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Constituent Corner

· Road Scholar Program

I’m pleased to announce that the Illinois Humanities Council has a new initiative called the Road Scholar Program that will be visiting the Murdock Taylorville Public Library on May 20, 2004. This program allows non-profit organizations the opportunity to offer high quality, free public humanities programs to local audiences. These road scholars will take their programs on the roads of Illinois to the diverse communities and people who make up the state. Illinois' finest writers, poets, historians, anthropologists, and scholar-actors will travel to your town and present their programs to the audience you gather for them.

The program in Taylorville will be a presentation by Lee Murdock on Lighthouse Legends. The program will begin at 7:00 p.m. at the Taylorville Public Library located at 121 West Vine Street in Taylorville. If you have any questions regarding the program please contact Jill Pearce at 217-287-7397. For more information on this and other programs the Illinois Humanities Council is working on please visit www.prairie.org.

· Boyleston Waterworks Receives New Funds

I am happy to announce the approval of an $800,000 loan and a grant of $536,000 to Boyleston Waterworks Corporation of Fairfield from United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural Development Program. The Rural Development funds will be used to expand the existing water system to 130 additional users with the installation of 43 miles of water main and the construction of a 75,000-gallon elevated storage tank.

This funding continues to show the level of commitment from the federal government for southern Illinois. As I’m sure you’ve seen, I have made a number of similar announcements in recent weeks and I will continue to work to make safe drinking water available to rural Illinois.

· Hearing on Loss of Doctors in Illinois

On Monday I joined fellow U.S. Representatives Mark Kirk (IL-10) and Judy Biggert (IL-13) in hearing testimony from Illinois families who have suffered due to the exodus of emergency room doctors and other medical specialists from the state. Kirk convened the ad-hoc congressional hearing to bring about action on this growing threat to patients in Illinois.

The 19th Congressional District is particularly hard hit by the doctor shortage. I told panel participants that many patients who need an obstetrician or neurosurgeon were forced to travel across state lines to Missouri to seek the care they need.

I believe that restoring critical care doctors to their practices in southern Illinois is of the utmost importance to our citizens. We must also recognize that without immediate action, the possibility for economic growth in southern Illinois will be seriously threatened, as well. To stay competitive in a global marketplace and keep jobs in America, we must ensure that health-care delivery in the state of Illinois is fully intact and strong.

The skyrocketing cost of medical malpractice insurance in Illinois was cited over and over again during the hearing as the number-one reason doctors are leaving the state or leaving the practice of medicine. While nearly 70 percent of medical liability claims do not result in payment to plaintiffs and less than one percent results in verdicts for plaintiffs, medical liability insurance is the second-most risky line of insurance in the world, second only to earthquake insurance. January 2003, 59 doctors have left the St. Clair-Madison Country area, and as of June 2004, there will be no neurosurgeons south of Springfield.

The U.S. House of Representatives voted a second time this week to improve patient access to health-care services and provide improved medical care by reducing the excessive burden the liability system places on the heath-care delivery system. The original legislation, the HEALTH Act (H.R. 5), is modeled after California’s Medical Injury Compensation Act (MICRA). From 1976 to 2000, MICRA held liability premium increases in California to 167 percent, while the rest of the country has seen liability premiums increase by 505 percent. H.R. 4280, the version of H.R. 5 that was voted on this week, passed the House with a vote of 229 to 197.

The HEALTH Act would place a $250,000 cap on non-economic damages, impose limits on the contingency fees lawyers can charge to increase the share of damage awards that go to injured patients, enacts a ‘fair share’ rule to ensure that damages are allocated fairly, in direct proportion to fault, and provides reasonable guidelines on the award of punitive damages.

President Bush has indicated he would sign this type of reform legislation, which has been stalled in the United States Senate. It is my hope that we get this important legislation signed into law quickly and I will continue to lobby my colleagues in the Senate to get this bill signed into to help Illinois citizens get the kind of health care that they deserve.

· Traveling Help Desk comes to Joppa and Eddyville

On Wednesday, May 19, Jed Nelson of my Harrisburg district office will be available to help the residents of Joppa and Eddyville. In Joppa, he will be at the Joppa Senior Building from 10:00 a.m. until 11:30 p.m. In Eddyville, he will be in the Village Hall from 1:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.

For more information, please visit my web page at http://www.house.gov/shimkus/helpdesk.htm. I hope you stop by!

Legislative Week in Review

· H.R. 4280 - Medical Liability Reform Bill Passed

H.R. 4280 makes changes to the health care liability system, including compensation for injured patients and other issues arising out of health care law suits. The measure provides for a three-year statute of limitations with certain exceptions for minors, fraud, intentional concealment, and the presence of a foreign body. It provides for a $250,000 cap on non-economic or "inherently unquantifiable pain and suffering" damages. Guidelines governing the award of punitive damages provide that awards not exceed the greater of $250,000 or twice economic damages.

· H.R. 4281 - Small Business Health Fairness Act of 2004 Passed

H.R. 4281 addresses both the access and cost issues at the heart of the health care reform debate, giving uninsured working families new hope for a solution that can give them access to quality health care.

More than 41 million Americans currently have no health insurance. Many of these Americans – 60 percent or more, by some estimates – work for or depend on small employers who lack the ability to provide health benefits for their workers. H.R. 4281 will change this, opening the doors of health care access to millions of uninsured families and allowing quality health coverage for millions of Americans who currently have no health coverage at all.

· H.R. 4275 - Amending the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to Permanently Extend the 10-percent Individual Income Tax Rate Bracket Passed

H.R. 4275 maintains the size of the 10-percent bracket at $7,000 for singles and $14,000 for married couples. These amounts are adjusted for inflation. The bill also makes permanent the 10-percent bracket. The Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimates H.R. 4275 will provide $218 billion in tax relief over 10 years and will save the average taxpayer more than $2,400 during the next decade.

Anticipated Action on the House Floor Next Week

· Congress will be in session from Monday through Friday of next week. Some of the legislation which will be considered includes:

o H.R. 4200 - National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005

o H.R. 4359 - Child Credit Preservation and Expansion Act

Did You Know?

· Veterans History Project

There are 19 million war veterans living in the United States today, but every day we lose 1,700 of them. The World War II Memorial is set to open this month and it is even more important to record the memories of all our veterans in order to share their experiences for future generations.

Congress created the Veterans History Project in 2000. This project is designed to focus on World War I (1914-1920), World War II (1939-1946), and the Korean (1950-1955), Vietnam (1961-1975), and Persian Gulf (1990-1995) wars. It includes all participants in those wars --men and women, civilian and military. It documents the contributions of civilian volunteers, support staff, and war industry workers as well as the experiences of military personnel from all ranks and all branches of service--the Air Force, Army, Marine Corps, and Navy, as well as the U.S. Coast Guard and Merchant Marine. The Project greatly values and appreciates veterans' stories from additional combat arenas and those received will be processed as resources allow.

For more information how you can participate please visit http://www.loc.gov/folklife/vets/.

Thank you for the interest in my newsletter! Remember to tell your friends about it as well--they can sign up on my web page at <http://www.house.gov/shimkus>.

Sincerely,

Congressman John Shimkus

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