Uncertainty around restructuring of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and announced cuts in late March to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are creating concerns locally, especially for the nonprofit Oak Park and River Forest Infant Welfare Society.
According to John McIlwain, the organization’s executive director, any Medicaid cuts would likely have a deep impact for the IWS Children’s Clinic, which has provided medical, dental and behavioral health services to low-income families throughout the entire Chicago area for more than a century.
McIlwain said approximately 30 percent of clinic revenues come from Medicaid, with Medicaid paying approximately 30 to 50 percent of the cost of providing patient services. The clinic serves approximately 3,000 patients annually.
The clinic is located at 28 Madison St., a larger, two-story building it acquired and refurbished in recent years to grow its services.
“There is great concern,” McIlwain said. “On a day-to-day basis, people are scared. They are concerned about what this means. This is a complex social issue.
“We’ve worked hard to assure we are here for them for their health and primary care needs.”
Rowena Abrahams, IWS marketing director, added if Medicaid cuts, however deep, go forward, “we’d have to raise more donations and look for more grants. If Medicaid went away, the other pieces of the pie chart would have to increase.”
Medicaid is federal funding distributed to states to meet the needs of citizens at the lower end of the economic scale, McIlwain said, to provide them fundamental access to healthcare. Cuts to Medicaid will “narrow the channel” of care for residents who patronize the clinic.
“This is not the average Oak Parker,” he said. “These are people who are working three jobs to care for their children.”
McIlwain said for local residents, the solution, at least of the moment, is to reach out to their legislators at the state and federal level to voice their concerns about the cuts. That includes U.S. Senator Dick Durbin and Congressman Danny K. Davis, for example.
IWS is also accepting donations at its website, OPRFIWS.org.
“Twenty dollars could cover a portion of a visit for a child,” McIlwain said, adding a donation can even be designated to Medicaid reimbursement.
He also said that deferring healthcare to the future isn’t a viable option for patients, because when the issue is finally addressed, it will likely cost more to correct it.
Then there is the matter of the moral issue of life expectancy.
“As the federal government considers these potential cuts to Medicaid, I hope they realize that life expectancy in the Loop is approximately 84 years of age,” McIlwain said. “If you jump on the Green Line heading west, just a few stops west of the Loop, in East Garfield Park, life expectancy drops to 67 years old. If they take the Green Line all the way to Oak Park, life expectancy improves to approximately 81 years of age. These proposed cuts will have real-world implications for the most vulnerable members of our society.”
While Medicaid cuts are the financial side of the story, there is the human side as well. For example, McIlwain was touring the clinic recently and there was a youngster with Down syndrome who was receiving dental care for the first time. The child was very upset, but McIlwain understood the level of service the clinic was offering.
In fact, it was a textbook case of the clinic doing its job.
“It was a child who can’t get care anywhere else,” he said. “With the size we are, and the unique skill set, just being in the caregiving world, we are a unique entity.
“It was a powerful realization of how important this clinic is.”
Abrahams added that the other part to consider is how patients, and their loved ones, are treated.
“In terms of day-to-day basis, we hear their deep appreciation of the services we offer,” she said. “One of the benefits of the IWS Children’s Clinic is we treat our patients as if they are in a private clinic … specialized pediatricians servicing them, they have short wait times and they say it’s like a family.
“They aren’t being shuttled from provider to provider. It’s a more consistent experience.”