Second Thoughts

 Every Illinoisan wants, or ought to want to curb unneeded increases in Medicaid spending. Purging the rolls will help a little, but the real problem is something else. According to Harold Pollack, writing in the Washington Post, the average annual expenditures on the bottom 72 percent of Illinois Medicaid recipients is only about $564. That […]

Writing two days before Christmas about the theft from Target’s data system of as many as 40 million customer names, card numbers, expiration dates and card security codes, the Chicago Tribune editors wrote, “Companies and government prosecutors will do what they can, but consumers will have to become more vigilant about watching for the handiwork […]

Over the years I’ve ridden trains of one kind or another as often as I ride horses, and like all passengers have had my share of ideas about how to improve service. Until Illinois gets a genuinely high-speed service between Springfield and St. Louis and Chicago, the biggest problem facing the rail passenger is how […]

 In “Having fun saving the world” (Nov. 7, 2013) I raised questions about the proposed Kidzeum’s hopes of turning “addressing the following critical issues affecting the health and wellness of youth today and of future generations” such as obesity and its diseases and air pollution into family fun. I have a few more. Downtown Springfield […]

I had a few more thoughts on the subject of town histories. (“What they had to do,” Nov. 27, 2013.) I noted in that piece that the story of any of Springfield civic siblings –Decatur, Champaign and Urbana, Bloomington-Normal — would make a lively book, yet none has one. For example, Bloomington is, with Peoria, […]

 A while back I lamented Illinois’ failure to set up its own exchange at which citizens without health insurance might learn about and apply for affordable coverage. Today, Business Insider provides a revealing chart on how the different states are doing signing up people for Obamacare. Using data from the Department of Health and Human […]

Bruce Rauner’s term limits referendum lurks like a submerged snag in the Sangamon. (See “Fixing the wrong problem,” Sept. 26, 2013.) Interested readers might want to read this useful summary in Crain’s Chicago Business of the experience of 15 states which have tried this miracle cure.

Crain’s Chicago Business recently took its own look at why the State of Illinois failed to set up its own state-run exchange under the Affordable Care Act. The result is that uninsured Illinoisans who wish to purchase insurance are forced to rely on the glitchy federal website to shop for policies. The short version of […]

Downtown Springfield had a 10,000-square-foot children’s museum from 1996 to 2001,  which closed from a lack of money and interest. Which raises a question: The proposed new on will succeed because…why? The SJ-R thinks it was because its predecessor failed because it opened before downtown became a popular tourist, dining and shopping destination. I wonder […]

 More on the subject of local histories: Helen Van Cleave Blankmeyer wrote a history of Sangamon County titled The Sangamo Country. I don’t recall if it was commissioned by or merely published by the District 186 Board of Education, but publish it the board did. The book was aimed at 8th graders, less to inform […]

I tried to say all this a year and a half ago in “Living too high off the hog” (March 3, 2011) but this time I will hand the mike over to Aaron Carroll at the Incidental Economist. Referring to recent news that hospital systems are laying off people, and that the layoffs are being […]

 In the process of commenting on the zippy new surfaces at the Washington Park tennis courts (now the Velasco Tennis Center) in “Courting new fans,” I mentioned that I used to play there in the 1960s and ‘70s. The courts at Washington and Lincoln Parks in those days were of clay in the classic mold, […]