Legal Council Blog
Views expressed in this blog belong to the respective author unless otherwise specified.
ISBE can you hear me?
Advocates held a press conference at Chicago’s Thompson Center this morning. Thirteen legal and education groups including Legal Council for Health Justice sent an open letter to the Illinois State…
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New Ways to Combat Lead-Poisoning
In 2015, 10,322 kids in Illinois had elevated lead levels in their blood–and that’s only the kids tested. Many children don’t have access or aren’t eligible for the services necessary…
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Graham-Cassidy
Excerpted from our comments submitted by policy director Carrie Chapman to the Senate Finance Committee Hearing on Graham-Cassidy Bill: If this proposal succeeds, the devastating financial impact on Illinois is clear…
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Thank your local congressperson
Nine hardworking Congresspeople sent a letter demanding answers to charges of discrimination against people living with HIV and AIDS by insurance plans. The letter was signed by Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL),…
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Special education expose
First in a series of investigative reporting from WBEZ reveals the Chicago Public Schools overhauled special education and relied on a “secret” set of guidelines “that resulted in limiting services…
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Stay-put protections
Governor Rauner signs a bill drafted by Legal Council for Health Justice which clarifies and strengthens the ability of parents and guardians to pursue mediation where there are disagreements with the school about their child’s special education services. In addition to clarifying the process for children to continue to receive special education services during the entire mediation process (called “stay-put protections”), the bill also requires updating of the Notice of Procedural Safeguards for special education that parents must receive. This notice had not been updated since 2009!
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Client focus: Frank
Frank suffered a traumatic brain injury as a child and has been a patient at one of our medical partner sites ever since. Unfortunately, when Frank was 18 years old, he was in a severe car accident, leaving him with more complex medical issues including severe paraplegia.
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I <3 Medicaid
Have you ever written a love poem? Was it an ode to Medicaid?
Here’s a thoughtful and elegiac social media post from one of our wonderful legal advocates, Marina Kurakin:
I <3 Medicaid. I want to hug it and squeeze it for keeping me alive as a kid…
Chaos to order?
Yesterday Judge Lefkow ordered the State of Illinois to negotiate a plan with us to pay over $2 billion in overdue Medicaid bills. The State’s failure to pay as a result of a three-year budget impasse puts millions of adults and children — as well as the entire safety net health system — at risk. Read the entire press release here and the court order here.
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