HEALTH CARE JUSTICE CAMPAIGN COMPONENTS
The Health Care Justice Campaign strategically blends the efforts of policy, education, and advocacy organizations in concert with our broad-based constituency organizations and provider groups to advance health care reform in Illinois. Its initial focus beginning in 2002 was the passage of the Health Care Justice Act and ensuing Adequate Care Task Force process for the enactment of health care reform at the state level. In 2009-2010, attention moved to passage of federal-level health reform. Now that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) has passed in Washington, we are again concentrating on Springfield to ensure that Illinois moves quickly to act on aspects of reform that are the states’ responsibility. With the dual goals of generating proposals for effective reform implementation and at the same time, building and educating the grass roots constituencies whose voices must be heard in order to move that agenda, HCJC has found that it needs the following structures and activities in order to be fully operational.
Click on the titles below for a description of the integral committees and activities that make up the HCJC.
1. Steering Committee
Formed in 2004, this group is made up of representatives from HCJC member organizations including religious denominations, unions, professional organizations of health care providers, policy organizations, ethnic organizations, consumer organizations, and others. In the coming years this group will expand to include representatives from our Congressional District Committees and other organizations committed to health care justice. The Steering Committee meets regularly and members oversee specific HCJC activities. As needed, the Steering Committee commissions ad hoc committees for such purposes as sponsoring special events, developing educational materials, etc.
2. Policy Committee
HCJC’s membership includes several organizations, representing providers, consumers, and special populations that have strong policy analysis and policy development capabilities. These organizations (including several that do not sit on the Steering Committee) form our Policy Committee, which analyzes proposals to ascertain which ones merit our support based on the principles of accessibility, affordability, quality, and cost containment. The HCJC’s initiatives have earned the respect of health care decision-makers statewide: for example, it was active in educating members of the Adequate Health Care Task Force on the implications and likely effects of various types of health care expansion programs; it then submitted a recommendation report to the Task Force and those recommendations formed the core of the Task Force’s final report to the Governor and legislature. Policy Committee members will represent HCJC on Issue Working Groups that are expected to be formed shortly by the State in order to advance reform implementation.
3. Communications Committee
One of the major challenges faced by reform advocates in the run-up to passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was widespread public confusion as to what the proposed changes in our health care insurance system would mean for them and their communities. Framing the post health care debate with specific and targeted messaging is our top priority. With the help of our national partner, the Herndon Alliance, our Communications Committee provides messaging and framing training sessions for providers, union leaders, and our local activists throughout the state so that accurate messaging about PPACA’s impact and rebuttals to counter attacks can be incorporated into the messaging utilized by all our partners. Longer-range media campaigns are a part of this strategy and we’re very proud of the extent to which local and regional broadcast and print media came to depend on HCJC for clear and trustworthy information during 2009 and 2010. The Communications Committee will continue this emphasis on high-level public education through the upcoming four-year implementation battles by using press conferences, an on-line pressroom, op-eds, our letter to the editor builder, and our interactive web site.
4. Legislative Committee
Most of the organizations that make up the Health Care Justice Campaign are tax exempt, and can do only very limited formal lobbying. To strategically maximize our efforts and impact, our Legislative Committee is made-up of those organizations that do have full-time and part-time lobbyists. These lobbyists, speaking on behalf of their own organizations and HCJC, nonetheless are able to present a unified voice on matters of health care reform, and can point to the size and breadth of the Health Care Justice Campaign’s overall membership as they support measures that are also part of the HCJC agenda. This group meets regularly (sometimes weekly) in Springfield when the Illinois General Assembly is in session.
5. Congressional District Committees
The Health Care Justice Campaign’s diverse membership at the statewide level is mirrored at the regional and local levels. HCJC’s Congressional District Committees (CDC’s) are the vehicle through which members of these constituencies can add local public pressure on Members of Congress and state legislators. For example, where the HCJC Steering Committee includes a representative of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, at the CDC level, individual congregations are active. Where Illinois AFL-CIO sits on the Steering Committee, at the CDC level individual local unions and their members’ are engaged. Where the Illinois Hospital Association, Illinois Public Health Association, Illinois Primary Health Care Association, and the Illinois Academy of Family Physicians are some of the voices of providers on the Steering Committee, at the CDC level individual public health leaders and community health centers play a role in educating the public. The CDC’s are driven by the reality that elected officials may be educated by generic explanations of cost and benefit, but when they are making their decisions about how to vote on specific policies they are highly responsive to the strength of the support they see coming from their constituents. In-person meetings with their elected officials, post cards, phone calls, public events, media events, story sharers, rallies, and letters to the editor are some of the activities that are utilized.
6. Constituent Caucuses
In addition to HCJC’s Congressional District Committees, we also enable constituent groups that can bring a distinct perspective to the reform implementation process. For example, our Faith Caucus is made up of congregations from 33 different faiths with a core of over 500 congregations and strong contacts with another 1,000 congregations throughout the state. The Faith Caucus has conducted high-visibility Sunday/Sabbath events in the spring and fall for the past several years. Throughout the years we have also initiated caucuses representing providers, labor, and small businesses.
7. Action Listserv
HCJC’s Listserv is an interactive communications tool (currently reaching 9,000 individuals) that communicates updates, meetings, and actions to recipients and also solicits feedback to help us improve our communications and assess the impact of our work.
8. Interactive Website
Like most membership-based advocacy organizations, HCJC both informs and enables its members through website features such as campaign information, calendars of events, individual web pages for specific geographical regions, chat rooms, feedback mechanisms, and organizing tools such as messaging/framing suggestions, links to policy and legislative resources, and more. These features are embedded in the Campaign for Better Health Care’s website. In addition, HCJC’s Story Bank, our collection of personal testimonies about the difficulty of accessing insurance and health care, is supplied with stories through an on-line story recruitment process, and is also the venue where anyone can view these videotaped or written stories. The taped and written stories have been highly effective in educating legislators and the media on the realities of living without health insurance. Our nationally acclaimed, interactive, “Letter to the Editor Builder” has helped hundreds of our constituents write compelling, convincing letters to their local newspapers.
