Toni Preckwinkle Solidifies Power Over Cook County Health and Hospitals System
Cook County’s mean mom executes a hostile takeover of County health board.
It has been months in the making but Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle finally got her wish. Ever since the Cook County Health Board orchestrated the November 2019 dismissal of Dr. John Jay Shannon, CEO of the Cook County Health and Hospitals System (CCH), Cook County’s mean mom has been searching for a means to accumulate more control over the county’s health care system. A system which operates on a $2.8 billion budget, oversees two hospitals, pharmacies, and over a dozen health centers throughout Cook County, though Ms. Preckwinkle denied any role in Shannon’s removal, this transparent spin is wholly unconvincing.
Shortly after Shannon’s departure, in January 2020, Ms. Preckwinkle rolled out a series of proposed changes to the county health system’s board, including assuming the power to appoint a member of the CCH board and to appoint the next CCH CEO, and the right to review and approve the compensation package for future CCH CEOs. While Ms. Preckwinkle announced the shift in power to the Cook County Board occurred only to achieve “communication,” “accountability,” and “transparency,” this was the Cook County Board president resorting to meaningless Progressive verbiage to disguise her desire to exercise quasi-authoritarian control over the county’s health system.
It won’t be long before Cook County’s health care system will be on life support.
While Preckwinkle may have had a legitimate reason to act after excessively lavish compensation packages for CCH board members were exposed, there are numerous alternatives to prevent public employees from enriching themselves and securing generous compensation on tax dollars without stripping the CCH board of its independence.
In order to completely understand precisely why Preckwinkle snatched power away from the Cook County Health and Hospitals System, it is necessary to jog the public’s memory. Prior to the creation of an independent board overseeing Cook County’s health, the system was poorly managed and wracked with debt. Following the creation of the health board, an independent leadership imposed drastic and much-needed revisions to policy and procedure, which led to significant improvements in managing the unwieldy operation. In particular, financial controls introduced by the independent board reversed haphazard handling of billing within the system. In another little-known but alarming development earlier this year, Preckwinkle ousted Cook County Ethics Board chair, Margaret Daley. Though Daley was expected to be anointed for another four-year term as board chair, Preckwinkle ushered her to the door over what many speculate was discord between the two regarding ethics reform. Although the Ethics Board re-wrote rules governing dictates of conscience, it disregarded addressing the auditing of campaign finance disclosures. A matter over which Daley was known to be outspoken, the board’s audits had uncovered evidence suggesting ethical lapses on the part of former Cook County Assessor Joe Barrios. Two separate incidents with striking similarities, it is fair to draw the conclusion Preckwinkle stoked the ouster of Shannon and removed Daley to obtain more influence over each board, to seat agent provocateurs in their place and, in the instance of Ms. Daley particularly, sought to silence dissent. Put another way, any semblance of independence among Cook County boards or commissions represents a loss of power and influence Ms. Preckwinkle cannot stand to bear.
A sober analysis of this matter leads us to recognize one narrative in which Preckwinkle is portrayed as a political mastermind who has foisted a Progressive agenda on the county, moving the county closer to becoming a semi-nanny state by ruthlessly imposing fatuous taxes on sugary drinks and plastic bags, supporting fringe criminal justice and bail reform measures, and separate reform motions, which invariably enhance her influence over county panels. There is, however, a competing narrative which has perfectly captured Preckwinkle’s chronic mismanagement of Cook County by her refusal to reveal the names of applicants seeking appointment to Preckwinkle-controlled county boards and commissions, a security-detail scandal, and declining to distance herself from Joe Barrios. While both accounts of her management of the County Board are accurate, Preckwinkle’s insurgent power grab over the County health board tells us Ms. Preckwinkle will no longer have a well-meaning and truthful relationship with independent county boards and commissions, she is constantly looking for ways to clutch controls and seek scapegoats, and coercion is her preferred policy tool.
The time in which physicians were once free to make decisions on purely medical grounds have long gone and has been replaced with an era in which doctors are penned in by bureaucratic regulation, corrupt officialdom, and political interference. Although it is complicated to determine which is more grievous, all three have contributed to a chronic inability to meet the demand for the smooth delivery of health care. Although the CCH remains imperfect, the remedy for its persistent problems is not found with Ms. Preckwinkle’s sly confiscation of control and her placement of a political operative on the health board. Part poor impulse control, part boundless lust for power, Ms. Preckwinkle’s steps to arrogate power over the CCH is a signal CCH is headed for a return to heavy-handed County management, and thus less efficacy.
