is not dead. His agency has filed a similar proposal to implement the health-care expansion, but it will go through JCAR on a slower, non-emergency basis, officials said.

The obscure JCAR - a 12-member legislative panel with six Democrats and six Republicans - reviews rules the executive branch seeks to implement, making sure they conform to state law.

Blagojevich's only support on the panel Tuesday came from two Republicans: Reps. Rosemary Mulligan of Des Plaines and Brent Hassert of Romeoville.

Hassert said the discussion was clouded by the animosity between lawmakers and the governor following a contentious legislative session this year.

"I just felt it was appropriate," Hassert said of the governor's plans.

JCAR member James Clayborne Jr., a Belleville Democrat, did not attend Tuesday's meeting.

Mike Ramsey can be reached at (312) 857-2323 or ghns-ramsey@sbcglobal.net.

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