National Center for Law and Economic Justice

In a state as large as New York, a steady stream of smart, innovative work is coming from NYHealth grantees and non-grantees alike that is relevant to NYHealth’s priority areas of Building Healthy Communities and Empowering Health Care Consumers and its focus area on Veterans’ Health. These organizations should be elevating their work and informing key stakeholders at regional, statewide, and national conferences, meetings, and other convenings. Yet, because of a lack of resources, they are often unable to do so. To address this issue, NYHealth is awarding grants through its Sponsoring Conference Participation in Support of Healthy Communities, Consumer Empowerment, and Veterans’ Health Request for Proposals (RFP). Through this RFP, NYHealth is sponsoring low-resource organizations to attend and present at local, State, and national conferences related to these areas. In 2019, NYHealth awarded the National Center for Law and Economic Justice (NCLEJ) a grant to participate in this initiative as part of its efforts to empower health care consumers.

Under this grant, NCLEJ sent two staff members to the National Health Law Program Annual Health Advocate Conference. This annual conference convened health advocates and attorneys to discuss preeminent health policy topics with health advocates from a variety of issue areas and backgrounds. By attending this conference, NCLEJ staff members had the opportunity to develop and coordinate strategies for nationwide health advocacy; learn from community-based safety-net advocates, field experts, and health policymakers; collaborate with health advocates on addressing issues faced by vulnerable communities; and evaluate the current legislative and administrative barriers to ensuring equal access to health care for all. NCLEJ staff members  attended workshops and seminars that educated health advocates on how to empower individuals and families through education and training, with a specific emphasis on sessions related to NCLEJ’s Medicaid-related practice.

View a complete list of conference participating grantees.