Reigning Gridlock Boils Over On Health Care Updated X1

February 27th, 2008 at 01:17am Andrea Zimmermann

There’s the government you learn about in grade school. And there’s the government at work in Springfield.

Occasionally, they’re one in the same. More often than not these days, they have little in common.

On Tuesday, a special committee of lawmakers met to vote on whether to make Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s latest health care plan permanent. The governor sent surrogates to present his position. The committee members asked questions. Then they voted on the plan.

That’s where the scene on Tuesday in Springfield ceased to resemble the government you learned about in grade school — an institution where level-headed individuals give and take over policy, ultimately reaching a compromise that’s somewhere in the ballpark of the public’s best interest.

But then, that’s the climate in Springfield. There is little give and take resulting in compromise. Few of the elected officials around here seem to have meaningful public dialogue. The days of work tend to end in gridlock, not any particular advance in policy.

The governor’s surrogates did present his plan to the Joint Committee of Administrative Rules, which reviews rules proposed by the governor’s agencies. This, oddly enough, prompted the first bout of confusion among committee members.

You see, the governor previously declared that the committee has no authority to block his administrative rules, even though state law says the committee does have that power. After the committee voted in November to reject his health care plan, which he couched in an “emergency” rule, he said he would go ahead with it anyway.

His administration is now in court defending a lawsuit brought by a suburban attorney who says the governor violated the law by ignoring the committee’s defeat of his plan.

But Blagojevich’s aides nonetheless appeared before the same committee on Tuesday and asked members to approve a permanent version of the “emergency” rules they already rejected. Here’s an exchange between committee member Lou Lang and officials with the governor’s Department of Healthcare and Family Services including Barry Maram, the department’s director, and Tamara Hoffman, its chief of staff:

Rep. Lou Lang: Did you say 3,200 people have been added to the program?
Agency Official: 3,300
Lang: 3,300 people have been added to the program. And from what day till today were people added to the program?
Agency Official: Dec. 1 was when we started coverage.
Lang: And what day was it that JCAR told you folks that we didn’t approve of this emergency rule? Right around (Dec. 1), give or take?
Hoffman: It was before that.
Lang: Under what guideline, rule or hutzpah, does the department decide, on its own, when you come to JCAR for approval and they don’t give it to you that you sign people up for a program that we told you you shouldn’t have?

Hoffman: We believe that we have the authority to do so.
Lang: So why would you come to JCAR in the first place? Why are you here?
Hoffman: Because we are going through the process.
Lang: You are going through a process that you don’t believe in?
Maram: I think what we are trying to discuss here is the fact that these families…
Lang (interrupting): No, this is not a question about the families. This is a question about the process. I’m going to ask the question again. … Under what hutzpah do you come to this body, and ask us to approve a rule that we already rejected when you had the unmitigated gall to put 3,300 people on a program that you asked us to approve that we didn’t approve. Why are we here?
Hoffman: To have an open forum to hear comment to participate to try to make sure that what we are implementing … concerns.
Lang: So if JCAR had said yes, that would have been a really good thing, but since we said no, it doesn’t really matter what the hell we say here in JCAR.
Hoffman: That’s not what I am saying, Representative, and actually you are talking about the emergency rule, and we are here today to talk about the second notice on the…
Lang (interrupting): And in the meantime, when you are rejected on the emergency rule, you went ahead and put 3,300 people on a program where the emergency rule was rejected. … Do we have an answer to why you have blithely ignored what we have said to you over this period of time?
Hoffman: We don’t believe that we have …
Lang: You didn’t answer my question. … Well I want an answer from somebody as to why 3,300 people were added to a program that we told you you could not have.
Hoffman: We believe that we have the authority to do so.
Lang: Then let me ask the second question again. Why did you come here at all?
Hoffman: We are prepared to be here in front of this group.
Lang: You are prepared to be here in front of this group. You will accept a good answer but not a bad one, is that correct?
Hoffman: We are prepared to discuss and respond to questions.
Lang: Fine, thank you.

Blagojevich’s chief policy objective is universal health care. Last year his efforts consumed the entire legislative session, and they helped create today’s logjam. Additional background on this story is here, here and here.

This logjam, in part, was created by Blagojevich’s apparent inability to concede defeat. In today’s committee, the bipartisan panel of lawmakers had a choice to make.

a) Convince 8 of the 12 members to stop the governor from administering a program that never received legislative approval, with questions about how it would be funded and how much money it would cost.

b) Let the program pass through for the sake of working families who desperately need healthcare.

Few lawmakers do not want to see everyone have access to health care and be able to have health care insurance coverage. Blagojevich, somewhat skillfully, has put lawmakers in a tough position, because a legislator who votes to preserve procedure, in this case, casts a vote against health care.

The committee on Tuesday rejected the governor’s plan.

It is hard to imagine how lawmakers and the governor will be able to have a real conversation when dialogue is this unproductive.

UPDATE 1

The SJ-R has a news story:

For the second time since last fall, a legislative panel threw a wrench Tuesday into Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s plan to expand health-care access to 147,000 Illinoisans — an initiative he enacted even though lawmakers never approved it.

Later Tuesday, two Democratic members of the Illinois House unveiled legislation that they said would accomplish what the Democratic governor has said he wants to do by making more people eligible for the Family Care program. The legislation is House Bill 6297, sponsored by Reps. David Miller of Lynwood and John Fritchey of Chicago.

The developments were the latest in a months-long skirmish between the Blagojevich administration and the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, a bipartisan panel consisting of 12 state senators and representatives. Miller and Fritchey serve on JCAR.

Entry Filed under: JCAR, Rod Blagojevich, Illinois politics