 "I'm hustling it," Miller said. "I literally work per diem."
He racked up most of the 190,000 miles on his 2003 car after last
July, when he and his wife closed their pharmacy in the small,
southern Illinois town of Marion, due mostly, he said, to late
Medicaid reimbursements from the state. Miller hit the road, looking
for work.
"In the first two weeks, I was handing out resumes and letters of
introduction," Miller said, who lives in nearby Woodlawn.
Nine months later, he's still looking for a permanent job. Miller
also serves as a Methodist minister and looks to his faith to cope
with his resentment.
"The situation has brought me much closer to Christ," he said. "The
bitterness is not the type that's all-consuming."
But it still seeps out.
"I'm pissed," he said. "I'm bitter. I blame the senators and
representatives -- they allowed each governor to do what he wanted
to."
A graduate of St. Louis School of Pharmacy and a native of southern
Illinois, Miller saw a harbinger of the end of his 20 years in the
pharmacy business in May, when he received a state payment 270 days
late. Earlier, he had put his personal property up as collateral for
a Small Business Administration loan.
Payments from the state were too sporadic to offer as collateral for
a regular loan. Crunched by irregular state payments themselves,
drug wholesalers demanded cash for the $10,000 he owed. Unable to
pay his taxes on time, Miller later that summer closed the pharmacy
and declared corporate bankruptcy.
His store was sold to a pharmacy chain for less than what he owed on
the SBA loan. He said he thinks he can avoid personal bankruptcy.
But the store closure and layoff of five employees haunted him. He
said he became depressed, despondent and wondered, "Would I get a
flippin' job at 54?"
"I let a lot of people down," he said. "I was raised that you pay
your bills. The state caused me to violate my principles."
The state, meanwhile, was skirting its own principles. The Illinois
House in May passed what Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, later
acknowledged was an unbalanced budget for the fiscal year starting
last July 1. The House voted to make this year's $3.7 billion
payment to the state's five public employee pension systems, but the
Senate skipped town without taking a vote, postponing the payment
until January. During the summer, Illinois politicians set their
sights on the statewide November elections.
"I have never seen such an amount of infighting and backbiting,"
Miller said. "They have no vision."
Miller said he tried to bring vision to his pharmacy, by counseling
customers on state and business programs that could reduce their
prescription drug costs or by offering in-store credit.
He recalled one customer who entered his store and said, "I've got
$5 to last me the rest of this month. Do I buy this prescription or
do I eat?" He put the cost of the prescription on a tab.
"Why are the people that we elect to represent us in the state of
Illinois -- why are they allowing this situation?" he asked.
Miller and his wife have no health insurance. He suffers from
diabetes, and they both suffer from hypertension. He worries that
when he qualifies for Medicare at age 65 he won't be able to pay his
share and may also end up on Medicaid, the state-federal health
insurance primarily for the poor and disabled.
"I'll be a hindrance to the state," he said.
The state sometimes appears to be its own hindrance. Faced with a
backlog of unpaid bills from the last fiscal year that ended in
June, the state in December sold $1.5 billion in bonds backed by
Illinois' future shares of the 1998 settlement between the states
and tobacco companies.
But the bond sale also shorted the state on the annual April
payments it receives from the settlement through 2025. Illinois
annually receives close to $300 million, but the bond sale decreases
that amount to about $100 million, according to Brad Hahn, spokesman
for Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka. That money can be used toward
health-related expenses, such as pharmacies.
[to top of second column] |
But the state still has a backlog of $4.5 billion in vendor bills
dating back to October, according to Hahn.
And it's now three months after Gov. Pat Quinn's inauguration-day
promise of economic stability.
"I'm here today to say that we will pay our bills, that we will
stabilize our budget," Quinn said at the time.
A 67 percent personal income tax increase approved and signed into
law in January is expected to garner close to $7 billion annually.
But next year's pension payment -- projected by a nonpartisan
legislative support agency at more than $4.8 billion -- hovers in the
background.
That official estimate most likely is based on the assumption that
pension fund investments will get historic average returns and there
will not be another market downturn for the next 30 years.
The Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability now pegs
the state's pension system as $85.5 billion unfunded, according to
market value. Moody's Investors Service ranks it as the most
underfunded state pension plan in the nation.
"We're 50th out of 50," Miller said, after learning of the state's
status. "Isn't that a wonderful thing to say about the Land of
Lincoln?"
When it comes to overdue Medicaid bills, the state paid off $750 million
during the past three weeks of March to capture an enhanced
federal matching rate before it dropped April 1, according to Hahn
--
a jump from the usual $100 million paid per week. Pharmacies are not
eligible for the enhanced match but have been included in the
recent spate of payments, he said. Hahn said he expects the state to make the same push on payments
during the last weeks of June, before the federal match returns to
its usual 50 percent on July 1.
Tony Sartoris, president of the 17-store Doc's Drugs, headquartered
in the north-central town of Braidwood, said he appreciates the
recent payment from the state but likens it to a binge.
"It will then retreat back to where it was," Sartoris said. "They're
borrowing from us."
Mike Patton, executive director of the Illinois Pharmacists
Association, said the "feast or famine" payments to pharmacists
creates a struggle many of them -- like Miller -- can't overcome.
"The lack of consistency is the biggest problem," Patton said. "If
they knew every 60 days they would get paid, they could plan."
"The backlog will continue, since spending exceeds revenue," Hahn
said.
He estimates the state will end the fiscal year with a total backlog
of $6 billion to $7 billion -- $4 billion in vendor bills and up to
$3 billion in other financial obligations such as corporate tax
refunds, employee group health insurance and Medicaid bills.
Miller said he wonders about the state's seeming financial
ineptitude.
"We are commanded to become stewards of our lives and our money,"
Miller said.
And the lingering recession and high unemployment only compound the
fiscal problem, he said.
"It's a time where it cannot be ignored," Miller said.
[Illinois
Statehouse News; By MARY MASSINGALE]
 |
