* The Sun-Times continues its high-profile push to sign families up for the governor’s All Kids program in a big editorial today…
We’re pleased that 1,217 additional children joined the rolls of All Kids during Saturday’s daylong enrollment drive sponsored by Resurrection Health Care and the Chicago Sun-Times. We couldn’t have achieved our goal of signing up at least 1,000 kids without nearly 400 volunteers at more than 40 enrollment centers. These caring individuals dedicated space and volunteered time to help families fill out insurance paperwork to gain access to modestly priced insurance.
Aside from the journalistic integrity question, that’s a pretty big ratio of volunteers to enrollees - roughly one volunteer for every three kids enrolled in the insurance plan.
Getting kids signed up for insurance is a good thing, even though the All Kids plan has its downsides, including the problem of specialists not signing up to treat the patients. We also don’t know how many of those 1,217 children actually qualify, so it’s tough to accurately measure the drive’s success.
And why the Sun-Times editorial page would associate itself with a governor who is under at least nine separate federal investigations is just beyond me, but I suppose “good works” outweighs the rest.
* But while the governor and a major Chicago PR firm tout their success at helping kids in the Sun-Times, the Blagojevich administration is asking for huge concessions from the state’s largest labor union. That union turned out thousands of workers yesterday in Springfield to protest the lack of a new contract…
AFSCME called for the rally and a noontime march through downtown Springfield to draw attention to what the union feels is an unfair contract offer from the Blagojevich administration. State negotiators want AFSCME workers to pay more for health insurance premiums, co-payments and pensions without offering salary increases as compensation, union leaders said. […]
Under the state’s offer, health insurance premiums would increase by 50 percent and co-payments would go up 75 percent for some union employees, Bayer said, at a time that costs of gasoline, utilities and food also are on the rise.
* Lots of folks have little use for state workers, but many of them do jobs that most of us wouldn’t touch, like working in a prison or a facility for the criminally insane or caring for aging veterans. A flood of early retirements at the start of the Blagojevich administration has meant more work for fewer people, so mandatory overtime is taking a toll.
I’ve found over the years that the knee-jerk reaction that all state workers are lazy and overpaid is often just misplaced jealousy, or ideologically motivated, or ill-informed cynicism. My uncle, for instance, worked for the state until he took advantage of the early out plan, and I’m here to tell you that the man worked hard just about every day of his career. My mother at one time was a social worker at a facility for the criminally insane. Not a great job.
* I also have a tough time with this “race to the bottom mentality” out there. To some, we should just cut their pay, cut their benefits and slash payroll ever deeper, to mirror some real or imagined private sector trend. They say this as if it’s supposed to be a good thing, but how is making the lot of working people worse off a good thing?
“But they’re sucking off my taxes!” is often the reply. Well, we have one of the lowest state income tax rates in the country. State sales taxes aren’t hugely out of line. And state payroll per capita is by far the lowest in the nation.
* More from the rally…
Local union leaders and members gathered at the Capitol wearing green T-shirts and waving signs that said, “Governor, don’t cut our health care.” Marion Murphy, caseworker for the Illinois Department of Human Services, AFSCME Local 2806, is on the bargaining committee and spoke during the rally. She cited Blagojevich’s priority to ensure all residents can access quality and affordable health care. “But I guess he forgot about us,” she said. “Why should we be left out in the cold? He’s got the All Kids program, but what about our kids?”
* One thing rarely mentioned in articles like these is that AFSCME refused to endorse any gubernatorial candidate in 2006, after being knocked around by the administration following its 2002 endorsement. The union also enraged the Senate Democrats by putting up candidates.
So, it’s definitely political payback time.
* There are, of course, fiscal considerations. Health care and pension costs are out of control, and if they aren’t somehow reined in a more drastic alternative may have to be implemented down the road. The budget is broken, full of gaping holes and insufficient to finance much of a pay raise.
Still, the governor was elected on a promise not to “balance the budget on the backs of working men and women,” a pledge he has made time and time again since then. Apparently, AFSCME is exempt.
Thoughts?