NIU College of Law Health Advocacy Blog

Over the past week or so, I have been researching Medicare in preparation for the presentation Buri and I will make to Aunt Martha’s on Medicaid, Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act. I started with some of the sources Professor Boraca suggested and delved into the complicated, frightening world of Medicare. I slowly made my way through a small portion of material available on Medicare. I found several brightly colored charts that attempted to simplify the program and even documents explaining the many facets of Medicare in plain language. As I pored over my research, I tried to make sense of it all and to imagine myself explaining the program, its many parts, and its processes to someone else. I tried to imagine helping a client enroll. Unfortunately, I quickly realized that Medicare is even more complicated than I had originally assumed. I could not imagine myself speaking intelligently about the Affordable Care Act or Medicare. They are topics that are relevant, interesting, and ab

A few weeks ago, we visited Mutual Ground, a shelter in Aurora for survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault, to talk to its staff about community partnership. We met with five members of the Mutual Ground staff, including the Executive Director, who gave us a tour of the facility. This was my first visit to a domestic violence shelter. I wanted to know what services the organization provides and how it provides them, but I was unsure of what to expect. I found that in some ways, the organizational structure was very similar to that of Hesed House, and in others, quite different. As we were going through the meeting and the tour, my reactions were similar to how I had felt when touring Hesed House, but they were also more immediate. While taking the Hesed House tour, I had thought about what I would do if I was a single mother with two young children and suddenly became homeless, or if my husband and I became homeless with our children. But because it is hard for me to im

In the clinic we have learned about and discussed several government-funded programs that aid those who are in need. The most recent program we have discussed is SNAP (Supplemental Assistance Nutrition Program). According to Snap to Health, a website that discusses SNAP, the first food assistance program was established in 1939. Snap to Health states that this program was implemented under the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration; specifically, it was enacted along with President Franklin’s New Deal program. In 1964, the Food Stamp Act was passed. Since this time, there have been various changes including an increase in monetary support in the 1970s , and a decrease in monetary support in the 1980s. In 2008, the program was renamed SNAP. What is interesting about this program is that there is a high likelihood that the next person you see walking down the street may be on SNAP because this program assists many people. For example, according to B uilding a Healthy America: A Profile of