Senators Casey and Kohl Introduce Direct Care Worker Amendment to the Senate Health Care Reform Bill

Leonila Vega

Thanks to the leadership of Senators Robert Casey [PA] and Herb Kohl [WI], a direct care worker amendment (PDF) has been filed to the Senate health care reform bill, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.  The amendment adds the direct care workforce as a “high priority” focus area of the National Health Care Workforce Commission.  The commission would examine a number of key health care workforce issues, as part of the bill’s effort to expand access to millions of uninsured Americans, but the current list of health care professions to be studied does not include direct care workers.

Tracy Dudzinsky, a graduate of the DCA’s Voices Institute National Leadership Program and president of the Wisconsin Direct Caregiver Alliance, led the charge in getting this amendment introduced when she visited Senator Feingold’s office in September.

Tracy was helped early on by fellow direct care worker and Voices Institute NLP graduate Brenda Nachtway, who asked Senator Casey to support the direct care worker amendment.  Instead, Senator Casey went above and beyond Brenda’s request and offered to sponsor the amendment!

The DCA would like to express our gratitude to Senators Casey and Kohl for their commitment to improving our long-term care system and support for the direct care workforce.  We’d also like to thank PHI, the Iowa Caregivers Association, and direct care workers and advocates from Minnesota, Maine, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania who helped get this amendment introduced.

While this news is cause for excitement, we need your help to ensure this direct care worker amendment succeeds! Please let us know if we can add your organization to our list of supporters.  We also ask that you call or email your Senator on behalf of this amendment — and in support of health care reform in general, since more than a quarter of all direct care workers currently lack health care coverage.

If you would like additional information or have any questions, please contact David Ward, our Director of Policy and Planning: dward@directcarealliance.org, or by phone at (917) 828-6924.

Related Materials

Talking points about the amendment

Draft of the DCA’s letter urging the Senate to include the amendment