Norris Nicholson -- Carbondale, IL

Written By: Adam Sege

For years, Norris Nicholson couldn’t afford to stay healthy.

He was supposed to take nine pills a day to treat a lengthy list of medical conditions: arthritis, high blood pressure, coronary artery disease and diabetes.  Added together, his medicines cost $1300 a month.  Norris had no health insurance, and he couldn’t keep up.

“Either I ate,” he says, “Or I took the medicine.”

Norris chose to eat.   When he couldn’t buy all of the medicine he needed to, his health plummeted.  Within five years, he suffered four heart attacks.

With each visit to the heart doctor costing about $275, and the hospital fees associated with his last heart attack roughly $10,000, Norris was quickly sinking into thousands of dollars of debt.  He applied several times for an Illinois Medicaid card that would help with his payments, but the Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS) kept turning him down.  He wasn’t disabled, they told him.

Norris, who was unemployed, applied nine times for Social Security disability benefits.  Nine times, he was rejected.

After hearing Norris’s story, a social worker at St. Joseph Memorial Hospital referred him to Diane Goffinet, a senior staff attorney at the Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance Foundation.  Diane helped Norris file an administrative appeal of the denial of his request for Illinois Medicaid benefits.  A telephone hearing was scheduled with the IDHS Bureau of Assistance Hearings, and during the hearing, Diane was on the line with Norris as he asked for the help he deserved.

Still, the IDHS office refused to provide Norris with the medical assistance card that would have paid for his medications.   Soon after, Norris went for three weeks without medications—he couldn’t afford them—and suffered his fifth heart attack.   Diane decided to take the case to court.

As the trial neared, Diane and Norris stayed in close contact.

“I could call her any time of day,” Norris says. “She wouldn’t hide from me.”

When Norris’s day in court arrived, the judge agreed with Diane that Norris was disabled.  Finally, Norris was able to receive a medical assistance card to pay his health-related expenses.

“I was so relieved,” Norris says. “It took so much burden off of me.”

Norris now had a way to see his doctors, obtain the medical tests he needed to follow his health problems, and pay for his medications.

Reflecting on the way he was treated at the Land of Lincoln office, Norris says the lawyers he met there are working “for the poor people.”

“She’s outstanding,” he says of Diane. “I think the world of her.”

“All of these lawyers around here, they’re scared of the public aid office, they’re scared to fight the government,” he continues.  “Diane’s not scared to go against anybody. If she thinks it’s your right, she’ll fight for you.”