Single-Payer Advocate Quentin Young is Appointed to IL Health Agency

IL Gov Pat Quinn recently named Dr. Quentin Young, an advocate of health-care reform, as chairman of the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board. This is a state agency that regulates health care facility construction.

Via Chicago Tribune:

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.

Neither the Chicago Tribune nor the Chicago Sun-Times mentioned that Young supported a single-payer health care system. Instead they both highlighted the friendship between Young and Quinn.

Via Daily Kos:

Young is probably the best-known advocate in Illinois for health care reform, and a staunch advocate of single-payer.

He is the national coordinator of Physicians for a National Health Program ("PNHP"), which supports the "Medicare for all" approach of H.R. 676, the United States National Health Care Act.

The "friend" angle undercuts the significance of the Young appointment, coming as it does on a day when the lead story in Chicago is a nepotism piece about Cook County Board President Todd Stroger firing his cousin.