Health, energy issues discussed at Illinois chamber of commerce briefing. Check it out:
(News-Gazette, The (Champaign-Urbana, IL) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Sep. 27--CHAMPAIGN -- There's no consensus among Illinois employers about what government should do to make health care more affordable, the president of the Illinois Chamber of Commerce says.
Some employers want government-provided health care. Others are seeking a solution from free enterprise. Still others aren't providing health insurance at all.
"There's not a clear answer to what the state can and should be doing," chamber President Douglas Whitley told 35 business people at a briefing in Champaign that tied in with the chamber's endorsement of Republican Judy Myers for the 52nd Senate District seat.
Myers faces Democrat Mike Frerichs and Socialist Equality candidate Joe Parnarauskis in the Nov. 7 general election. The winner will succeed Republican Sen. Rick Winkel.
At the chamber's briefing at the Hawthorn Suites Hotel, audience member Carol Timms asked what the state could do to help small businesses with mounting health insurance costs.
Myers said a tax credit could help to some extent. Whitley said employers would be helped if the state made fewer mandates for health care coverage.
He said the state has 26 different health insurance mandates, and the chamber believes insurance decisions "ought to be more like a smorgasbord. You ought to be able to pick and choose."
Whitley, who grew up in Atwood, said the state chamber has also endorsed Republican Judy Baar Topinka over Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Whitley chided Blagojevich for "very anti-business policies," namely imposing new taxes on business.
Whitley claimed the Blagojevich administration thinks it is "OK to increase the costs of doing business" because employers have "deep pockets" that can absorb taxes.
Specifically, Whitley assailed the state's delay of payments to medical providers and its failure to meet public employee pension obligations. He said some Illinois doctors are fleeing to Indiana and Wisconsin to avoid the high costs of doing business here.
Audience member Andrew Timms asked Myers how the state's budget problems could be solved if taxes are cut, as she advocates.
"If you have a strong business community and an attractive business climate, then the revenue will come," Myers said.
Earlier, Whitley sounded the same theme, saying "the only way out of (the state's budget woes) is to grow the economy. The current administration does not do this."
Whitley did credit Blagojevich with realizing the importance of energy to Illinois, specifically with regard to the $1 billion FutureGen project to demonstrate clean-coal technology.
A private-public partnership is trying to decide whether the FutureGen plant should be built in Illinois at either Mattoon or Tuscola or at one of two sites in Texas.
Responding to a question from real estate developer Brett Benso about the plant's eventual location, Whitley said the "only issue" appears to be what position, if any, President Bush takes on the matter.
Bush is a Texan, and Whitley said public officials leaving office sometimes steer federal projects to their home states. Whitley called the practice "the Lyndon Johnson syndrome."
He said Texas wound up with the superconducting supercollider project during the presidency of George H.W. Bush, after fierce competition with Illinois.
"FutureGen is research, and whether that (project) goes to Illinois or goes to Texas, the research done there will benefit Illinois coal," he said.
With regard to economic development, Whitley said the state must move away from government-controlled solutions and toward more public-private partnerships.
"In Illinois, we've had a top-down economic development focus the last 30 years ... Some years we've had genuine success, but for the most part, it's been muddling," he said.
To see more of The News-Gazette, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.news-gazette.com.
Copyright (c) 2006, The News-Gazette, Champaign-Urbana, Ill.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
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