Welcome to Health & Disability Advocates' website. Health & Disability Advocates (HDA) is a national organization, based in Chicago, Illinois, that uses multiple strategies to promote income security and improve healthcare access and services for children, people with disabilities and low-income, older adults.
HDA’s team of legal and policy experts provides a range of services including individual client services and legal representation, and customized trainings and technical assistance for a range of audiences, including consumers, service providers and state agencies. We also develop innovative projects and policies to protect and strengthen federal and state safety-net programs including Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), Medicare and Medicaid.
For information on current projects underway at HDA, go to the Technical Assistance & Training, Innovative Program & Policy Work, or Client Services & Legal Representation, sections of this website.
What's New at HDA
Chicago Medical Legal Partnership for Children Ensures Access to Transportation for Special Education Services
The Chicago Medical Legal Partnership for Children's recent success in a state complaint investigation of Chicago Public Schools (CPS) will ensure that preschool-aged children receiving special education services and attending Head Start can obtain the special transportation necessary to receive all of those services. In the case of four-year-old J.H., the Illinois State Board of Education found that CPS' policy on providing special transportation services violated the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) by restricting special education transportation through arbitrary guidelines that precluded consideration of the individual needs of the child determined by his Individualized Education Program (IEP) team. This policy led CPS to deny J.H. transportation from his morning Head Start program to his afternoon Early Childhood Special Education (ECSE) program. Instead, CPS would only provide him transportation between home and his afternoon ECSE program. As his mother's only alternative was to take three city buses to get J.H. from Head Start to his ECSE program every day, this policy denied J.H. the full scope of educational services that he needed and to which he was entitled by effectively preventing him from going to Head Start. CPS must now revise its special education transportation policy to reflect federal and state mandates that a school district provide special transportation when it is necessary to ensure that children receive all of the special education services they need. ISBE additionally awarded full transportation services to J.H.
Online Library
View these recent additions to the Library, or search our entire collection.Health Care Coverage Case Study for a Person with a Disability In 2014 And Beyond
This hypothetical "case study" illustrates the health insurance options for people with disabilities that will be available when health care reform is implemented under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
What Medicaid Infrastructure Grants Need to Know about Health Care Reform: The Impact of Medicaid Expansion on the Medicaid Buy-In
This policy and practice brief is the first in a series of briefs helping to explain the expected impact of health care reform on Medicaid eligibility for people with disabilities. The brief explores the potential new Medicaid enrollment dynamics MIGs need to consider as health care reform is implemented under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and the interaction between the Medicaid Buy-In and new coverage options.
Medicaid Categories for People with Disabilities—Before and After PPACA
This table summarizes the impact of health care reform under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act on Medicaid coverage, including the Medicaid Buy-In.






