Lisa Madigan is competing for her third term as Illinois' attorney general. Madigan talked with Windy City Times about same-sex marriage and the state budget.
Windy City Times: In your opinion, what are the top three biggest problems Illinois faces right now?
Lisa Madigan: Unemployment and the mortgage foreclosure crisis, the state's inability to makes ends meet, and restoring public trust in government and ethics reform.
WCT: In Illinois healthcare costs have driven the average job-based family insurance plan to over $12,000 a year. Does Illinois lack adequate government oversight in the health insurance industry? What are your plans to make health insurance companies more accountable to consumers?
LM: As attorney general, I have made protecting healthcare consumers and increasing access to affordable, quality medical care a top priority. For far too long, uninsured hospital patients paid the full "sticker price" for hospital services—more than 200 percent above the cost of the services—while insured patients received deep discounts. This unfair practice placed an extraordinary burden on the uninsured, leaving them at risk of bankruptcy due to medical bills.
I took action against this discriminatory pricing and engaged the hospital industry to negotiate a groundbreaking law to cap hospital bills and offer significant discounts for uninsured patients. This new law limits the amount that hospitals can charge uninsured patients to 35 percent above the cost of services and caps the annual amount a hospital can collect from an uninsured patient at 25 percent of their annual household income. I also drafted and negotiated a new law to protect healthcare consumers from unfair billing practices and abusive collection tactics, requiring that hospitals follow uniform and responsible standards when billing and collecting from patients.
Finally, I have an extensive record of working on behalf of consumers to make sure that they are treated fairly by insurance companies. Every year, my office's Health Care Bureau responds to over 2,000 consumer complaints and assists people with healthcare problems through mediation and law enforcement actions. I have also taken an aggressive role in protecting Illinois healthcare consumers from Medicaid fraud. In 2007, for example, working with federal prosecutors, I obtained a judgment for over $334 million against a Medicaid HMO, Amerigroup, Illinois, and its parent company, Amerigroup, Inc., for illegally avoiding coverage of pregnant women and other people with expensive health conditions while continuing to receive state and federal dollars. This was one of the largest false claims judgments in history and the largest civil verdict in the history of the Illinois Attorney General's Office.
I have also aggressively prosecuted other Medicaid fraud cases, including actions against drug manufacturers for inflating the prices used in setting the Medicaid prescription reimbursement rates and, as a result, increased revenues to the state and secured settlements, which provided healthcare to Illinois residents. Overall, through Medicaid fraud cases, I have returned nearly $150 million dollars to the state. Earlier this year, for example, in resolving two of these cases, I directed over $14 million for use in paying Medicaid bills for Illinois' neediest patients.
WCT: In your role as Attorney General, what you will do to help solve our state's public pension problem?
LM: The extraordinary pension deficit requires that the Governor and General Assembly carefully consider all possible ways to reduce the unfunded liability including an ongoing commitment of revenue. As attorney general, I can best assist with reducing this unfunded liability by continuing my efforts to generate revenue for the state and control the expenditures of the attorney general's office. This fiscal year, I submitted to the General Assembly a budget that requested the lowest general revenue fund amount for the Office of the Attorney General in over 10 years. While reducing the general revenue fund budget of the office, I have continued to increase our efforts to generate revenue for the state. Last year alone, my office brought in over $1 billion in state revenue, which is over 25 times the office's GRF budget. I also have made sure that the office is not only responding to the increased need for consumer protection during this recession, but acting proactively and aggressively to help Illinois homeowners stay in their homes. Overall, by carefully managing every line of the office's budget, I have ensured that the office is helping the state through the fiscal crisis and effectively serving Illinois residents who need our assistance during this recession.
WCT: What is your position on civil unions vs. same-sex marriage? What will you do to advance marriage equality in the state?
LM: I have consistently supported laws and policies to end discrimination against LGBT individuals throughout my public life. I support marriage equality including civil unions and same-sex marriage. In recent legislative sessions, I have worked closely with advocacy organizations and state legislators to pass a law that would recognize civil unions. In the state Senate, I was a strong and vocal supporter of legislation aimed at protecting gays and lesbians and was a chief Senate co-sponsor of the bill to amend the Illinois Human Rights Act to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation. Since entering public office in 1998, I have made it a priority to support issues of importance to the LGBT community.
WCT: Can the state balance its budget without a tax increase?
LM: Throughout this budget crisis, I have focused on the ways that my office can help the state, including by generating over $1 billion in revenue for the state last year, saving money by effectively defending the state in litigation and making sure that the state continues to comply with court orders that require the provision of critical services.
Families all over Illinois depend on state-funded programs to provide critical services. The General Assembly must do everything possible to make sure that services continue to be provided to people who need the state's help. We are in an extremely difficult climate in which to raise taxes on Illinois families. People all over the state have lost their jobs, putting the unemployment rate at its highest in well over a decade. Businesses are facing extraordinary economic pressures and, in response, have been laying-off employees, reducing hours and salaries or closing.
More than 100,000 Illinois families received foreclosure notices in 2008, and the foreclosure crisis is continuing this year. Increasing taxes on working families has to be the absolute last resort. Before asking working people to pay more, state government needs to demonstrate that it is making the difficult and necessary choices to cut waste, reduce spending and identify ways to operate more efficiently.
WCT: The phrase "politics as usual in Illinois" is often used to describe what many believe is corrupt political system in the state. What will you do to restore public trust in government?
LM: Every elected official in Illinois must be focused on reforming and rebuilding trust in our government. As attorney general, I have taken significant steps to instill integrity and accountability in Illinois government. First, from the start of my tenure as attorney general, I have worked to open government and increase transparency. In my view, greater transparency, which is critical to increasing accountability, is the foundation of any serious government reform effort. In December 2004, I created a public access counselor in the attorney general's Office to increase compliance with the Illinois' sunshine laws—the Freedom of Information Act and the Open Meetings Act.
Through the public access counselor, my office has trained and educated the public, the media and government officials on how to use the sunshine laws and how to comply with them. We also have fielded thousands of questions and complaints from the public, the press and government officials—and mediated disputes to try to make public documents accessible. As a result of this work, I saw firsthand how former Governor Blagojevich made secrecy, not sunshine, the default position of his administration. I also saw over and over again, and at every level of government, how hard it is to enforce FOIA and the Open Meetings Act when faced with government officials who prefer secrecy.
Based on the extensive track record of my office's public access counselor, I worked closely with a coalition of open government advocates, including the Illinois Reform Commission, during the last legislative session to draft, negotiate and pass transparency reform legislation to strengthen FOIA and empower the public access counselor to enforce the sunshine laws with binding opinion authority. The result of this effort is a groundbreaking new law that codifies the public access counselor position within the attorney general's Office and empowers the PAC to review and determine whether governments must disclose documents under FOIA or conduct business in public under the Open Meetings Act.
The new law gives the PAC authority to subpoena needed information, provide advisory opinions to governments, issue-binding opinions to resolve disputes, and sue to enforce binding opinions. The new public access law also significantly strengthens FOIA to make it easier for the public to obtain public records. The law creates a presumption of transparency for all records, shortens the time for governments to respond to a FOIA request, narrows and clarifies the personal privacy exemption, requires governments to seek pre-approval from the PAC before asserting the personal privacy or preliminary draft exemptions and limits copying charges.
Additionally, if a FOIA disputes ends up in court, the new law allows courts to impose significant penalties on governments that willfully violate the law and requires courts to award attorneys' fees to plaintiffs who successfully sue to obtain a public record. Finally, the new law requires that governments designate officials to receive training on compliance with FOIA and the Open Meetings Act. To prepare government officials and the public for this new law, which took effect on Jan. 1, 2010, my office has been conducting educational seminars throughout the state and preparing educational materials.
Second, during the last legislative session, I worked closely with the Executive Ethics Commission to draft, negotiate and pass reforms to strengthen enforcement of the ethics laws and increase transparency in that process. Third, throughout my tenure as attorney general, I have taken an active role in fighting corruption and misconduct within government, as well as seeking to recover taxpayer dollars when contractors defraud the government. I initiated an investigation of allegations of corruption involving former Gov. Blagojevich.
Later, when it became clear that we were seeking to question the same witnesses as the United States Attorney's Office, I agreed to provide all of the information that my office obtained to the US Attorney. Since then, I have created a Public Integrity Unit within my office to coordinate with criminal and civil attorneys to investigate government misconduct, fraud, waste and abuse that has continued to provide relevant information to federal authorities. Along with increasing my office's involvement in the criminal prosecution of public corruption, I have increased our use of the civil false claims statute to recover based on fraud in government contracts.
The best example of this work to recover taxpayer dollars lost to fraud is our suit against Amerigroup, an HMO that defrauded the state's Medicaid program. Through this suit, working with the federal government, we obtained a judgment of over $334 million. I also have actively used other available civil laws to ensure that state funds—such as state grant money—are used properly. Earlier this year, for example, I filed a suit against Loop Lab School, a charity that received a $1 million state grant to purchase property for a school, to recover the money. Finally, I have established a long track record of serving as a watchdog on behalf of the people of Illinois and making sure that government follows the law. I will continue to act as a watchdog for the people of Illinois and take action whenever necessary to protect the state and the taxpayers.
WCT: You are running uncontested in this race. Why should Illinoisans vote for you?
LM: As attorney general, I have a record of independent, aggressive advocacy on behalf of the people of Illinois. I ran for this office because I wanted to serve as the people's lawyer. I have protected consumers, fought for government transparency and accountability, enhanced community and nursing home safety, created programs to protect children from online dangers, and worked to safeguard our environment.
By making decisions in the interests of the people, without regard to politics, and tackling longstanding problems and emerging issues, I have made a real difference. If re-elected, I will continue to fight for the people of Illinois, with the following issues as just a few examples of my work. I have a gained a national reputation for protecting consumers. Before national attention turned to the foreclosure crisis, I drafted laws to protect consumers from unfair lending practices and mortgage fraud. I sued Countrywide for deceptively putting homeowners in loans they didn't understand and couldn't afford and led the national settlement with Countrywide, creating the first mandatory loan modification program. I also sued Wells Fargo for unfairly targeting African American and Latino borrowers. To help families stay in their homes, I created a hotline to provide direct assistance. And long before the economic crisis, I stood up for consumers against utility rate hikes.
Just this past November, I testified before the U.S. Senate Education, Labor and Pension Committee in favor of the recently reintroduced Employment Non-Discrimination Act ( S. 1584 ) , which would provide federal protections for LGBT persons in employment. In my testimony, I emphasized the importance of expanding the Illinois Human Rights Act in 2006. I was honored to be able to have this opportunity to emphasize the importance of protecting all Americans from discrimination.
Since entering public office in 1998, I have made it a priority to support issues of importance to the LGBT community. As attorney general, I have continued these efforts and will do so in the future.
See www.lisamadigan.org .
