Posts tagged Medicaid
Op-ed: Los Angeles Schools Run Out of Other People’s Money
August 11, 2026 // Covid dollars from Washington turbocharged hiring at public schools and papered over their structural budget problems. But now that the federal money is drying up, the red ink is starting to gush. According to the Labor Department’s monthly jobs report on Friday, local government education shed 49,600 jobs in July—the leading contributor to the nation’s 23,000 employment decline. Ground zero is the Los Angeles Unified School District, the country’s second largest. Its overseers at the Los Angeles County Office of Education last month warned that the district meets the criteria for a “Lack of Going Concern” designation. In the business world, the terminology means a company is at risk of going bankrupt.
Dr. Oz points to powerful California unions as ‘biggest beneficiaries’ in Medicaid fraud scheme
August 10, 2026 // The CMS Administrator claims that there is no incentive to crackdown on fraud because unions are able to increase their bottom-line if more people are able to bill Medicaid. “These incentives create a vicious cycle: Lax program integrity standards mean more demand for caregivers, more caregivers mean more union dues, and more union dues mean more donations for the elected officials who are supposed to be guarding the cash register,” he added. While joining a union is supposed to be completely optional, Oz accused some of California’s most influential labor organizations of forcing healthcare workers to join instead of offering a choice.
Union and Troubled Home Care Company Maintained Close Partnership, Records Show
July 21, 2026 // Home health aides the company employs have decried missed paychecks, glitchy software, and hours-long waits on the phone, among other issues. Last month, PPL agreed to a $162 million settlement to resolve claims of wage theft, and the US Department of Justice sued the company, alleging Medicaid fraud. The powerful health care union 1199SEIU is currently seeking to unionize PPL’s roughly 200,000 workers, who care for disabled and elderly New Yorkers. But 1199 has also been working closely with the PPL for years, according to internal records obtained by New York Focus.
A Union for Home Care Workers? Many Are Wary.
July 17, 2026 // New York Focus independently spoke to more than a dozen aides for this story, and eight were either against it or leaning in that direction. Saba Nakhai, 32, who cares for her mother in Westchester full time, told New York Focus that she doesn’t see a place for the union in her work. “Maybe if I was working at a corporation, I would want a union,” she said. “But here, who’s the enemy, my mom?” Saba Nakhai, a young woman, stands smiling behind and holds the arms of her older mother, who is seated and wearing sunglasses. The room seems celebratory; a cake is on the table in front of them, and pictures of Saba hang from the ceiling. Saba Nakhai cares for her mother in Westchester full time. | Courtesy of Saba Nakhai To win, 1199 must convince workers like Nakhai that they need an advocate — not against their patients, but against the sprawling bureaucracy that sets their wages and benefits. If it’s successful, 1199 — already one of New York’s political kingmakers — will become even more powerful. Its membership and dues revenue will balloon, enabling more organizing and lobbying.
Lawmakers Consider Hiking Fees for Filling Prescriptions
June 8, 2026 // In response to that opposition, the bill’s sponsors amended the bill to exempt the “collectively bargained” health plans covering union members. It also does not apply to Medicare or the “self-insured” health plans offered by most large employers, which are exempt from state regulation by federal law. As a result, the bill primarily targets the health plans purchased from insurance companies by small and medium-sized employers – where it will add to premium costs that are already among the highest in the U.S.
Union demands answers as Sparrow Lansing outsources 379 jobs
May 29, 2026 // Union members at the University of Michigan Health-Sparrow’s Lansing location are demanding answers after they say the hospital has decided to “outsource” jobs in support and nutrition services. UAW Local 4911 President Kim Wheeler says 379 employees in the Food and Nutritional Services and Support Operations Services, also referred to as Environmental Services, have been affected by the move.
Workers at Planned Parenthood’s largest affiliate are unionizing, citing Trump cuts
May 13, 2026 // Sotoa said union representation would secure workers' voices in decisions over staffing and resources under threat by the cuts. Planned Parenthood workers at affiliates in Oregon, Maine, Minnesota, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and other parts of California, have already formed unions in response to the Trump administration and the changes they have prompted in their clinics' staffing, pay and workplace conditions.
Is Union “Dues Skim” Coming to Virginia?
April 8, 2026 // There are many reasons why Governor Abigail Spanberger should veto the collective bargaining bill headed to her desk, a bill requiring local and state governments to bargain with union bosses even if less than a majority of public employees want the union or the bargaining. There is the fact that it will force major spending increases on local governments, just as it added $350 million to Richmond City’s costs when that city voluntarily approved collective bargaining four years ago, and to Fairfax County, which giddily adopted collective bargaining, only to find it’s driven a $300 million shortfall this year.
Editorial: Hochul ‘anti-fraud’ scheme backfires into a taxpayer gift to a monster union
March 3, 2026 // After we and others flagged how loose eligibility rules and other issues had led to a 1,200% spike in CDPAP enrollment, soaring fraud and outlays of $11 billion, the gov used public outrage to pass a reform that she vowed would rein in the program. Yet her “solution” was simply to hire a single company, Public Partnerships, to centralize payments to these aides — which now lets them legally count as PPL employees, and so qualified to unionize.
NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders rally with nurses on ninth day of strike
January 21, 2026 // The democratic socialists, speaking to a boisterous crowd of nurses in front of Mount Sinai West on the Upper West Side, called on hospital executives to return to the negotiating table to resolve the contract impasse that prompted some 15,000 nurses to walk off the job last week.