Workers claim Raimondo’s FY 17 budget exacerbates RI’s home care crisis

PROVIDENCE — Members of Rhode Island’s home care workforce rallied at the statehouse on Tuesday, April 12, to protest Gov. Gina M. Raimondo’s FY ‘17 proposed state budget. While the governor’s proposal includes a 7 percent wage pass-through, it does not include reimbursements for health care services in the homes of the state’s Medicaid population, such as medical equipment and supplies, professional liability insurance and employer-mandated health insurance for employees, for example.

“Most home care workers may never see this wage increase as a result of Medicaid home care agencies’ inability to cover the increased costs that come with increased payroll, such as insurance and payroll taxes,” Nicholas Oliver, executive director of the Rhode Island Partnership for Home Care, said in a release issued after the rally. “It is unfortunate that almost a decade after barely surviving frozen reimbursement rates that Governor Raimondo has proposed a failed fiscal policy of the Almond and Carcieri administrations. This is not ‘reinventing Medicaid’; rather, it is inevitable that more agencies will close, more layoffs will continue and more Rhode Islanders will be denied access to care unless relief is given to home care providers now.” According to Oliver, some 300 workers attended the protest rally.

“Our direct care workers, many of whom are women, minorities and single mothers, deserve to earn a competitive wage and receive access to the same quality care that they provide to their patients and clients,” Laurie Ellison, president of the Rhode Island Partnership for Home Care board and administrator, Cowesett Home Care in Warwick, said in the statement.

According to the Rhode Island Island Partnership for Home Care, Health and Human Services Secretary Elizabeth Roberts testified at a House Committee on Finance hearing on March 23, 2016 that home care agencies that do not implement the wage pass-through, similar to FY ‘02 and FY ‘08, will be subject to a “claw back” in reimbursement rates.

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“Agencies that will be subject to a claw back in reimbursement rates will likely close as a result,” said Oliver. “Policies that threaten access to home care only demonstrate that Governor Raimondo and Secretary Roberts have no regard for home care workers providing quality health care in the homes of our oldest, poorest and sickest Rhode Islanders, nor are [they] connected to hardworking Rhode Islanders, such as home care nurses, aides and therapists that work hard to provide excellent care, yet struggle to make ends meet for themselves and their families.”

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