Task Force Hearings Reveal How Lack of Quality Health Care Adds Insult to Injury

“I have no insurance.” The words sent a chill through the crowd gathered for the first public hearing of the Illinois Adequate Health Care Task Force in Chicago . The speaker was quoting a neighbor, who was recently diagnosed with breast cancer and who, like many of her neighbors on Chicago ’s southeast side, had lost health coverage due to plant closings and company bankruptcies. The speaker went on to testify that her neighbor did not get treatment for the cancer because doing so would bankrupt her family and deprive her elderly mother of a place to live.

Real people, real lives, real struggles, and real losses—that’s what the task force members are hearing about as they visit communities throughout the state. At the first five of some 20 public hearings the task force has set through April 2006, task force members heard from hundreds of ordinary Illinoisans, health care providers, and health policy experts about the realities of Illinois’s fragmented health care system, or “nonsystem” as some called it. Individuals described the nitty gritty of being uninsured or underinsured. Many have put off care, gone without needed prescription medicine, and waited too long for free or reduced cost care. Often ashamed of their past-due medical bills, some would skip follow-up care rather than endure the shame. Still others become stressed out from dealing with collection agencies and facing bankruptcy. Other individuals described shortcomings in the health care system even for those with insurance—for example, the restrictions on mental and behavioral health services, the lack of dental care coverage, and the bias toward institutional care over home care for seniors and people with disabilities.

Medical providers told the same stories through a different lens. Hospital administrators testified to their frustration, dismay, and sadness at people’s putting off care and coming to emergency rooms as very sick people. Earlier care would have made them much healthier and their treatment much less expensive. Primary care clinic staff told of juggling, begging, and pleading to find specialized care and scrounging for free medication for their patients. Safety-net providers in Cook County described their struggle to care for increasing numbers of sick patients where the waiting times verged on the surreal. One doctor said that a patient with symptoms of colorectal growths waited 22 months for a colonoscopy.

Each public hearing is a forum for the people and medical providers of that area to instruct the task force on what the health care system is like and how it needs to be changed. Task force members also are listening and learning at their monthly and specially scheduled meetings. For example, in October they heard presentations from the Illinois Division of Insurance on the insurance landscape in the state. In early November nationally known health policy experts advised them about the potential for Medicaid expansion, the universal coverage initiatives in other states, and the economics of health care.

In November and December the task force will hold public hearings in Bourbonnais , Naperville , and Aurora . Information about the dates, times, and places for the hearings and meetings is posted on the Illinois Department of Public Health website under “Health Care Justice Act,” www.idph.state.il.us, and the Campaign for Better Health Care’s website, www.cbhconline.org.

For more information, contact Margaret Stapleton at the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, 312.368.3327.

Adequate Health Care Task Force Meetings

The Illinois Adequate Health Care Task Force began conducting public hearings this month to develop a plan for Illinois residents to have access to a full range of preventive, acute, and long-term health care services. Mandated by the Health Care Justice Act and appointed by Gov. Rod Blagojevich and Illinois General Assembly leaders, the task force is holding public hearings in each of Illinois ’s 19 congressional districts between now and April 2006 and will submit its plan to the General Assembly in the fall of 2006. The dates and general locations of the public hearings are:

November 16—11th Congressional District, Bourbonnais
December 6—13th Congressional District, Naperville
December 7—14th Congressional District, Aurora
January 4—5th Congressional District, Franklin Park
January 11—6th Congressional District, Elk Grove Village
January 18—9th Congressional District, Skokie
February 1—18th Congressional District, Peoria
February 8—19th Congressional District, Mt. Vernon
February 15—15th Congressional District, Champaign
March 8—12th Congressional District, Carbondale
March 15—17th Congressional District, Quad Cities
March 22—16th Congressional District, Rockford
April 4—10th Congressional District, Deerfield
April 5—8th Congressional District, Hoffman Estates
April 18—19th Congressional District, Collinsville
April 19— Springfield