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"I am thrilled that Barry Maram has been selected to receive this
prestigious award," Gov. Rod Blagojevich said. "Since the beginning
of my administration he has worked tirelessly on behalf of countless
women, men and children who need health care, need help collecting
child support, need help paying the heating bills, need help paying
for the high cost of prescription drugs and so many other important
issues. Barry's performance has been absolutely stellar, and I'm
extremely proud of him and the work he's done." The National
Governors Association asked each
governor from across the nation to nominate one state official they
deem most deserving of the Distinguished Service Award. Earlier this
year, Blagojevich nominated Maram for the award, citing his superior
management and organizational skills. According to the NGA, Maram is
the first state official from Illinois to receive the award since
1994.
"This is a tremendous honor for me, and I'd like to thank the
National Governors Association for this esteemed recognition," Maram said. "I share Governor Blagojevich's vision to ensure more
people in Illinois have health care and that health care is more
affordable and accessible.
"Through commitment and innovation, this administration has
succeeded in protecting families who rely on Medicaid coverage and
seniors who rely on state pharmaceutical programs. Governor
Blagojevich has made health care more affordable for senior
citizens, working families, children, women and small businesses."
As director of the Department of Healthcare and Family Services, formerly known as
the Illinois Department of Public Aid, Maram has helped to ensure
that Illinois is expanding access to health care among the state's
working families, to transform the state's child support enforcement
system through reorganization and new technology, and to coordinate
a statewide hospital assessment that brought millions of dollars
back to Illinois.
Since Blagojevich took office, 313,000 men, women and children
who previously did not have health care now do. As a result, the
Kaiser Family Foundation has ranked Illinois the best state in the
nation for providing health care to adults who need it and the
second-best state in the nation for providing health care to
children who need it.
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 With Maram's leadership and perseverance, Blagojevich has been
able to launch several new efforts to help expand Illinois' health
care programs, providing adequate access to quality health care at a
reasonable cost, including:
- Blagojevich recently launched the Leave No Senior Behind
program, which preserves current health care for seniors who
would otherwise see gaps in their federal coverage. Seniors
participating in this program will participate in the newly
expanded federal program; however, when that coverage falls
short, Illinois will continue to pay for existing state benefits
to prevent gaps in coverage. This program, which is more
comprehensive than those offered by any other state because it
has the broadest income eligibility and places no caps on
premiums or deductibles, will save the state $26 million this
year and double that the following year.
- While many states have had to decimate their Medicaid
programs in the past two years, Illinois has maintained coverage
for everyone enrolled. In addition, since Blagojevich took
office in 2003, 313,000 children and working parents have been
added to the Illinois Medicaid programs without cutting provider
rates, and this is despite facing historic budget deficits. And
in this upcoming year, despite facing a $1.1 billion budget
deficit, Blagojevich and Maram have expanded FamilyCare
eligibility yet again to 56,000 parents.
- To reduce the cost of prescription drugs in Illinois,
Blagojevich launched I-SaveRx, the first state program that
allows individuals and families to purchase safe and affordable
drugs from a network of state-inspected pharmacies in Canada and
Europe.
- State child support enforcement programs are eligible for
federal incentive payments based on performance on certain
indicators, and Illinois was awarded $7 million in fiscal 2003,
which is the largest incentive amount ever received by Illinois
since the program's inception. Due to new enforcement techniques
and innovative process streamlining, the Division of Child
Support Enforcement within the Department of Healthcare and
Family Services has collected over $1 billion in child support
on behalf of Illinois' children.
[News release from the governor's
office] |
