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The newspaper headlines last week were just what Gov.
Rod Blagojevich wanted: · “Illinois to offer free cancer tests
for women.”
· “More women get free cancer screenings
— Uninsured now have access to program.”
· “Governor expands cancer
screenings.”
And the story ledes were pretty good as well. For instance, here’s one from the Sun-Times: “Gov.
Blagojevich . . . announced plans to provide free mammograms and breast
cancer treatments to all uninsured women over age 40. The state also will
offer free pelvic exams and Pap tests to uninsured women over age 35, and
pay for cervical cancer treatments.”
Blagojevich claimed that the program would cover
260,000 more women and cost $50 million. It would be funded, he said, by
his controversial vetoes of legislative “pork projects” from
the state budget. The trouble is, only a tiny bit of this is true. For instance, Abby Ottenhoff, a spokeswoman for the
governor, admitted that the state is expecting just 5,000 women to take
advantage of the cancer screenings, which would likely find 50 who needed
treatment. Now, don’t get me wrong here. Treating 50
uninsured women for breast or cervical cancer is a good thing, but the
reality clearly doesn’t measure up to the rhetoric. What’s going on here? The governor has been getting hammered throughout the
state over those aforementioned budget vetoes, which slashed almost $500
million in mostly beneficial programs, including tens of millions for
health care. The vetoes were purely politically motivated and were solely
directed at his perceived enemies in the House and Senate. If his enemies
wanted the projects, Blagojevich cut them. Newspaper editorial boards, columnists, and victims of
the governor’s vetoes have been whacking the governor pretty good for
weeks. Blagojevich needed to turn things around as the Illinois House
geared up to override the vetoes, so he presented this
screening-and-treatment program as a superpositive aspect of his budget
vetoes and framed his fight with the General Assembly as a choice between
pork and saving lives — and, man, did he lay it on thick. “I dare the state Legislature to take this one
away,” Blagojevich said in Peoria, according to that city’s Journal Star. Also in Peoria, according to WHOI-TV, the governor
said, “If they’re not going to give us a budget that provides
enough money for the important priorities, then you have to make decisions
on what’s more important, and I defy any of the men and women of the
General Assembly to tell me that there’s a more important priority
than providing
women a chance to get mammograms.”
But that spin is simply not true. Because the program will be only a tiny fraction of
what the governor claims, the governor’s office admits that it will
be funded with $1.75 million already set aside in the Department of Public
Health’s existing budget. In other words, the governor has no plans to use any
of that vetoed money, which he probably couldn’t do anyway because it
would likely be unconstitutional. The General Assembly appropriates and the
governor is obligated to spend the money he is given in the way it’s
given.
Ah, but it doesn’t end there. The governor is also planning a massive
public-relations campaign to tout the cancer screening. How much do you
want to bet that the governor’s PR blitz will cost way more than the
$1.75 million the state will spend on screening and treatment? If the past is any guide, the promotion will cost a
whole lot more. Blagojevich spent millions of taxpayer dollars last year to
promote his All Kids plan, which hasn’t been nearly as successful as
it’s been claimed, but last year was an election year, so the TV ads
and mailers served their real purpose. In case you haven’t figured it out already,
Blagojevich is a shameless self-promoter. He used state-paid ads about sick
kids to fund his reelection campaign last year, and now he’s planning
to use taxpayer-financed ads about women with cancer to fund his battle
with the General Assembly. The real lesson here is that absolutely everything
this governor says has to be checked, double-checked, and then checked
again to make sure he’s telling the truth, because he so rarely does
when he holds these splashy news conferences.
Most local reporters who don’t usually cover
Blagojevich tend to take him at his word, and most citizens don’t
bother looking past the headlines and maybe the first few paragraphs of a
story. This has to stop.
Rich Miller publishes Capitol
Fax, a daily political newsletter. He can be
reached at capitolfax.blogspot.com.
This article appears in Sep 27 – Oct 3, 2007.
