HCJC
Health Care Justice Campaign Overview
The Health Care Justice Campaign (HCJC) was formed in 2002 to develop a broader coalition of diverse interests committed to affordable, accessible and quality health care for all Illinoisans. Its core was organizations that represent health care consumers, but it grew to include provider organizations, faith communities, small businesses, and policy advocates. Its overarching goal was to get the Illinois state government to address the failures of our health care system in a concrete and realistic way.
Strategy
HCJC’s framing strategy was to engage all possible sectors in our state’s civic arena, so that progressive proposals that came out of the planning process would have the greatest possible chance of being adopted. Its first task was to develop specific legislative language for a Health Care Justice Act, seek sponsors, and work for its passage. Sponsored in the State legislature by then-State Senator Barack Obama and then-State Representative William Delgado, the Act gained political support from a wide range of health care stakeholders.
A series of activities (op-eds, rallies, public hearings, etc.) secured the Health Care Justice Act’s passage (2003-2004) and then its funding in 2005. The purpose of the Act was to develop statewide health reform policies. Its central feature was the creation of the Adequate Health Care Task Force, a bipartisan panel of experts, providers, advocates, elected officials, and agency heads charged with generating specific legislative proposals to make health care accessible to all. Even the insurance industry was included, although it predictably held minority positions on nearly all of the final proposals.
During this time period, HCJC simultaneously developed a framework of principles and criteria that would define an acceptable reform paradigm. We solicited input from over 100 organizations statewide, representing all types of stakeholders. Principles addressed accessibility, affordability, quality, and cost containment; criteria focused on risk sharing, subsidy for low income families and individuals, purchasing power for providers, comprehensiveness, inclusiveness, cost containment, and continuity/portability of care.
Implementation of the Adequate Health Care Task Force’s charge called for broad consumer input. Consequently, during the fall of 2005 and the first six months of 2006 HCJC organized to support 22 public hearings that provided the Task Force with information on the state of health care access in all parts of Illinois. The hearings were attended by over 2,500 people. Three hundred individuals (including 100 HCJC coalition partners) testified at these hearings, which attracted considerable media attention. As was HCJC’s intent, virtually all who testified identified failures in our current system that pointed towards the necessity for reform.
The Health Care Justice Act’s Adequate Health Care Task Force reached majority consensus on a progressive, comprehensive mixed public and private sector proposal that HCJC supported. In March of 2007, the Governor released his proposal ,which contained 85% of the Task Force’s recommendations. This plan too was supported by the HCJC. Throughout 2007 and 2008 the Health Care Justice Campaign continued to fight for the specific components of the Adequate Health Care Task Force plan’s passage in Springfield.
With the election of Barack Obama as President, a new era for health care reform began. By 2008, HCJC had a track record of credibility, inclusiveness, some bipartisanship, and commitment that allowed it to mobilize thousands of residents across the state in support of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that finally passed in early 2010. Now, we have a real opportunity to provide access to insurance and health care for a large proportion of the 1.8 million Illinoisans who are currently uncovered.
Structure
During 2004 and 2005, HCJC leadership began creating an internal structure based on constituent caucuses (initially Faith, Labor, and Provider), and committees (communications, policy, and lobbying). In 2006, HCJC formed Congressional District Committees throughout the state, as well as geographical Working Groups (Chicago Working Group and Downstate Working Group). Congressional District Committees and Working Groups had the same goal: to expand the HCJC and engage more Illinois residents.
The caucuses, committees, Congressional District Committees, and Working Groups have been crucial to the success of the Health Care Justice Campaign, both during the effort to pass and implement the Health Care Justice Act and the Adequate Health Care Task Force process (2002 – 2006) and also during the effort to develop strong support for national-level health care reform that took center stage during 2008 – 2010. In particular, the Faith Caucus is the element of HCJC’s work that gives us traction in every region of Illinois, and that underscores the universality of support for reform in every demographic group. Congressional District Committees have been the vehicles through which constituents who come to HCJC through their churches, unions, civic groups, ethnic affiliations, or other venues, have created a unified voice when educating and persuading members of Congress and state legislators.
