OUR STORY
ACA Consumer Advocacy was the natural outgrowth of a consumer support group formed following the abrupt closure of Land of Lincoln Health, the Illinois Co-Op plan developed under the ACA. Land of Lincoln closed abruptly, with no prior warning. The night the news came out about the closure, several people went online to their Facebook page to see if there was any information there. Unfortunately, there was not. What was there were several people looking for answers.
After a couple of days, three voices rose to the forefront and began chatting among each other. These three women decided a support group was needed to get as many people together to share information, concerns, issues, and news together, and the Illinois LOLH Consumer Support Group was formed. One of these women, Jeannine Martin, who started the group, reached out to the Illinois Department of Insurance to get answers. She was granted a meeting and asked the two other co-founders to join her, Emily Burchfield and Miranda Wilgus. Together, they represented small business owners, mental health providers, and people with preexisting conditions, and went armed with questions and concerns from consumers in the group.
Following that meeting, the support group became a conduit to provide accurate information about the subsequent special enrollment period, referring escalated situations, and providing information on how to submit claims against the estate of Land of Lincoln Health. During this time, Barbara Gerend joined the administrators of the group.
As the special enrollment period came to an end, the four women met and determined that they could not stop. There was a definite need of the consumer's voice in advocating needed fixes to the ACA. So, ACA Consumer Advocacy was born in the early fall of 2016 with the intention of advocating for the improvement of the ACA.
Following the election of 2016, the mandate of the group shifted to the defense and protection of the ACA, with the eventual goal of improving it and working to create an affordable, equitable, comprehensive form of health care for all Americans.
The first real action of ACA Consumer Advocacy was a meeting to bring elected officials face to face with ACA consumers before they went back to Washington, DC in January of 2017, to a new administration that had run on the repeal of the ACA. It was determined that to make the most difference, there needed to be dialogue and partnership between consumers and both state and federal lawmakers, since the ACA is a law that works at both the state and federal levels.
During this time, we met Tracy Trovatto, an ACA advocate who had her family's experience with the benefits of the ACA highlighted by the Chicago Tribune. Contacts among other ACA advocates, both in real life and online, continued.
Today we are members of the Protect Our Care IL coalition and the Illinois Coalition for Healthcare Access. We have also partnered with the ACA Signup Project and other health care advocacy organizations since 2018 for the open enrollment period to help offset the drastic reduction in budget by the administration for enrollment outreach, education, and navigator assistance. We also joined the Made to Save coalition to promote Covid-19 vaccination.
After a couple of days, three voices rose to the forefront and began chatting among each other. These three women decided a support group was needed to get as many people together to share information, concerns, issues, and news together, and the Illinois LOLH Consumer Support Group was formed. One of these women, Jeannine Martin, who started the group, reached out to the Illinois Department of Insurance to get answers. She was granted a meeting and asked the two other co-founders to join her, Emily Burchfield and Miranda Wilgus. Together, they represented small business owners, mental health providers, and people with preexisting conditions, and went armed with questions and concerns from consumers in the group.
Following that meeting, the support group became a conduit to provide accurate information about the subsequent special enrollment period, referring escalated situations, and providing information on how to submit claims against the estate of Land of Lincoln Health. During this time, Barbara Gerend joined the administrators of the group.
As the special enrollment period came to an end, the four women met and determined that they could not stop. There was a definite need of the consumer's voice in advocating needed fixes to the ACA. So, ACA Consumer Advocacy was born in the early fall of 2016 with the intention of advocating for the improvement of the ACA.
Following the election of 2016, the mandate of the group shifted to the defense and protection of the ACA, with the eventual goal of improving it and working to create an affordable, equitable, comprehensive form of health care for all Americans.
The first real action of ACA Consumer Advocacy was a meeting to bring elected officials face to face with ACA consumers before they went back to Washington, DC in January of 2017, to a new administration that had run on the repeal of the ACA. It was determined that to make the most difference, there needed to be dialogue and partnership between consumers and both state and federal lawmakers, since the ACA is a law that works at both the state and federal levels.
During this time, we met Tracy Trovatto, an ACA advocate who had her family's experience with the benefits of the ACA highlighted by the Chicago Tribune. Contacts among other ACA advocates, both in real life and online, continued.
Today we are members of the Protect Our Care IL coalition and the Illinois Coalition for Healthcare Access. We have also partnered with the ACA Signup Project and other health care advocacy organizations since 2018 for the open enrollment period to help offset the drastic reduction in budget by the administration for enrollment outreach, education, and navigator assistance. We also joined the Made to Save coalition to promote Covid-19 vaccination.
Staff
Miranda Wilgus: Executive Director
Board
(in formation)
Jesus Armando Enriquez has over a dozen years of experience working in the not-for-profit sector, with an emphasis on serving underserved populations including immigrants and the bilingual Latinx community. He is currently a specialist working with the Senior Medicare Patrol (SMP) at an Area Agency on Aging. He was also an Affordable Care Act (ACA) Navigator at a refugee resettlement agency and worked in health promotion at Erie Family Health Center. Jesus Armando also taught computer literacy to Spanish speaking adults for several years. He values the importance of serving the community and has been a past volunteer at several Chicago non-profits including Centro Romero and CommunityHealth.
Charles Gaba: In 2013, when neither the government nor the mainstream media provided consistent, reliable reporting of enrollment data for the Affordable Care Act, Charles Gaba launched ACASignups.net as a hobby, using crowdsourcing to track enrollments in real time. His work soon caught the attention of major media outlets, and has been cited and used as a resource ever since by media outlets spanning the ideological spectrum including the Washington Post, Forbes, Bloomberg News, Vox.com, MSNBC, The New Republic, USA Today, the CATO Institute, National Review Online and The New York Times among others, as well as prominent medical journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet. Since launching this project, he has expanded his analysis to include the impact of the ACA's Medicaid Expansion, SHOP exchange, BHP provision and a variety of other Obamacare-related programs.
Wylie Rogers: Secretary. For over 50 years I have been an active participant in the struggle for civil and economic equality and social justice. For me in practical terms this means an unrelenting and uncompromising fight for basic human needs and against all forms of oppression and exploitation. I am a social worker by profession (MSW,PHD) with decades of experience in child welfare and community mental health. I enjoy research, writing music, and teaching. My greatest accomplishment is my 50 year marriage to my life partner Leah.
Mina Schultz: Mina Schultz is currently the ACA Outreach & Enrollment Program Director for Young Invincibles. Before that she was an outreach specialist at GetCoveredNYC, a New York City initiative to connect New Yorkers with health coverage. She was formerly a certified application counselor in rural West Virginia for three Open Enrollment periods. Mina has a Master’s in French and foreign language teaching from the University of Missouri, and a Master of Public Health from George Washington University. As a cancer survivor, Mina believes protections for those with pre-existing conditions are essential, and has extensive experience advocating for access to quality, affordable, comprehensive health care.
Yesenia Severin: Yesenia Servin is an expert in credentialing and provider/payer enrollment with over 23 years of experience in the healthcare industry. Yesenia has a deep understanding of Medicare & Medicaid enrollment and is a nationally certified credentialing manager and provider enrollment specialist. Through, YS Credentialing PLLC, Yesenia helps organizations develop and implement best practices guidelines and processes. Guides the credentialing and payer enrollment structure. Thrives on training and growing administrative, credentialing and enrollment healthcare professionals. Yesenia is a current CharterOak University Faculty, NAMSS member, and is a past NAMSS Educational Conference Guest Speaker, a current member of the NAHRI Leadership Council, current trainer for The Chicago School of Professional Psychology trainer and a TMG Collaborator. Yesenia studied microeconomics and communications at NEIU and healthcare administration at Concordia University Chicago.
Jane Sitorius: Jane Sitorius is a health care attorney who is passionate about health care reform and brings that passion to her position on ACA Consumer Advocacy's Board of Directors. She has worked in both policy and compliance for clients, regulatory issues, state medical board regulations, Medicare issues, and more in both nonprofit and for-profit arenas. She obtained her Master of Health Administration and Juris Doctor (cum laude) from The Ohio State University.
Grace Tsao: Grace Tsao has spent her career working in higher education, non-profit, and state government in various capacities including teaching, research, and grant writing. Grace has a B.S. in News-Editorial Journalism from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, an M.S. in Cultural Foundations of Education with a concentration in Multicultural Education from the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, and an M.A. in Sociology from Loyola University Chicago where her focus was on race, gender, and disability. She was involved in various organizations in Chicago that centered on social justice, including having served on the board of a small grassroots organization that focused on art, activism, diversity, and social justice. She was also an advisory board member of the Disabilities Fund at the Chicago Community Trust and was a grantmaking committee member of the Asian Giving Circle which funds non-profits that support the Asian American community. She is currently the Chair and Advocacy Chair of the Statewide Independent Living Council of Illinois. Grace was diagnosed with Muscular Dystrophy around seven years old and uses a power wheelchair. She lives with her husband and their two cats.
Jen Waldman: Treasurer Jen Waldman is the current Director of Action for a Better Tomorrow Northern Suburbs, which began as an offshoot of Pantsuit Nation, following PSN’s decision to become a 501c3 organization. Jen has been instrumental in organizing the Northern Suburban group, meeting with elected officials, and setting up educational forums on a wide variety of issues important to the community, including health care. She coordinated a successful series of meet the candidate events for several IL gubernatorial candidates before the 2020 state primary. She brings organizing skills and contacts to the board along with her passion to work for the public good.
Jesus Armando Enriquez has over a dozen years of experience working in the not-for-profit sector, with an emphasis on serving underserved populations including immigrants and the bilingual Latinx community. He is currently a specialist working with the Senior Medicare Patrol (SMP) at an Area Agency on Aging. He was also an Affordable Care Act (ACA) Navigator at a refugee resettlement agency and worked in health promotion at Erie Family Health Center. Jesus Armando also taught computer literacy to Spanish speaking adults for several years. He values the importance of serving the community and has been a past volunteer at several Chicago non-profits including Centro Romero and CommunityHealth.
Charles Gaba: In 2013, when neither the government nor the mainstream media provided consistent, reliable reporting of enrollment data for the Affordable Care Act, Charles Gaba launched ACASignups.net as a hobby, using crowdsourcing to track enrollments in real time. His work soon caught the attention of major media outlets, and has been cited and used as a resource ever since by media outlets spanning the ideological spectrum including the Washington Post, Forbes, Bloomberg News, Vox.com, MSNBC, The New Republic, USA Today, the CATO Institute, National Review Online and The New York Times among others, as well as prominent medical journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet. Since launching this project, he has expanded his analysis to include the impact of the ACA's Medicaid Expansion, SHOP exchange, BHP provision and a variety of other Obamacare-related programs.
Wylie Rogers: Secretary. For over 50 years I have been an active participant in the struggle for civil and economic equality and social justice. For me in practical terms this means an unrelenting and uncompromising fight for basic human needs and against all forms of oppression and exploitation. I am a social worker by profession (MSW,PHD) with decades of experience in child welfare and community mental health. I enjoy research, writing music, and teaching. My greatest accomplishment is my 50 year marriage to my life partner Leah.
Mina Schultz: Mina Schultz is currently the ACA Outreach & Enrollment Program Director for Young Invincibles. Before that she was an outreach specialist at GetCoveredNYC, a New York City initiative to connect New Yorkers with health coverage. She was formerly a certified application counselor in rural West Virginia for three Open Enrollment periods. Mina has a Master’s in French and foreign language teaching from the University of Missouri, and a Master of Public Health from George Washington University. As a cancer survivor, Mina believes protections for those with pre-existing conditions are essential, and has extensive experience advocating for access to quality, affordable, comprehensive health care.
Yesenia Severin: Yesenia Servin is an expert in credentialing and provider/payer enrollment with over 23 years of experience in the healthcare industry. Yesenia has a deep understanding of Medicare & Medicaid enrollment and is a nationally certified credentialing manager and provider enrollment specialist. Through, YS Credentialing PLLC, Yesenia helps organizations develop and implement best practices guidelines and processes. Guides the credentialing and payer enrollment structure. Thrives on training and growing administrative, credentialing and enrollment healthcare professionals. Yesenia is a current CharterOak University Faculty, NAMSS member, and is a past NAMSS Educational Conference Guest Speaker, a current member of the NAHRI Leadership Council, current trainer for The Chicago School of Professional Psychology trainer and a TMG Collaborator. Yesenia studied microeconomics and communications at NEIU and healthcare administration at Concordia University Chicago.
Jane Sitorius: Jane Sitorius is a health care attorney who is passionate about health care reform and brings that passion to her position on ACA Consumer Advocacy's Board of Directors. She has worked in both policy and compliance for clients, regulatory issues, state medical board regulations, Medicare issues, and more in both nonprofit and for-profit arenas. She obtained her Master of Health Administration and Juris Doctor (cum laude) from The Ohio State University.
Grace Tsao: Grace Tsao has spent her career working in higher education, non-profit, and state government in various capacities including teaching, research, and grant writing. Grace has a B.S. in News-Editorial Journalism from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, an M.S. in Cultural Foundations of Education with a concentration in Multicultural Education from the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, and an M.A. in Sociology from Loyola University Chicago where her focus was on race, gender, and disability. She was involved in various organizations in Chicago that centered on social justice, including having served on the board of a small grassroots organization that focused on art, activism, diversity, and social justice. She was also an advisory board member of the Disabilities Fund at the Chicago Community Trust and was a grantmaking committee member of the Asian Giving Circle which funds non-profits that support the Asian American community. She is currently the Chair and Advocacy Chair of the Statewide Independent Living Council of Illinois. Grace was diagnosed with Muscular Dystrophy around seven years old and uses a power wheelchair. She lives with her husband and their two cats.
Jen Waldman: Treasurer Jen Waldman is the current Director of Action for a Better Tomorrow Northern Suburbs, which began as an offshoot of Pantsuit Nation, following PSN’s decision to become a 501c3 organization. Jen has been instrumental in organizing the Northern Suburban group, meeting with elected officials, and setting up educational forums on a wide variety of issues important to the community, including health care. She coordinated a successful series of meet the candidate events for several IL gubernatorial candidates before the 2020 state primary. She brings organizing skills and contacts to the board along with her passion to work for the public good.
Advisory Council
(in formation)
Laura Packard
Leah Rogers
Stacy Staggs