Health News
Welcome to Illinois Health Matters - the website for information and action advice regarding our state's implementation of the nation's health reform law. The law has a tremendous amount in store for children and families of all income levels and all kinds of health insurance coverage. As you may have heard, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is a huge sprawling canvas, with provisions about many different reforms. It can be a hard thing to wrap your arms around. Don't worry, we'll have the information here.
Here are some of the things you will be able to find here:
John Bouman
President
Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law
- See Into The Future Of Health Care Reform
Illinois Health Matters has released a new data visualization tool, ?Visualizing Health Care Reform in 2014,? for understanding the impact of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in Illinois. This easy-to-use, interactive tool maps the State and shows who is...
- Making The Grade: A Scorecard For State Health Insurance Exchanges
According to the Illinois Department of Insurance, health insurance premiums have risen on average 181 percent since 2005. This could be the week action is taken in Illinois to fix our health insurance marketplace for Illinois families and small businesses....
- Policy To The People - Illinois Policymakers Weigh In About Aca Implementation In Illinois
Health care reform in Illinois may originate from the federal law, the Affordable Care Act, but it is up to each state to implement many pieces of the law. For that reason, we made Illinois' implementation of health care reform the focus of our latest...
- Starting July 1 In Illinois: "some" Kids Instead Of "all Kids"
In 2010, a study conducted by the University of Illinois at Chicago showed that over 95% of Illinois? kids had insurance coverage, making Illinois a state with one of the lowest rates of uninsured children in the nation. Much of this success can be attributed...
- Illinois Needs A Competitive Health Insurance Marketplace - Sb 1729 Will Establish One
The Illinois General Assembly has a lot of contentious, difficult, and time-consuming items on its 2011 agenda?the state budget, pensions, workers compensation to name a few. But one item?passage of legislation establishing a competitive marketplace for...
Health News
The Health Care Law's Impact on Children and Families in Illinois
Welcome to Illinois Health Matters - the website for information and action advice regarding our state's implementation of the nation's health reform law. The law has a tremendous amount in store for children and families of all income levels and all kinds of health insurance coverage. As you may have heard, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is a huge sprawling canvas, with provisions about many different reforms. It can be a hard thing to wrap your arms around. Don't worry, we'll have the information here.
Here are some of the things you will be able to find here:
- What about all those insurance industry reforms? How will they affect Illinois families? When will they take effect -- or have they already? This includes issues like pre-existing conditions, lifetime caps, rescission of policies just when you need them the most, and controls on insurance industry profits.
- How is Illinois doing on setting up the Health Insurance Exchange, where people will shop for insurance starting in 2014? Will the exchange help to make sure policies provide comprehensive, decent, affordable coverage? How will people be able to access the subsidies that will help them pay premiums for private insurance and keep their out of pocket costs to a reasonable limit? Will the Exchange be the place to go even if the family might be eligible for a public insurance program like Medicaid rather than private insurance? What if family income fluctuates in and out of the ranges for public and private insurance -- can people go back and forth smoothly?
- There will be changes to the public programs, too. What will happen when Medicaid will expand to cover all those low income kids who used to just age off of Medicaid at age 18? How will children's insurance change when the Exchange goes into effect? How does Illinois' new Medicaid Reform law square with the implementation of national health reform for children and families? Are they consistent?
- As Illinois implements all of these changes, what can advocates and concerned citizens do? What are the deadlines? What are the recommended action steps? When are the key votes?
John Bouman
President
Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law
- See Into The Future Of Health Care Reform
Illinois Health Matters has released a new data visualization tool, ?Visualizing Health Care Reform in 2014,? for understanding the impact of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in Illinois. This easy-to-use, interactive tool maps the State and shows who is...
- Making The Grade: A Scorecard For State Health Insurance Exchanges
According to the Illinois Department of Insurance, health insurance premiums have risen on average 181 percent since 2005. This could be the week action is taken in Illinois to fix our health insurance marketplace for Illinois families and small businesses....
- Policy To The People - Illinois Policymakers Weigh In About Aca Implementation In Illinois
Health care reform in Illinois may originate from the federal law, the Affordable Care Act, but it is up to each state to implement many pieces of the law. For that reason, we made Illinois' implementation of health care reform the focus of our latest...
- Starting July 1 In Illinois: "some" Kids Instead Of "all Kids"
In 2010, a study conducted by the University of Illinois at Chicago showed that over 95% of Illinois? kids had insurance coverage, making Illinois a state with one of the lowest rates of uninsured children in the nation. Much of this success can be attributed...
- Illinois Needs A Competitive Health Insurance Marketplace - Sb 1729 Will Establish One
The Illinois General Assembly has a lot of contentious, difficult, and time-consuming items on its 2011 agenda?the state budget, pensions, workers compensation to name a few. But one item?passage of legislation establishing a competitive marketplace for...