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Jan 18
2010
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Governor Quinn offered his state-of-the-state address last Wednesday. I learned that he was voted Mr. Soybean. I would have been more impressed if he had been voted “Mr. Common Sense.” So many topics in his speech…where to begin..?
Quinn emphasized the need to invest in “green collar jobs” and the green economy including wind power, because it is clean and all-American. If you look closely at how the Democratic Party machine in Illinois sloshes money around, we already have a green economy that is thriving in Illinois. Your green tax dollars!!
WHO, Governor Quinn, WHO should invest in green energy? Providing energy is a business, NOT a state service. Is the state of Illinois going to become a venture capital investor? Are the taxpayers of the state of Illinois going to be investors in an investment plan as impressive as the Bright Start plan? Bright Start worked great under Democratic leadership…after all, we got half our investment back. That money would have been safer in a shoebox.
The talk about green, sustainable energy certainly sounds and feels good. Politicians love this gibberish recently. Governor Quinn is pleased that we recently passed a law requiring Illinois to obtain 25% of its energy from renewable sources by the year 2025. Why stop there? Let’s pass a law that says by 2025, we have eliminated 25% of all sickness and death in Illinois and 50% of tardiness. I just lose my patience with people who are habitually late.
The hope that government can solve enormous problems by passing simple minded, baseless laws reminds me of fairy tales, where a king decrees absurd requirements for all his subjects.
Governor Quinn, instead of passing silly laws and talking in open-ended terms about feel-good subjects like renewable energy, why not address the specific issues that have reversed Illinois’ economic growth?
Illinois is a high tax state, with one of the highest Workman’s Compensation burdens, one of the highest medical malpractice burden, uncompetitive union scales, and proposals for even higher taxes on the table! And, now, recall that we are no longer competing only with other states. Illinois is competing with China, India, Vietnam and more. And these countries do not pay Workman’s Compensation when someone gets a boo boo. They are sucking up the wealth of the world, and the answer from the Illinois Democratic Party is to raise taxes on Illinois citizens. You may consider that the practices of the Chinese or Indians are unfair, and we can’t lower our culture to treating workers like they do, but, the reality is that Bill Clinton opened the door to trade with China. Who is stepping forward to address this important issue?
Governor Quinn:
1.) Reform the tort laws in Illinois, so that doctors are not afraid to practice, and businesses are not afraid to hire workers, or introduce new products for fear of lawsuits born of opportunism, not merit.
2.) Rescind the Illinois Franchise Tax that discourages capital investment in businesses in Illinois.
3.) Reform Workman’s Compensation in Illinois and take the burden off employers, so that they will view employees as assets, instead of high risks for future expense.
If you go to the board rooms of any major corporation, do you think executives sit around the table saying, “We’ve go to build our next plant in ILLINOIS!!”
Well, perhaps Mr. Soybean can plant the next seed and grow a soybean plant, as long as he can afford the property tax on the land.
I look forward to representing the citizens of the 19th district in Illinois’ General Assembly after winning the election in November 2010.
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I could not agree more wholeheartedly. As a physician, Illinois ranks among the absolute worst places to practice medicine. Malpractice awards and premiums are the highest in the nation in Cook County and our juries had an education provided by Oprah. Opportunists file suit hoping to settle "just give us something to go away" with meritless claims and allegations. At one time, i had thought that there was a minimum amount of common sense allocated to each human, but after practicing medicine for over a decade, I have learned that common sense is NOT the norm.
What Pat Quinn should be asking is "How can we keep physicians from not only leaving IL but from leaving medicine?"
Tort reform is not a blip on the screen of the current health care reform bill(s)and recall Obama stating that he would not endorse any legislation that would restrict a patients ability to sue their physician (remember unwarranted gain from working members of society is one of the five pillars of Obama's mindset).
When are people in America going to realize that the real health care crisis will occur when there is a mass exodus of physicians that deem it no longer worth the risk and the country is forced to import poorly trained doctors who have limited command of English to treat Americans.
I would not encourage any young person to pursue medicine in America and certainly not in IL. In IL we have tolerated and allowed a system of entitlement recipients to terrorize our doctors and wrongfully profit from allegations against our hospitals, and many of these same people are "in too much pain" to get a job, but have no problem doing whatever they want to do so long as they "get their government check."
The tyrants in Springfield and now in DC have bred a system where physicians have learned to treat each and every patient as a potential lawsuit and patients have learned that they can get away with complete lack of responsibility for their own health and sue whomever they chose and all without consequences to them.