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Community for All Coalition Medicaid Managed Care - Fact Sheet (PDF)
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In the Fall of 2009 the Campaign for Real Choice started hearing rumors that all Medicaid eligible seniors and people with disabilities living in the Chicago area would be required to enroll in a Managed Care pilot program. The pilot was to be divided into 3 phases, beginning with medical services in Phase 1, and then moving into long-term care and community services in Phases 2 & 3.
Like many people, we believed this was a horrible idea that had the potential to disrupt or eliminate services, particularly specialist services, limit access to providers, and severely impact already beleaguered community services. We had grave concerns and unanswered questions, with no real opportunity to voice our objections. For the most part, the state was shutting out advocates and consumers from the planning process and violating our basic principle, “nothing about us without us!”
Along with members from the Community for All Coalition, we testified at several legislative hearings and press conferences throughout the Spring of 2010, to express our opposition and demand access to information and involvement in the process.
We participated in the first Managed Care Stakeholders meeting on March 13, 2010 at INCIL in Springfield, which was facilitated by the Department of Health and Family Services but organized by advocates. Half of the 20 people in attendance were members of the Community for All Coalition. These meetings are still held regularly today and have grown to close to 100 attendants with two meeting sites in Springfield and Chicago.
 On August 12, 2010, the Community for All Coalition held a march and rally in downtown Chicago to protest the pilot, including stops at several of the Managed Care Organizations bidding to participate in the pilot as well as the Thompson Center and Daley Plaza. The rally resulted in a meeting between the Coalition and HFS Director Julie Hamos.
During the Fall 2010, the Campaign for Real Choice and Community for All Coalition met with the two participating MCOs, Aetna and Illinicare, as well as a follow up meeting with Director Hamos to continue to express our concerns and opposition and demand that if this pilot continues it must have consumer control at its core. A major victory from these meetings was the development of an independent evaluation of the pilot to be conducted by the UIC Institute on Disability and Human Development, with an evaluation committee that consists of advocates and consumers from the Community for All Coalition, including the Campaign for Real Choice.
During the Spring of 2011, we worked to organize the 6 Centers for Independent Living in the pilot area, which includes suburban Cook, Kane, DuPage, Lake, Will, and Kankakee Counties. Several of these CILs have become enrollment facilitators to support and advocate for consumers as they go through the mandatory enrollment throughout the Summer of 2011.
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