Quinn Supports Healthcare

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by Dwayne T. Ervin

Governor Pat Quinn recently met with doctors and other medical staff at Mercy Hospital to discuss health care and the state budget.

Quinn said he supports veterans care especially for soldiers coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan who will need education, jobs, mental and physical healthcare services. Soldiers coming back with post-dramatic stress disorder have made people more aware of how important mental health is, he said.

There are 3,000 National Guard troops from Illinois with the largest deployment in Afghanistan. Twelve

soldiers have been killed in action since Quinn has been governor.

He also said he supports funding for KidCare, a program that provides all children in Illinois with health care. We want every new child to know that this state has reform, is honest, and that every dollar is [being] spent the proper way.

With a deficit of $11.5 billion, Quinn addressed the need to raise revenue to pay for health care bills

and said the state had to borrow money in order to pay medical workers.

We were able to borrow over a billion dollars very quickly and have done several more transactions from the federal government for basic safety net hospitals here in Chicago and all over Illinois, he added. The idea of this budget is to pay the bills over 30 days, he said.

There are nursing homes in every county of Illinois and if they are not paid in the next six or seven months, it does not help our economy, he sated.

The governor, who was born at Mercy Hospital, said he plans to only keep $150,000 of his salary and

will give the rest back to the state, charities and non-for profit groups.

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