A CONcrete Example – Policy Changes Lives

“Imagine for a moment that your father, brother or husband had prostate cancer.  That is bad enough, of course, but now imagine that they had to unnecessarily wait in long lines to get the most advanced and least invasive treatment possible, or perhaps, not receive this better treatment at all.  Or imagine it is your...

“Imagine for a moment that your father, brother or husband had prostate cancer.  That is bad enough, of course, but now imagine that they had to unnecessarily wait in long lines to get the most advanced and least invasive treatment possible, or perhaps, not receive this better treatment at all.  Or imagine it is your son or daughter with a rare tumor and a new treatment can provide a better cure rate and less immediate, long-term side effects from the radiation treatment…but you have to wait in line, or perhaps find less effective alternatives.  How could this happen?

Unless the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board allows two proton-therapy cancer treatment centers to go forward, these scenarios won’t be imaginary–they will be all too real for thousands of Illinois families.”

– from the Illinois Policy Institute, September 17, 2008

So what happened?  During that 2008 fight the government-sponsored center lobbied the Health Facilities Planning Board to deny the privately funded proton cancer center its so-called “Certificate of Need” (CON).  Without the CON, you cannot build.  You can read our report from that fight here.

Thanks to a member of the facilities board who reversed his vote, the CON was issued.  Today, two years later, the Chicago Tribune reports that Central DuPage Hospital and ProCure will open their $140 million facility.   If the government had successfully blocked this private facility, there would be zero proton treatment centers in the area.

The Illinois Policy Institute worked on this issue for years, particularly Greg Blankenship, who wrote regularly on this issue from 2002-2008.

The story is on page 9 of my hard copy Tribune (yours may be different).  Read it and you’ll see how policy changes lives—for the better—or for the worse.  Once again we call for the termination of the Health Facilities Planning Board and its Certificate of Need.