Tracy Dudzinski
Embarrassed. Less than. Not worthy. Angry. Unimportant.
These are a few of the words that describe how I feel about having to rely on a state-sponsored health insurance plan for my family’s insurance coverage, though I work full time for a home care agency. I just can’t afford my employer’s health insurance plan on a direct care worker’s wages.
If I am helping care for our nation’s most vulnerable, why can’t I afford to buy into my employer’s health insurance plan for my family?
Don’t get me wrong – I’m very grateful for the state-sponsored insurance. I have three insulin-dependent diabetics in my family, so without the help of Wisconsin’s Medicaid plan, we’d have to choose between medication and food or gas. And who knows how we’d pay for doctor visits and hospital stays?
We pay a monthly premium and have co-pays for services, but I can afford BadgerCare’s rates. I just can’t afford my employer’s. That means I’m stuck in a vicious cycle: I can’t afford to get much of a raise, because if I made a little more than I’m making now, we wouldn’t qualify for the state health care plan. I’d have to buy into my employer’s plan, but a few dollars more a week wouldn’t be enough to make it affordable. So I’d be stuck with that awful choice — medicine or food? I might even have to join the millions of people who have gone bankrupt because of high medical bills.
I know this isn’t my employer’s fault because my agency, Cooperative Care, is owned by its employees. We caregivers run the company. We make the decisions for the business and sit on the board of directors – in fact, I chair the board. So I know that we pay as high a wage as we possibly can within the current reimbursement system. Our coop is one of the higher-paying employers in the area for our line of work.
We make our health care plan as affordable as possible too, and we try to make it accessible. You don’t have to be full time to qualify for our health insurance – you just have to work at least 30 hours a week. But only 10 of our 70 workers can afford to opt in.
If our profession was respected enough that our pay was commensurate with the importance of the work we do, we would not be stuck in this vicious circle. And paying us what we deserve might not even cost the government more. Just think about it: If Medicaid paid me enough so I could afford my employer’s health insurance, it wouldn’t have to pay for my family’s health care. Heck, the state might even save some money on the deal.
The health care reform bill that Congress is close to passing would do a lot to fix this problem, but they haven’t passed it yet. Until they do, we need to keep reminding people why direct care workers need affordable health insurance. We need to contact our legislators and tell them our stories. We need to talk to everyone who will listen and tell them how demoralizing it is for the hands, eyes and ears of the health care system to be unable to afford health care for themselves and their families.
Nearly a third of all direct care workers do not have health insurance, so they can’t afford to go the doctor when they are sick. That’s not good for them – and it’s not good for the people they are caring for.
If you’re a direct care worker or client who is affected by the lack of affordable health insurance, it’s not too late to call your legislators and tell them to support it. They need to know how important affordable health insurance is to you and your family, and how it feels not to have it.
Call the Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121 to find your senators or members of Congress.
Related materials
A letter from the DCA to Congressional leaders, asking for support for those four items (PDF)
Background on the Direct Care Workforce Amendment, which calls for making DCWs a focus area for the National Healthcare Workforce Commission
Tracy Dudzinski, CNA
Vice Chair, Board of Directors
Direct Care Alliance
Tracy: It is also distressing for provider administrators to sit through a meeting with the Wisconsin Administrator of the Division of Long Term Care and hear it said that the actuaries who determine the Family Care reimbursement rates (ultimately to providers and their staff via the MCO’s) omit the annual health insurance premium increases from their calculations. Thus even employers who have made health insurance affordable will be pressured to pass on unforgiving premium increases onto staff. How shortsighted is this? Perhaps the DCA can add this to its advocacy efforts. Thanks. RB
Richard, you are absolutely right and it is something that we should work together to change.
Tracy, your well written article is a clear message of how convoluted the reimbursement system is for long term care, how the health care system does not allow low paid workers to access health care and how governments make people dependent on government sponsored health care or unaffordable health care.
I want to take this opportunity thank all DCW for the dedication to our profession. I have been a nurse assistant for over 30 years. This will be my last year in the field. For the last 15 years i work as a nurse aide in End of Life Care. Today I still am placed in nursing centers to care for the terminally ill. We’re still faced with no respect, treated like a dime a dozen, and paid poverty wages with no chance of annual raises, as we are told that, due to the economy, they are not going to be given out this year.
While our efforts to become visible to our law makers is still a task, i continue to hear nothing has changed.
I also hear of no healthcare insurance for most direct care workers. I hear of people like my mother-in-law paying $900 for healthcare expenses.
In 2009 our association here in Texas had a great year, and we have more plans for 2010. First, i have written to The honorable Kay Bailey Hutchitson to walk in my shoes for a day. Please help me by e-mailing her with any encouragement to adhere to our request. She has a big record of caring about and monitoring our long-term care in Texas.
We have been unsuccessful in obtaining private funding, so we will now ask for goverment funding for our efforts to remain a voice in Texas. Last please look out for our first big fundraiser for 2011.
I hope to continue to be a part of Direct Care Alliance and also to finish my time at the Voices Institute.
Thank you Tracy for this article. Like Leonila said: let work together to make change happened.