Blago brags about study from connected vendor

I'm not surprised anymore by the audacity of the Blagojevich administration. I expect it.

Even so, I almost reached to scratch my head on this one.

The governor's office sent out a statewide press release yesterday touting a new "study" that showed Illinois had the greatest improvement in health care of all states.

"Illinois has steadily improved in the overall health of the population since 2002," said Archello Georgiou, Medical Advisory for United Health Foundation. "One of the most significant improvements in Illinois is the prevalence of smoking, down to 19.9 percent from 22.2 percent in 2005 and down from 28.7 percent in 1990."

Whose study was it? Just happens to be completely funded by UnitedHealthGroup, a huge no-bid vendor of Illinois.' Not just any no-bid vendor. Part of a joint venture that included Pacificare, which since merged with United. One of Pacificare's top employees was Nancy Monk, sister of Blagojevich's former chief of staff and campaign manager.

Eric Krol of the Daily Herald broke the story earlier this year. He quoted Lon Monk as saying he was unaware that his sister's firm got the $100 million contract before it was awarded and quoted administration officials saying they had to truncate the process for seeking proposals because of the urgency of the prescription drug contract.

No other firms applied. Par for the course. Democrat Jack Franks called for an investigation. Not sure if Attorney General Lisa Madigan followed up.

Reminds me of the Fifth Third ATM contract that went to a firm that employed Blagojevich's brother, Robert.

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