Don’t leave disabled out of state budget

Quinn has a hit list for an ever increasing number of state facility closures these days. It is of great concern to other legislators that he is stomping on the rights of vulnerable groups of people, sending them out with little or no health care coverage, and potentially creating unsafe living arrangements with his proposed closures and consolidations.

Closing just one state mental hospital in Jacksonville means the loss of 420 jobs and displacing 185 disabled people. These people may not be placed right away, or get the medication and supports that they need once they are placed. Closing several more facilities means that the community will have to absorb even more patients. The community does not have enough services right now to handle such a sudden influx of disabled and/or mental health patients.

Because just who is going to pay for community based care, anyway? Certainly not the state. Quinn is planning on balancing his budget with this scare tactic. Certainly not Medicaid. Cuts are so deep that many doctors in Illinois do not accept new Medicare patients. Mental health patients and the developmentally disabled who are getting the care they need now at their state facilities may not find a private doctor who will take them when they are out in the community.

Some people say that Quinn wants to get the legislature to borrow more money that we do not have. Please lobby your legislators to work on balancing the budget in other ways that do not have such distressing consequences for our most vulnerable populations.

Julie Gale

McHenry