From the Tribune:

'No' now 'yes' for health plan
Governor defies legislative panel in bid to raise coverage

By Ray Long and David Mendell | Tribune staff reporters
November 18, 2007

SPRINGFIELD - Gov. Rod Blagojevich is moving ahead with a broad expansion of state-subsidized health care even though a legislative oversight panel told him "no" last week.

The governor's administration has told state social service agencies that health coverage under the FamilyCare program is being expanded, an increase that could reach an estimated 147,000 people. Those state agencies already have begun signing up new participants despite the panel's rejection of the plan.

Blagojevich's move is only the latest in testing the extent of his executive authority against a legislature that has shot down his plans to expand health care, citing questions about its affordability.

"The number of individuals with access to affordable medical care will be increased," according to internal documents obtained by the Tribune. "This is particularly true for working adults who cannot afford the high cost of insurance premiums or trips to the doctor, hospital, etc. Without this program, these individuals will be subjected to poor or very limited medical care."

Blagojevich is expanding FamilyCare income eligibility to $82,600 for a family of four to give more people medical coverage. Previously, the income cutoff was $38,202 per year for that same family.

On Tuesday, a legislative rule-making panel voted to block Blagojevich's attempt to enact the health-care expansion. But Abby Ottenhoff, a Blagojevich spokeswoman, insisted the panel is not legally empowered to block the governor's actions.

"[The panel's] role is merely advisory," Ottenhoff wrote in an e-mail response to the Tribune late Friday. "It does not have the constitutional authority to suspend the regulation."

Lawmakers who thought they had blocked the governor last week were caught off guard by Blagojevich's decision to press ahead despite the rejection.

"If indeed the governor believes that [the panel] does not exist without constitutional underpinnings, why did he bother to go to [there] at all?" said state Rep. Lou Lang (D-Skokie), a member of the panel. "And why do any of his agencies go [there] for rule changes?"

Lang noted that Blagojevich's health-care initiatives "have failed on a number of fronts" in the Democratic-controlled legislature.

State Rep. John Fritchey (D-Chicago) opposed the expansion during the panel's meeting last week, arguing that it exceeded the governor's authority. He called Blagojevich's latest actions "disheartening as they only serve to further the disconnect between the administration and the legislature."

"Just as ... no man is an island, this governor is not a state government unto himself," Fritchey said, predicting a legal showdown over the constitutional authority of the governor and the legislature.

The Blagojevich administration is relying on arguments from a nearly 30-year-old controversy that erupted between then-Gov. James R. Thompson and state lawmakers over the authority of the rule-making panel.

Blagojevich has regularly signaled disdain for the actions of lawmakers in rejecting his initiatives, even though the legislature is controlled by members of his own party. The governor went so far as to file suit against House Speaker Michael Madigan of Chicago, the chairman of the state Democratic Party, accusing him of disregarding his calls for special legislative sessions aimed at enacting his budget-related initiatives.

"Thousands of parents in Illinois are on the brink of losing their health coverage or are going without coverage because they can't afford it," Ottenhoff said.

Blagojevich's maneuver comes at a time when he and legislative leaders are trying to reach elusive deals to expand gambling, launch multibillion-dollar statewide construction programs and provide new money for Chicago-area trains and buses.

Even one of the two lawmakers who sided with Blagojevich last week during the lopsided rejection of his program disapproved of his latest tactic.

"I think it's a bad negotiating tactic because if you want people to go along with you, you aren't constantly in [their] face," state Rep. Rosemary Mulligan (R-Des Plaines) said.

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