We need less health care bureaucracy

Rarely have I agreed with state Sen. Kirk Dillard, but he was right in voting against the legislation that earmarked a million dollars to create a Center for Comprehensive Health Planning. The purposes of the million dollar center would be to assess health needs in Illinois and advise the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board, a board which has already proven to be a corrupt bureaucratic dinosaur. When the board was created decades ago, there may have been a legitimate need for it. Hospitals, especially in dense urban areas of the state (Chicago), were on every street corner, and the emerging new medical technology was being duplicated at every facility. Those were the days of "the sky's the limit" health care, when nothing was denied the provider or the patient. Those days are long gone. The need for a health facilities planning board in suburban and rural areas was always suspect. Now, the Illinois legislators want to create a second layer of bureaucracy to duplicate the duties of the first layer of bureaucracy, increase the number of planning board members from five to nine, almost doubling the chances of further corruption, pay them all $65,000 a year, all so they can continue to deny the village of Plainfield the hospital that residents want and need. A piece of advice for the Illinois governor and state legislators: Save that million dollars, save those $65,000 salaries, and get rid of the Illinois Health Care Facilities Planning Board.

Diane Niesman

Wheaton