Progress Illinois

In the latest issue of The Nation, Amy Traub highlights efforts by conservatives at the national level to use "the myth of the overpaid public employee ... to undermine a range of progressive priorities."   She concludes that it's "time for progressives to fight back and confront the falsehood."  And in response to recent claims from the right that government workers represent a "new privileged class," Traub does just that:

[An] analysis by the Center for Housing Policy finds that despite recent declines in home prices, police officers and elementary school teachers still don't earn enough to buy a typical house in two out of five metro areas. Firefighters and librarians are unable to afford the median home in the New York, Los Angeles and Chicago metro areas. Nationwide, a school bus driver's wage isn't enough to pay rent on a standard two-bedroom apartment.

If the "privileged class" claim sounds familiar, it's because, here in the Land of Lincoln, the Illinois Policy Institute loves to similarly smear public workers.  Traub would be happy to know that we've been confronting their false claims for months now.  But as of yet, they don't show any signs of letting up.

Here's the latest reminder of the messed up priorities in this state:

The Illinois Department of Human Services owes Chaddock more than $370,000 for seven students in the state's Individual Care Grant program, which provides funding for residents with severe psychosis who cannot function at home. The facility has not been paid since September, "which makes it impossible for us to continue to serve ICG youth with no indication of when or if we may be paid," Reed wrote in the letter to parents.

Chaddock recently sent letters to the parents of the emotionally-disturbed children who reside there, informing them that they have 30 days to pick up their kids. A similar provider in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood, the Sonia Shankman Orthogenic School, is also in danger of discharging 20 youngsters if the state doesn't make good on $1 million in late payments.

Throughout the spring, we reported several times on a key feature of the federal health care reform package: financial support for state-based high-risk insurance pools that cover those who have been blocked from the individual market for at least six months due to chronic illnesses or disabilities. Illinois currently runs two pools, both under the Illinois Comprehensive Health Insurance Plan (ICHIP), that service 16,000 people. The federal legislation that passed in March provided funding to expand those existing programs until 2014, when additional protections for adults with pre-existing conditions are put into place.  But the federal funds depended on the General Assembly making a technical change to the ICHIP statute.

Well, the legislature balked on the governor's measure (SB 240, House Amendment 1), which would have allowed the Department of Insurance to extend coverage early this summer using roughly $200 million in federal resources. As the Sun-Times reported yesterday, the delay means that Illinois Department of Insurance Director Michael McRaith must now find a plan administrator willing to insure the new enrollees (instead of just tossing them into the existing ICHIP pool that uses Blue Cross Blue Shield), a process that could take months to finish.

Once again, dysfunction in Springfield means needy residents must wait for crucial services.