Progress Illinois

The backlog of payments to Medicaid providers is a serious problem in Illinois. When these notoriously low reimbursements to primary care physicians administering care to Medicaid patients don't arrive on time, it makes the doctors increasingly reluctant to treat that population. That diminishes health care access for some of the state's most vulnerable citizens, thus raising the potential for public health outbreaks and preventive disease and deaths. It's an unsound system, both economically and morally.

Since the recession hit, Illinois has been making payments to most providers by the skin of its teeth, thanks almost exclusively to President Obama's stimulus bill, which provided $2.9 billion in short-term federal aid. Congress could pass along a little more help if the Democrats' health care reform bill passes; the version that the House approved provides $23.5 billion for state legislatures to pay a higher share of all Medicaid costs -- 66 percent on average, up from 57 percent prior to the stimulus -- for an additional six months in 2010.

This morning, the state also took some independent action aimed at solving this problem, as Gov. Pat Quinn signed into law HB 542, sponsored by Rep. Dan Reitz (D-Sparta) and Sen. Jeffrey Schoenberg (D-Evanston).

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Take a look at this headline from today's Daily Herald:

Reading that, you might guess that the west suburban town of about 150,000 passed a referendum opposing an income tax increase in Illinois.  Or perhaps someone polled Naperville residents' on the various tax hike proposals being discussed at the state level.  Well, not exactly:

Naperville's business community on Thursday had a chance to voice its concerns about jobs, taxes and the economy directly to Gov. Pat Quinn. [...]

Some [Naperville Chamber of Commerce] members said Thursday an income tax increase would be detrimental to the business community.

John Schmitt, president and CEO of the chamber, said he was not prepared to comment specifically on Quinn's income tax proposal but that the chamber doesn't typically support tax increases. But he was glad the business community had a chance to share its concerns and called the visit productive.

Last we checked, the Naperville Chamber doesn't represent the entire town ...

All four Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate Democratic have produced new videos in the last few days. Let's take a look, shall we?

The first comes from David Hoffman, who cut a highlight reel from a forum held by the Northern Illinois Coordinated Campaign Committee in Rockford on Sunday. In the clip, Hoffman discusses the economy, banking reform, the federal deficit, and Afghanistan:

The Hoffman campaign also released a new polling memo this week that The Hill, the Washington Post, and Politico all picked up. While pollster Geoff Garin took pains to argue that Alexi Giannoulias too "flawed" a candidate to beat GOP Rep. Mark Kirk in the general election, the underlying data is similar to other polls we've seen so far (Kirk leads Giannoulias 40-37 percent, but out-distances Hoffman -- whose name identification is at only 26 percent --  by 10 points.)  Here's what Giannoulias campaign manager Tom Bowen had to say to the Post's Chris Cilliza:

"Every public poll shows Alexi Giannoulias leading or neck-in-neck with Mark Kirk while David Hoffman is trailing badly. ... He is behind, desperate and now he is running a negative and dishonest campaign, preferring to attack fellow Democrats instead of telling us what he would do in the Senate."

Speaking of the Giannoulias, he earned an endorsement from Illinois' own U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky on Sunday. In this video clip from the press conference, the congresswoman said Giannoulias would be a strong voice for health care reform in the Senate. Watch it:

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The state's unemployment troubles just keeps growing. Today, the Illinois Department of Employment Security released the October jobless rate. In just one month, it jumped from 10.5 to 11 percent, the highest level in 26 years. CBS 2 has more:

The state reported job losses in numerous industries. The trade and transportation sectors lost 1,400 jobs, and the manufacturing sector lost 800. But some sectors reported significant gains in jobs – 3,600 for educational and health services, 1,300 for professional and business services, and 1,000 for construction, according to the Department of Employment Security.

Here's our updated graph showing the comparison between the state and national unemployment figures, dating back to January 2008. It's not pretty:

For those trying to stay afloat, there is some good news to report from Washington. Roll Call (subscription required) notes that Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin and Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) have been "quietly trying to write a jobs bill that the Senate can act on early next year." Durbin was a staunch advocate in the Senate fight to extend unemployment insurance through 2009, so his involvement probably increases the chances that jobless benefits will be factored into the new bill.

The federal government is one step closer to providing health care and retirement benefits to domestic partners of its gay and lesbian employees. Yesterday, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee approved H.R. 2517 by a 23-12 vote. Illinois Democrats Mike Quigley, Danny Davis, and Bill Foster all supported the legislation. GOP Rep. Aaron Schock voted against it. From Alyssa Rosenberg's report on the contentious hearing:

Republican committee members argued that the 2009 Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act was an inappropriate extension of benefits to a small subset of federal employees at a time when unemployment was rising. They also said such a move would threaten the definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman, and could open the door to fraud by people of the same sex who simply wanted access to benefits.

Democrats countered that extending access to health and survivor benefits to the same-sex partners of federal workers in exchange for an agreement that those employees would abide by rules governing nepotism and financial disclosure for their partners, was a matter of equality and of establishing the federal government as an inclusive, competitive employer.

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Yesterday afternoon, as part of the Campaign for a Better Health Care's annual conference, Gov. Pat Quinn and Democratic primary challenger Dan Hynes engaged in an hour-long debate on health care reform. Because it costs the state money to provide coverage to the poor and to protect public health, the debate routinely veered into discussion about the state deficit and the gubernatorial candidates' competing tax reform proposals. When it did, things got snippy. Watch this compilation:

Notice how neither candidate even broaches the most important aspect of this debate: how they plan to convince the legislature to go along with their respective proposals next year. In a sense, this debate is taking place solely in the abstract.

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Just in the past week, two key Democratic leaders in Washington expressed interesting in crafting a federal jobs package that would likely extend federal unemployment insurance for workers who exhaust their benefits after December 31. But they better move quickly, as more than one million unemployed Americans are scheduled to lose their insurance sometime in January.

That figure comes via a new analysis by the National Employment Law Project (NELP), which has been crunching the unemployment numbers for months now. When the stimulus plan was approved last winter, those looking for work in Illinois were eligible to receive up to 53 weeks of federally-funded insurance, through the Emergency Unemployment Compensation program and the Extended Benefits (EB) program, on top of the 26 weeks of state-backed benefits that are always available. The legislation President Obama signed earlier this month -- deadline glitch and all -- supplied an additional 14 weeks. But the funding for all of these federal programs expires at the end of 2009. 

NELP estimates that almost 600,000 workers nationwide will lose eligibility for the next tier of benefits sometime in January. An additional 450,000 workers will exhaust their 26 weeks of states benefits. Even more frightening, the number without federal jobless benefits will balloon to nearly three million workers by March. Unless the 2009 extensions are reauthorized in some form, none of those families will be receiving any additional benefits. "Congress has less than four weeks left on its schedule to legislate this year," NELP executive director Christine Owens said in a statement, "and unless it acts to renew the unemployment provisions during this period, the clock will run out for a million workers."

Check out NELP's graph below:

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Earlier this week, the State Journal-Register asked the candidates contending for their respective Illinois gubernatorial party nominations a series of questions about state pension system. According to the paper, most called it their "high" or "highest" priority. If the pols want to get a better sense of what type of shape the system is in, they should flip through the report released today by the Pension Modernization Task Force, a 19-member group assembled by Gov. Quinn earlier this year.

Some members of the media have already maligned the 19-member coalition. Most notably, the Tribune called the report a "less than candid document" even before it was released. But as the debate moves forward about how to crawl out from under the staggering accumulated debt, it will be essential reading. Here's what the panel concluded:

Unfunded liability growth:

Between the FY 1996 and FY 2008, Illinois' total unfunded pension liability ballooned by $35.7 billion. The primary cause was insufficient contributions from the state, which added $18.8 billion to the shortfall.  From the paper:

The deadly combination of nearly 30 years of systematic State underfunding of its employer contributions to the pension systems, followed by the cataclysmic decline in asset values caused by the national meltdown in financial markets over the last year, combined to create an all-time high in the State's unfunded pension liability. (Page 44)

Other factors -- including "more retirements than expected, rates of mortality that did not meet actuarial projections, and terminations that did not meet actuarial projections" -- added $8.5 billion to the tally.  The size of the pension benefits played only a marginal role, according to the report. "In sum," the task force writes, "the main culprit is the State’s inability to fund its pension systems according to actuarial [sic] principals."

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In an interview with Rockford's WREX earlier this week about the possible transfer of Guantanamo Bay detainees to the Thomson Correctional Center, Rep. Don Manzullo unleashed what seemed like an unhinged attack on the religion of Islam. "These are really, really mean people," he told the television reporter,  "whose job it is to kill people, driven by some savage religion."

After his office apparently received numerous complaints about the remark, Manzullo released a statement of apology last night, emphasizing that he really meant terrorists practice a "violent, anti-modernity version of Wahhabism." The Tribune printed more from the Rockford Republican:

He said Islam is a "religion of peace" and that the vast majority of its adherents are "men and women of good will."

He added: "Nevertheless, I apologize for any misunderstanding of my comments and I will endeavor in the future to clarify my remarks to make it absolutely clear that America is not opposed to Islam, but that we are fighting terrorists who believe in a savage, perverted, and violent form of Islam."

But check out the AP's more detailed account. Here, Manzullo sounds a lot more defensive, blaming those offended for making a "false assumption."

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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has already expressed some interest in extending unemployment insurance through 2010. Now it appears that Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) is thinking along the same lines.

In a news conference today, the House majority leader said now that his chamber has passed its own version of heath care reform, they will move onto a "jobs-creation" package. And another unemployment benefits extension is certainly in the mix, according to CongressDaily (subscription required):

Still, Hoyer said the measure would focus on public jobs, job-creation tax credits, infrastructure projects and assistance to state governments.

"There are a lot of options available," said Hoyer. "We're discussing with economic advisers as to what is the most effective, and frankly there are differences of opinion on that." He said the legislation ought to address another extension of unemployment insurance and adjustments to the health-insurance program that provides coverage to those who recently lost their jobs.

Aside from the benefit extension, it's good to see that state aid and funding for infrastructure projects are high on the priority list of House leaders.

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