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Governor calls VA ordeal 'an unbelievable thing'

Friday, September 28, 2007 8:56 AM CDT

MOUNT VERNON - Gov. Rod Blagojevich offered his thoughts on two hot topics during a brief post-press conference chat with media in Mount Vernon.

Referring to recent events prompting an investigation into high mortality rates from complex surgeries at the VA Medical Center in Marion as a "national scandal," Blagojevich said, "For veterans to fall through the cracks, that's an unbelievable thing. It's really an amazing circumstance, especially when our country is at war and the brave men and women who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan find themselves in a place where they come back and they don't have access to something as basic and fundamental as health care."

Blagojevich took the opportunity to tout the state's Veterans Care program, which provides affordable health care to Illinois' uninsured veterans and to those eligible veterans who cannot currently access care through the Veteran Health Administration, a division of the national VA.

Blagojevich was then asked about the gambling expansion proposal that would fund the $13 billion "Illinois Works" capital spending program.

"I proposed a way to create 725,000 jobs, fund our schools and invest in our infrastructure and that meant that big corporations who aren't paying their fair share of taxes ought to pay their fair share of taxes, but the Legislature wasn't as enthusiastic about that as I was," he said. "And so in the process of give and take sometimes you have to accept things that you really don't like but the greater good is served and if we can build schools and we can fix our roads and we can repair bridges that need repaired and build bridges that are necessary and create 725,000 jobs then that seems to be a good use of that effort. I'm prepared to compromise, make adjustments and accept some of that as long as it means 725,000 jobs, building schools and repairing our bridges."

Listen to Blagojevich's answer to the media.

- Becky Malkovich