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...continued Governor funds new healthcare initiative by taking from existing programs

existing healthcare programs.
   "We've got to pay for what we've already got," said Watson. "This is not the time to be starting newer and newer programs. And when it comes to health and human services, this governor is cutting deep into services that are critically needed across the state of Illinois: those connected with drug abuse, those assisting and protecting the developmentally disabled, nursing home facilities and care…it's so ironic. And after all of these cuts he (Blagojevich) has made, it's still not going to be enough to fund his healthcare program. We passed a pretty austere budget this session. This healthcare proposal is a mammoth budget-buster," he added.
   The proposal is just that. Its status: Legislators are unsure when they will be privy to future discussion on the issue. At press time, it was expected to arise during the October veto session, but it may not until regular session in January.
   The irony of Blagojevich's healthcare cuts to fund newer and pricier healthcare initiatives is also apparent to State Senate Assistant Minority Leader David Luechtefeld, a Republican from Okawville.
   "Of the nearly $500 million in vetoes he made, the governor ended up cutting out a lot of health care," said Luechtefeld. "It's not only ironic, it's hypocritical. It really is."
   Luechtefeld said hospitals and nursing homes were the biggest collective victims of the governor's health care-specific budget cuts to fund health care. In the hospitals category alone, Blagojevich cut $50 million, he said, and nursing homes lost $45 million. Mental health-related programs lost $20 million.
   "Our governor is all about starting programs, and that's it," said
   Luechtefeld. "How can he in good conscience start new programs when he can't pay for existing ones? All he wants to do is simply expand All Kids and FamilyCare. He's chipping away at the idea of universal health care, but that's all he's doing." Luechtefeld says he is all in favor of universal health care - so is Watson - but they question the states having the means by which to make it happen and the funds to keep it running once enrollees are dependent upon the services it promises them.

   "The idea of people having health care is certainly a direction we would like to see happen, but it needs to come from the federal level so it is done uniformly throughout the country," said Luechtefeld. "If Illinois establishes its own state-sponsored universal health care, who does it bring here? Someone who is uninsured."
   How much the governor's latest universal healthcare initiative is going to cost beyond the first couple of years is still unknown to legislators. Blagojevich's original proposal, known as Illinois Covered, was unveiled in March 2007 at an initial cost of $464 million with an estimated $4 billion annual cost once fully implemented in FY 2011.
   The governor's revised healthcare proposal, presented in August, bears the price tag of $463 million with an estimated $2 billion to $2.5 billion annual cost once it is fully in place and all participants are enrolled.
   The following are first-year (FY 2008) program costs for his current healthcare proposal, obtained indirectly from the state of Illinois' Web site:
   To screen and treat breast and cervical cancer for all uninsured women in Illinois, $50 million; to allow poor adults ineligible for Medicaid to see a doctor regularly and receive prescription medication, $200 million; to expand the eligibility limits for the FamilyCare program to four times the poverty level (to $82,600 for a family of four), $43 million; to extend the All Kids program to include 19- to 21-year-olds with pre-existing conditions, $15 million; and to offer up to $1,000 in annual subsidies for families that are at 300 percent of the federal poverty level ($61,950 for a family of four) to purchase health insurance, $155 million.
   Repeated calls from the Illinois Business Journal to the governor's Office of Management and Budget were not returned, so verification of these costs and detailed explanations directly from the governor's staff are not included in this story.
   Representatives from the Senate Republicans' office in Springfield estimate if the governor's current health insurance proposal becomes reality, annual costs to fund the above insurance programs could more than double - and in some cases triple - by FY 2011.  

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