Public Hearings on Health Care Affordability, Access and Quality in Illinois Begin

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 task force also will meet at least monthly in Chicago to hear from health care experts, advocacy groups, medical providers, and others on health care access, affordability, and quality. Like the hearings, the task force meetings are open to the public. The Illinois Department of Public Health and others are arranging for webcasting the hearings and meetings.

The dates and general locations of the public hearings are:

At the hearings, which run from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m., speakers have three minutes for oral testimony. Witnesses are heard in the order in which they sign up. Written testimony may be submitted by mail, or electronically, or in person. To submit written testimony, mail two copies to Tracy Morgan, Division of Health Policy, Illinois Department of Public Health, 525 W. Jefferson St., Springfield, IL 62761; or e-mail it as an attachment to tmorgan@idph.state.il.us; or hand-deliver two copies to Department of Public Health staff members at the public hearings.

More information about the Health Care Justice Act and the Adequate Health Care Task Force is available on the Illinois Department of Public Health’s website, www.idph.state.il.us, and on 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.