George Ryan wasn’t the first. University of Chicago law professor Albert Alschuler notes in the University of Chicago Chronicle (January 23): “Governors Alfred E. Smith and Herbert H. Lehman of New York commuted every case where at least one justice of the Court of Appeals had dissented from the court’s affirmation of the death sentence.”
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Mission creep. On January 27 the Illinois Older Worker Information Clearinghouse, a government-funded job-counseling operation based in far downstate Harrisburg, issued a press release heralding its new definition of older workers: “between the ages of 16 and 83.”
“Some hospitals charge much more for the same services than other hospitals in the same market,” according to the Chicago-based Hospital Accountability Project of the Service Employees International Union (“Bitter Bills to Swallow: A consumer guide to the 20 most common ways hospitals overcharge patients”). “The 1999 ‘Illinois Hospital Price Survey Report,’ published by the Illinois Health Care Cost Containment Council, stated that Provident Hospital in Chicago charged $630 for a semi-private room while Illinois Masonic Hospital charged $1,053 for a semi-private room. Chest x-ray charges varied from $79 at Bethany Hospital to $226 at the Illinois Masonic Hospital.” The point? “If you have been charged $220 for a chest x-ray, you should be able to use the information in this report to argue that the price was unreasonably high.”
