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St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Lee Enterprises

Friday, April 17, 2009 8:05 PM CDT
Quinn names friend to head health board

By the ASSOCIATED PRESS

CHICAGO (AP) — Gov. Pat Quinn is leaning on his good friend and former physician, Dr. Quentin Young, to resurrect the image of an important but obscure state board caught up in the scandal that helped bring down former Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

Quinn on Friday named Young as chairman of the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board, a state agency that regulates health care facility construction.

The little-known board has been a focus of the far-reaching federal investigation of corruption in state government that eventually led to Blagojevich’s arrest in December.

Former health facilities board member Stuart Levine and former Blagojevich fundraiser Antoin “Tony” Rezko are both in prison after scheming to use the board as a way to get political contributions or kickbacks.

Quinn said Young’s appointment will help restore the image of the five-member board. Young will take over for an acting chairwoman.

At 85, Young is retired from the practice of medicine but remains an active advocate for universal health care. A high-profile medical professional in Chicago, Young also once served as a personal physician to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

In 2001, Young walked across the state with Quinn to promote health care access.

Young recognizes the chore ahead of him on the board.

“Whatever’s in my power to do to keep it honest and transparent I’ll do,” Young said.

But one possible GOP challenger in next year’s gubernatorial election is questioning the need for the board at all, saying the state doesn’t have other industry planning boards and that hospitals should be allowed to control their own construction needs.

“Maybe this might sound a bit radical but I don’t know why we need an Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board. It’s just an opportunity for total corruption,” U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk, a Republican from Chicago’s northern suburbs who is mulling a run for governor, said when he addressed a Chicago civic group earlier this week.

Quinn and Young defended the board, saying it prevents duplication of services and can head off meltdowns like the one caused by deregulation in the financial industry.

“Health care is not a widget. It is not something in the marketplace that just can be added and subtracted,” Quinn said.

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