For the second time in a week, Rep. Patricia Bellock (R-Hinsdale) stressed her deep concern for Illinois children and families receiving the maximum managed care benefits in light of pending litigation and canceled contracts regarding a $60 billion revamp plan to increase managed care to Medicaid patients.
“This administration has done more on consent decrees than the last administration,” Bellock said Thursday at a House Appropriations-Human Services Committee hearing on the revamp plan, noting she has witnessed all major state divisions, including Healthcare and Family Services, the Division of Human Services, Division of Children and Family Services, and the Division of Public Health, unify for the first time in 18 years.
At a Nov. 30 committee hearing, Bellock discussed resolving the 2011 N.B. v Norwood lawsuit, which was brought against the state for not providing sufficient behavioral health care to adolescents.
Thursday, her focus was on the $60 billion revamp continuing despite Chief Procurement Officer Ellen Daley quashing on Tuesday a HFS contract with McKinsey & Co., which was hired in October to consult on the pending litigation and Medicaid program development.
She said the committee must stay focused through the “ups and downs” of developing a better-managed care program and that is why she wanted to “comment on where we have come from and where we are trying to go.”
“The main goal here is (to) provide better access, better quality and better primary care physicians ... and try to do that cost effectively,” Bellock said.
Bellock thanked panel witness Felicia Norwood, director of Healthcare and Family Services, for her dedication through the “difficult process” of putting a new improved program together.
“I support you, what you have done, and I know there are different questions on this and it is extremely complicated, but thank you,” Bellock said.
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