Progress Illinois

The U.S. Veterans Affairs Administration released the first portion of a three-part report on its Marion, Illinois VA hospital yesterday and found the facility was in desperate need of leadership and oversight.

In the last two years, there have been 19 deaths caused by substandard care at the hospital. Of those, nine have been at least partially linked to one surgeon, Dr. Jose Veizaga-Mendez, who administrators knew was not properly credentialed. The report also found that a former medical center director ignored troubling patient incident reports, failed to establish a follow-up process for patient deaths, and allowed financial considerations to predominate quality-of-care issues.

This follows a VA Inspector General's report that came to similar conclusions earlier this year. Both of Illinois' senators have continually pressured the VA to stop dragging its feet on the investigations into the tragedies of 2006-07 and the failed management-labor relationship at Marion. "This report confirms," Barack Obama said yesterday, "that a failure in leadership and a breakdown of safeguards allowed these tragedies to occur at the Marion VA." Democratic Rep. Jerry Costello and GOP Rep. John Shimkus joined the chorus as well.

Marion is a bad seed in an otherwise well-run system, so privatization is certainly not the answer. But to provide the care wounded soldiers deserve, the VA needs to send better bureaucrats to Southern Illinois.

Guest blogging this week for Ezra Klein, University of Chicago professor Harold Pollack has a must-read post on the striking intersection between mass incarceration and public health.

Reflecting on a recent visit to Cook County Jail, Pollack flags research by Theodore Hammett that found "[o]ne-fifth of all Americans living with HIV, one-third of all Americans infected with hepatitis C, and forty percent of all Americans living with tuberculosis disease passed through correctional facilities in 1997." The population that passes through local prisons like the unconstitutional Cook County facility is especially vulnerable:

These inmates are especially hard to serve during their typically-brief incarcerations. Many have not seen a doctor in years. The same behaviors that land them in jail expose them to serious physical and mental health risks. When these issues go unaddressed in the correctional system, thousands of people quickly bring these problems back to their families and local communities. These physical and mental health problems frequently resurface when former inmates require emergency care—or when something worse happens.

Yet funding dedicated to protecting prisoners (and the communities to which they eventually re-enter) is often first on the chopping block for budget-strapped state and local governments.

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A few weeks ago, Progress Illinois drew attention to 11th District GOP congressional candidate Marty Ozinga's misguided view that there are "very few people nowadays that have no health service at all." Ozinga's callous assessment of the U.S. health care crisis was based on the idea that anyone who can drag themselves to the emergency room will get some type of care.

Criticism of the remark included a pointed column from the Southtown Star's Kristen McQueary, who asked how Ozinga's apparent disregard for the uninsured jived with his self-declared Christian values. In a Star article published today, Ozinga's Democratic opponent, State Senator Debbie Halvorson, responded directly to the remark as well: "When I heard that, I was appalled. ... It proves how out of touch he is."

As detailed in the article, Halvorson grew up uninsured and watched her own mother suffer the indignities faced by Americans who can't afford health coverage. She recently highlighted her health care credentials before the Illinois Nurses Association in Kankakee:

According to her campaign, while in the state Senate, Halvorson worked to provide health insurance to uninsured children and veterans, create a first-in-the-nation program to provide affordable prescription drugs to seniors and the disabled, and require insurance companies to cover preventive care screenings like mammograms.

At the event in Kankakee, Halvorson laid out proposals to help reduce costs and improve health care including: allowing small businesses to bargain collectively to reduce health insurance premiums; expanding funding for the State Children's Health Insurance Program [SCHIP]; increasing funding for preventive care and screenings; ensuring that mental health ailments have the same coverage as physical ailments; and allowing Medicare to negotiate prices for prescription drugs.

Among the issues named by Halvorson, SCHIP is one that voters will want to look at closely in the run up to the election. On his website, Ozinga comes out forcefully against government involvement in providing health insurance. But state health care programs tend to be popular with voters, especially when that coverage is going to uninsured kids.

On Saturday, the Centers for Disease Control released frightening new findings about the H.I.V./AIDS epidemic in America: about 56,300 people are now thought to be infected with HIV annually -- a startling 40 percent jump from the government's previous estimate of 40,000. These figures are not necessarily evidence that infection rates are climbing. Instead, they represent improved assessments derived from a sophisticated blood test. On her Triage blog, the Tribune's Judith Graham writes that it demonstrates that "our prevention efforts haven’t reduced the number of HIV infections or reached the most vulnerable segments of our population." More from Graham:

New cases are rising fastest among gay and bisexual men, according to the report, representing about 53 percent of the infections. African-Americans represent about 45 percent of the cases. About 60 percent of the victims are younger than 40, and 73 percent are men.

"What the numbers tell us is not new to us," said Chris Brown, assistant commissioner at the Chicago Department of Public Health in charge of AIDS/HIV programs. "It tells us, however, where we need to continue to focus our priorities.

Kai Wright's recent piece in The American Prospect adds more context to what he calls "America's AIDS Apartheid":

Meanwhile, an AIDS apartheid has hardened here. John Edwards' two Americas are perhaps most clearly witnessed in the waiting rooms of AIDS clinics around the country. African Americans, who are 13 percent of the U.S. population, now account for a stunning half of all people living with HIV/AIDS and half of all those newly infected every year. The numbers are even more shocking when you look at the people among whom the virus is spreading most quickly. One depressing study of gay and bisexual men in five large U.S. cities found 46 percent of black men to already be positive. Nearly half. No population on Earth has registered infection rates that high.

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Today, the Herald News picked up on 13th District GOP congressional candidate Marty Ozinga's recent statement during a CAN-TV interview that: "There are very few people these days that have no health service at all. I don't care who you are, if you're sick or you get hurt, you go to the hospital and you get taken care of." Reporter Patrick Ferrell noted the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's release yesterday hitting Ozinga for the "out of touch" remark and also got a response from the Republican's campaign:

In the rest of the cable access interview, Ozinga discusses health care with the host for about five minutes. The rest of his quotes are similar to the views on the health care issues page of his Web site.

Andy Sere, Ozinga's campaign manager, said the candidate's quote was taken out of context. He even brought up an example of a Halvorson quote from a downstate paper in December, which if taken our of context, appears to show she is casting doubt on health care being an issue.

Ozinga favors expanding healthcare accessibility, but not through government-run programs. Instead, he believes government should pave the way by providing such things as tax deductions for individual insurance and allowing insurance pools to cut costs for small businesses. Ozinga also supports negotiating with drug companies for cheaper drugs and importing prescriptions to shave costs, according to his Web site.

Ah, the old "out of context" defense.

While it's true that Ozinga said a lot more about health care than just those two sentences, the theme that arises from his broader comments is also quite disturbing. He focuses largely on shifting the insurance burden from the employer to the individual. He emphasizes that "individuals ought to be responsible for themselves and they ought to take the responsibility and realize that just because you're healthy today doesn't mean that next year, to some surprise, you might find yourself sick and in need of health care."

Anyway, watch the video below (the health care conversation starts around the 38:00 mark) and judge for yourself whether he was taken out of context.

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Today, the conservative Illinois Review urged readers to watch a recent CAN-TV interview (full video after the jump) with 11th District GOP congressional candidate Marty Ozinga, asserting: "[Y]ou'll be impressed and encouraged to learn more about this exceptional quality candidate." The interview is an hour long and the first 35 minutes or so are spent discussing Ozinga's concrete business and personal background. The final 20 minutes are devoted to policy matters. And Marty's comments on health care are ... pretty unimpressive.

For instance, here Ozinga minimizes the health care crisis in American by asserting that everyone has access to "health service" -- via emergency rooms:

FRANK AVILA (host): Now what can be done about all the uninsured people and the under-insured people?

OZINGA: There are very few people nowadays that have no health service at all. Almost anybody -- I don't care who you are -- you go to the hospital and you get taken care of.

Marty is clearly taking his cues from President Bush, who made this statement in July 2007:

"I mean, people have access to health care in America. After all, you just go to an emergency room."

So Ozinga -- like Bush -- thinks that access to emergency rooms represents adequate health care for the 47 million Americans without insurance? Has he checked out the state of our ERs lately?

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Today, a coalition of unions and public advocacy groups met in Springfield -- and state capitols nationwide -- to launch Health Care for America Now! (HCAN), a campaign that will push for a comprehensive national health policy by the end of 2009. Sam Stein of The Huffington Post has an overview of the national project:

In addition to spending $40 million -- $1.5 million of which will be put behind an initial ad buy (national TV, print, and online) -- the group will be sending organizers to 52 cities, blasting out emails to 5 million households, airing spots on MSNBC and CNN and submitting op-eds to major papers (officials hinted at the New York Times piece to come).

In addition, the campaign is going to take advantage of Moveon.org's massive data files to reach out to like-minded supporters and officials promised to work in Democratic and Republican districts alike.

The HCAN event in Springfield featured representatives from the Illinois Education Association, AFSCME, SEIU, Citizen Action Illinois, and Planned Parenthood Illinois, to name a few. Small business owners from around the Prairie State were also present to demonstrate how the current American health care system is hurting entrepreneurs as well as employees. From a press release put out by Citizen Action/Illinois:

“For more than a decade, my bottom line has been under siege by rising health care costs,” says David Borris, owner of a Hel’s Kitchen Catering in Highland Park. “As it is, I can only afford health care for 14 of my 25 employees, excluding their spouse or families. We cannot trust the insurance industry that puts profits before people to get us out of this mess. Our health care system is not working, and government cannot expect small businesses to shoulder this burden alone."

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America's employer-based health insurance system has always neglected both the self-employed and people in between jobs. Insurance companies have long filled that vacuum by providing individual insurance plans, a nice alternative for people that fear sudden or unexpected sickness or injury. But does Illinois provide adequate consumer protections for individual health insurance purchasers?

Apparently not.  The Tribune's Triage blog tips us off to a Families USA report (pdf) which found that our state does little to shield such consumers. Here are a few depressing insights pulled out by the Tribune:

- There’s no guarantee here that insurance companies sell coverage to all applicants, a policy known as "guarantee issue." (Five states do so).

- There are no restrictions on companies’ ability to raise premiums based on an applicants’ health status, meaning coverage could cost an exorbitant amount of money.

- Often, insurers will sell policies to consumers with pre-existing conditions but exclude covering for those conditions for a specified period. Many states have regulations that limit how long these exclusions can last, typically requiring full coverage after six months to one year, but Illinois does not.

- Half the states also limit the period of time that insurers can go back in someone’s medical history looking for evidence of pre-existing conditions that can be excluded from coverage. Illinois has no such limitation.

You can read the entire report here.

Illinois is the only state in the country that offers comprehensive and affordable health insurance to all children. The All Kids program covers 1.4 million children, but as many as "376,000 Illinois kids still are uncovered by any health insurance," according to the Sun-Times. That's why the newspaper and Resurrection Health Care are holding a registration drive this Saturday, June 21. The goal is to sign up 1,000 additional children in one day.

While organizers had initially hoped for 300 volunteers to man registration stations throughout Chicagoland, over 400 people have already signed up. As the Sun-Times points out, registering children with All Kids not only protects Illinois' most vulnerable, it saves everyone else money too:

Giving kids who would normally go straight to the emergency room a "medical home" helps to lower health care costs for everyone, said Barry Maram, director of the Illinois Healthcare and Family Services Department.

"Each year, for the people who do have insurance, $1,059 is added to the cost of our policies because of the uninsured," Maram said, citing a 2005 report from Families USA.

You can find a list of registration locations here. Take a look if you or anyone you know might benefit from this program, or call (877) RES-INFO to find a nearby enrollment center.

On May 10, 2008, Rep. Mark Kirk spoke privately to the Republicans of Wheeling Township. Some snippets of Kirk's "thoughtful" remarks have already been made public over at Archpundit's site, including his statement that Bush has been a "decisive" president (which is true ... I guess) and his claim that the situation in Iraq has "substantially improved in the past year."

Progress Illinois has come into possession of another clip from the event. In this one, Kirk blatantly misleads his GOP audience about the makeup of the uninsured population in America. Listen:

Internal mp3

Let's first take Kirk's claim that "15 million" of the 47 million uninsured Americans are illegal immigrants. His assumption seems to be that all undocumented immigrants currently residing in the country lack health care. To the contrary, a study (PDF) recently released by the National Institute for Health Care Management put the number of uninsured illegal immigrants at approximately 5.6 million. If the Kirk campaign wants to send over materials supporting their "15 million" claim, I'd be more than happy to post their response.

Second, we have Kirk's assertion that no one under the poverty line "lack[s] healthcare in America." This is just plain false. A 2007 report by the Kaiser Foundation found that 36 percent (or 16.7 million) of the non-elderly uninsured have incomes below the poverty level. So why aren't these folks covered by Medicaid? Because you must be either disabled, pregnant, or have dependents to be eligible for the program -- a fact lost on Kirk, apparently.

What about Kirk's suggestion that there are no uninsured children in this country? In fact, the same Kaiser study shows that 20 percent (or 9.3 million) of the uninsured are under 18 years of age.

Finally, Kirk asserts that the uninsured are "overwhelmingly 20 and 30 year-olds." Granted, a large chunk of the uninsured are in the 19-34 range -- 39 percent, according to Kaiser. But it can't be ignored that 32 percent of this population are in the 35-54 age bracket.

So while Kirk would have Republicans believe that the uninsured are either gainfully-employed young folks or illegal immigrants, the reality is much more complicated. And much more troubling.

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