Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s administration is engaged in a massive public relations push for his child health insurance proposal, using state agencies to ask such disparate groups as construction contractors and foster families to help boost attendance at a Sunday rally to promote his plan.
Blagojevich, whose voter support has lagged, is promoting his All Kids program like the re-election candidate he is expected to become in early November. The governor has promoted the program in frequent public appearances and has sent directors of various state agencies, including environmental protection and prisons, out on the stump to urge support for the proposal.
Even the heads of ostensibly quasi-independent state boards have promoted the program while on the road recently, including Illinois Tollway Executive Director Jack Hartman who did so at an appearance in Rockford.
In addition, the Blagojevich administration has sent severalorganizations, including contractors and non-profit social service agencies, copies of pre-written laudatory letters that tout the first-term Democrat’s program. The organizations have been asked to copy the letter onto their own letterhead and send copies back to Blagojevich’s office and to members of the General Assembly to show their endorsement.
E-mails obtained by the Tribune show the attendance-boosting efforts for the Sunday rally in Chicago include a letter to construction contractors who get millions of dollars of business from the state’s Capital Development Board; they also show a push targeting foster parents through the Department of Children and Family Services.
A spokeswoman for the governor defended the outreach effort, saying, “We’re not taking anything for granted,” even though passage of the plan is virtually assured in the Democratic-controlled General Assembly, where House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President Emil Jones Jr., both of Chicago, are sponsors.
“It would be great to have everyone on board. Lack of health insurance doesn’t impact just one political party,” Blagojevich spokeswoman Abby Ottenhoff said. “Our efforts are broad, and we’re hoping to reach every decision-maker about the program.”
Ottenhoff said state agency directors were told that participation in the Sunday rally, at A. Finkl & Sons Co., 2011 N. Southport Ave., was strictly voluntary. But not all of the communications between state agencies and their workers reflect that.
“We ask that you get as many foster parent, staff, friends, neighbors and interested parties to attend this Health Care Rally as possible,” stated an e-mail sent Tuesday by Addie Hudson, DCFS associate deputy director of external affairs, to top-level regional administrators in Cook County.
“Here is the good part … Bus transportation will be provided,” Hudson wrote, also noting, “as always, your cooperation is appreciated.”
But foster parent groups said that foster children in the state are DCFS wards and have no need for the new health-insurance proposal, since they are already covered by Medicaid, the government health-care program for the indigent.
Some child-welfare advocates contend Blagojevich is trying to use children within DCFS to promote the governor politically. A recent Tribune/WGN-TV poll showed that only 39 percent of voters approve of the job Blagojevich has done since he took office in 2003 and that only 35 percent would like to see him re-elected.
“I think it’s very important for the caregivers and our human services systems to focus on those jobs, which are hard enough, and not to be expected to be a part of anybody’s political apparatus,” said Benjamin Wolf, associate legal director of the Illinois American Civil Liberties Union, which represents children in DCFS care as part of a 14-year-old federal consent decree with the state.
Ottenhoff said bus transportation, food and entertainment expenses for the rally are being underwritten by Finkl, the steel company where Blagojevich’s father once worked. Finkl also has contributed nearly $300,000 to Blagojevich since his first campaign for governor.
The drive to achieve a sizable audience for Blagojevich’s rally came as the Illinois Hospital Association, one of the state’s largest health-care organizations, endorsed the All Kids program Thursday despite having questions about the plan.
“What’s important, I think, is we’ve identified all of the questions that we have to the administration and the administration agrees that those are important questions and we’re going to work together to get to the right answers on those questions,” IHA President Ken Robbins said.
The All Kids program is aimed at providing affordable children’s health insurance for parents who cannot afford it. The program’s estimated $45 million in start-up costs would be subsidized by savings gained in shifting current Medicaid participants into a form of managed health care, the administration says.
Robbins said the association’s questions haven’t been answered “to anybody’s total satisfaction because this is a work in progress.” He said the group will be given a seat at the table as details are being hashed out in the rulemaking process after the legislation is passed.
“The devil is always in the details but we’re confident that the details are going to be attended to,” he said.
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