Health Care Justice Act

The act created the Adequate Health Care Task Force (AHCTF), composed of 29 voting members, to submit recommendations for a health care access plan to the General Assembly. Five of the members were appointed by the Governor of Illinois, and six were appointed by each constitutional leader of the General Assembly: the Speaker of the House, the House Minority Leader, the President of the Senate, and the Senate Minority Leader. The directors of the Department of Public Health, Healthcare and Family Services & Aging, and the Department of Human Services were nonvoting members ex officio.[8]

The AHCTF held public hearings on the state of healthcare and health insurance coverage in every congressional district in the state.[9] It announced the resulting plan on December 7, 2006, with support from hospitals, unions, doctors, and consumer rights and healthcare advocacy groups.[10]

On January 26, 2007, the AHCTF presented its consensus plan, called the "Adequate Health Care Task Force Health Care Coverage Expansion Plan", to the Illinois General Assembly.[11] The main goals from the plan are to create "cost effective, high quality care while minimizing administrative spending on health care".[12] In order to achieve those goals the Expansion Plan focuses in "workers, employers, and taxpayers contribution for coverage and optimize the use of Federal matching funds" which then from those contribution all the Illinoisans including does who are at the poverty level will get the health care coverage while reducing "administrative costs for all Illinoisans."[13] The Expansion Plan focused on balancing the spending and getting all the support to get enough funding so that all Illinoisans can receive good health care.

Governor Rod Blagojevich incorporated some of the AHCTF's recommendations into a legislative proposal called "Illinois Covered", which he announced in 2007.[4][14] AHCTF member Jim Duffett estimated that the governor's proposal included 85% of what the AHCTF had recommended.[15]

Illinois Covered never became law, due to the deteriorating relationship between the legislature and the governor.[4] The plan had an estimated cost of US$2.1 billion.[14] Blagojevich proposed a gross receipts tax to fund it, but the Illinois House voted unanimously against the tax in May 2007.[16]

Later in 2007, Blagojevich tried again, issuing an emergency order that would have loosened the rules for eligibility under the state FamilyCare program, giving health insurance benefits to an additional 717,000 people.[17] To pay for this plan, Blagojevich used his line item veto to remove US$500 million from the state budget.[18] He avoided cutting spending from districts represented by the twelve members of the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules (JCAR), which had the power to block the rule.[18] However, JCAR voted to block the emergency order anyway.[16]

Blagojevich argued that JCAR's action blocking his emergency order was unconstitutional and proceeded with implementing the plan, but a Cook County judge blocked the plan in April 2008.[19] Blagojevich's objection to JCAR's constitutionality later became one of the charges against him when he was impeached in 2009.[20]

In 2008 Blagojevich proposed a scaled-back version, called Illinois Covered Choice, which would create a state-subsidized insurance pool.[16] The program would have been paid for by a 3% increase in the state payroll tax.[16] The General Assembly also rejected this proposal.

Blagojevich's successor, Pat Quinn, ultimately reached a compromise with the legislature in 2009 under which the state would expand subsidized health insurance coverage but to a lesser extent than under the Blagojevich plans.[19] Quinn also settled litigation that would have brought the question of JCAR's constitutionality before the Illinois Supreme Court.[19]

In 2009, following Blagojevich's impeachment and removal from office and in the midst of the debate over the federal Affordable Care Act, the Chicago weekly Newcity opined that in these healthcare reform initiatives, "our ex-governor was ahead of his time".[21]