Category Archives: Affordable Care Act

CCHCC is on the front lines of serving our community in the pandemic!

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April 14, 2021

Spring is here, and normally Champaign County Health Care Consumers (CCHCC) would be preparing for our Annual Awards Dinner and our Adbook during this time. However, because of the pandemic, it is still not safe to gather, so CCHCC will not be hosting our Annual Awards Dinner or preparing an Adbook for this spring.

If you would normally contribute to, or attend the CCHCC Dinner, or purchase an ad in our adbook, we instead ask that you consider making a contribution to support our work, which is more expansive and challenging than ever!

DONATE NOW!

Pandemic challenges – what is required of us. CCHCC’s work to provide free services to community members, including health insurance enrollment and prescription assistance, is much harder now that we have to work remotely and practice social-distancing. Providing direct services to consumers is more complicated and time-consuming, and requires more back and forth – whether over the phone, email, text, zoom, or regular mail – to get everything done. In addition, there is more work beyond our regular scope of work! For example, more medically-fragile homeless individuals with complex health care situations need help with shelter and housing as they fall through the cracks of our current community resources. Also, community members need more information about, and help accessing the COVID-19 vaccines. Thankfully, there is a new Open Enrollment period for the Affordable Care Act’s Marketplace at healthcare.gov. CCHCC is working on all of this, and more!

READ ON!

Medicaid and ACA Marketplace – good news updates!

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February 9, 2021

We at Champaign County Health Care Consumers (CCHCC) are happy to share some good news with you regarding the State of Illinois Medicaid program, and the Affordable Care Act’s Marketplace for health insurance!

You can help our community members by sharing this information and letting people know that if they need help with health insurance, they can contact CCHCC for help. Below are the updates CCHCC wants to share with you.

Enrollment for Illinois Medicaid is open year-round!
CCHCC wants to remind everyone that enrollment in Medicaid is open year-round! There is no particular open enrollment period, so people can apply year-round, and CCHCC can help! As an example of who can qualify for Medicaid in Illinois – an individual earning less than $17,609 annually is eligible for Medicaid. A couple earning less than $23,791, is eligible for Medicaid.

And, Medicaid has NO monthly premiums, NO deductibles, and very low or no co-pays for doctors’ visits and prescriptions.  

IL Medicaid has been expanded to cover elderly low-income immigrants!
Illinois has made history as the first state in the nation to extend health insurance coverage to immigrant seniors! As of December 1, 2020, low-income immigrant seniors can qualify for Medicaid coverage. A social security number is NOT required! CCHCC can provide free help with those enrollments.

Read the rest of the good news here.

CCHCC condemns Trump Administration’s U.S. Supreme Court Filing to Overturn the ACA

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July 1, 2020

Unbelievable, unprecedented, and inhumane. In the midst of the global coronavirus pandemic that is gripping the world and our nation, the Trump administration submitted a last-minute late-night filing urging the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the Affordable Care Act (ACA) last week on Thursday night, June 25, 2020.

It is unprecedented in our nation’s history that the federal government, much less the president’s administration, would go to court to oppose and urge that a federal law like this be overturned and nullified. Normally, the role of the administration and federal government would be to support the law.

But, of course, we are talking about the Trump administration, which has repeatedly demonstrated that it has no regard for the nation’s health, or the institutions, policies, regulations, and laws that aim to protect our nation’s health. Efforts to overturn the ACA, especially when accompanied by no plan whatsoever to provide some other form of coverage, demonstrate that these moves are not about health policy, but about the ugliest and most dangerous of politics.

About the Trump administration’s Supreme Court filing
The Trump administration submitted its last-minute filing on Thursday night for the ACA case that will be argued this fall in the Supreme Court. The Trump administration’s filing comes on the same day that the federal government reported that close to half a million people who lost their health insurance amid the economic shutdown to slow the spread of COVID-19 have gotten coverage through HealthCare.gov. (By the way, that number does not include individuals who have gotten coverage through state-run exchanges or through Medicaid.)

Amazingly, the Trump administration’s legal brief makes no mention of the virus or of American’s reliance on the ACA during the pandemic.

In the case before the Supreme Court, Texas and other conservative-led states argue that the ACA was basically rendered unconstitutional after Congress passed tax legislation in 2017 that eliminated the law’s unpopular fines for not having health insurance, but left in place its requirement that virtually all Americans have coverage.

After failing to repeal the Affordable Care Act in 2017 when Republicans fully controlled Congress – thanks to the activism of millions of Americans, including those in Champaign County – Trump has put the weight of his administration behind the legal challenge.

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Lost jobs can mean lost health insurance coverage.

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CCHCC is here to help you get covered!

During this novel corona virus pandemic, many Illinois residents have lost their jobs – and also their health care coverage.

If you, or someone you know has lost health insurance recently, please contact Champaign County Health Care Consumers (CCHCC) for help.
Although our physical office is closed, CCHCC is still on the job, working with clients and community members remotely by phone and email.

Here is what you need to know:
People who have lost their workplace health insurance during the coronavirus outbreak might qualify for private health insurance coverage – and subsidies to help make the insurance affordable – through the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) Marketplace.

In Illinois, thanks to our expanded Medicaid program under the ACA, many low-income and no-income Illinois residents will qualify for free (no monthly premiums or deductibles) health insurance coverage through the Medicaid program.

CCHCC’s certified Community Health Workers can help you figure out which insurance program you will qualify for, and can help you with the application process. We are here to help!
You can contact CCHCC by phone (please leave a voicemail message) at 217-352-6533, or by email at cchcc@cchcc-il.org.

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