Posts tagged Medicaid
Home health care provider urges caution over SEIU petition
June 6, 2025 // Gloria Henry, the mother of a special needs child has a message for home health care providers now that a Service Employees International Union member showed up at her house. Anyone who is visited by an SEIU representative should be wary of what they are signing, Henry told Michigan Capitol Confidential. The union is collecting signatures to organize caregivers who care for their loved ones at home. The Legislature approved a law in fall 2024 that categorized home caretakers as government employees
Independent Contractors Take Center Stage for ‘Empowering the American Worker’
May 27, 2025 // However, expert witness Dr. Liya Palagashvili showed data of the deliberate harm done through California’s law AB5 and its ABC test that is also embedded in the federal Protecting the Right to Organize Act (PRO) Act and other statewide legislation seeking to restrict the work of independent professionals. Now, these results are causal, meaning we can definitely say that ABC tests cause these negative outcomes. No other studies to date have found positive employment effects from these laws. The research shows that restrictive ABC tests do not create more work opportunities. They eliminate both independent and W-2 jobs.
The leader of a major government union outlines their strategy to battle Trump federal cuts—And says Elon Musk has ‘no clue’ about workers
March 16, 2025 // We’re filing these lawsuits—that's number one. We are pushing even though we understand that the climate here in Washington, D.C. is not the best. But we’ve still got to continue to go on the offense, as I said earlier. We are supporting the PRO Act, which would give workers the right to have a seat at the table to improve labor labor law in this country. We're doing the same thing with the Public Freedom to Negotiate Act for public service workers.
CONNECTICUT: OPM employee allegedly defrauded Medicaid of $1.8M while on the job
March 6, 2025 // A former Office of Policy and Management employee allegedly defrauded Medicaid of roughly $1.8 million while simultaneously earning more than $90,000 per year as a labor relations specialist, according to a U.S. Justice Department’s case against Suhail Aponte and a review of state payroll records. Aponte worked as a labor relations and public information specialist for Hartford Public Schools before being hired by the Office of Policy and Management (OPM) in May of 2022, nearly one year after forming Minds Cornerstone, LLC, a business that purported to offer services for children with autism.
New York’s Fastest-Growing Union Is Management’s Best Friend — and Some Workers Don’t Even Know They’re Members
December 20, 2024 // Though she last worked for Five Borough two months ago, she stopped receiving pay stubs long before that, she said — paperwork that would have had to show deductions, including for union dues. Supervisors ignored her repeated requests for pay records, she said. Through such voluntary recognition deals with management, less than a decade after its founding, HHWA has exploded in size. It currently claims some 43,000 members, up from 14,141 in 2018. An investigation into Home Healthcare Workers of America by THE CITY, based on interviews with past and current members, legal records and other public statements, reveals that this fast-growing union is a tool of company management in the form of a labor organization.
Op-Ed: Hochul needs to shut down this pricey home-health-care power grab
September 25, 2024 // And bidders are all too likely to fold: “The political world does not mess” with 1199 SEIU,” snarks Empire Center health-industry expert Bill Hammond. “Any bidder with the slightest understanding of what they were getting into when entering into this contract would know what that meant when [1199 SEIU] put that piece of paper in front of them.” Unionizing 200,000 caregivers would be a huge win for 1199, which already boasts 450,000 members. Yet it would defeat the purpose of the program — which, again, is to help family members, not unionized employees, to care for loved ones.
Tensions rising again at D.C. community health center as more staff leave
September 10, 2024 // The conditions prompted the union last month to authorize a strike, the final step before union members on the bargaining committee can call for a work stoppage, potentially interrupting care for the 1 in 8 D.C. residents who are Unity patients.
SEIU celebrates $16 home care worker minimum wage, readies to lobby for $20
June 5, 2024 // The union in recent years has pushed to increase pay rates for the workforce whose average wage had hovered around $11 for nearly a decade. Last year, Nevada state lawmakers passed a bill establishing a $16 an hour minimum wage for home care workers. “Sixteen is great,” said Clark County Commissioner William McCurdy, a former SEIU organizer who spoke at the event Thursday. “It shows the power of collective mobilization. But I think that we are going to do a little bit better next legislative session.” An increase to $20 per hour for home care workers would be possible by adjusting the Medicaid reimbursement rate for the employers who provide home care services to $30 per hour.
Opinion | California’s $25-an-Hour Minimum-Wage Boomerang
May 30, 2024 // The state’s budget deficit has ballooned to $45 billion. Mr. Newsom projects that the new healthcare minimum wage would cost the state $4 billion more a year owing to higher Medicaid costs and compensation for workers at state-owned facilities. Legislative analyses warned about these costs, but Mr. Newsom signed the law anyway. Thus the minimum wage for healthcare workers is set to rise to between $18 and $23 an hour this Saturday, depending on the type and size of healthcare provider. California’s current minimum wage for all workers is $16 an hour. Nearly all workers at healthcare facilities including janitors will have to be paid at least $25 an hour by 2028. Democrats shrugged when healthcare providers warned that the wage mandate could force cuts to patient services. Who cares if Californians wait longer before being seen at the ER? But now Democrats worry that the state’s higher health costs could force bigger government spending cuts. Oh no. Californians may have to wait even longer for their bullet train to nowhere.
Home Care Unionization Efforts Beginning To Tick Back Up
March 29, 2024 // Another issue that URMHC workers cited was working hours, which could – in theory – be fixed by providers. One of the biggest reasons for turnover in home-based care is volatile scheduling. “I think that’s a problem we’re going to have to solve,” FirstLight Home Care CEO Glee McAnanly told Home Health Care News earlier this year. “Because if you talk to caregivers, they say they want 30 hours. The average client is 20 hours, and so you’ve got a disconnected 10 hours. So, we talk about retention, but how are we going to [satisfy] that caregiver?”