Archive for ‘Maine’

Voices Institute Welcomes Another Remarkable Class

Posted by on September 10th, 2009 at 5:06 pm | 8 Comments »
Angel Saylor (R) with home care aide Kelvin Jefferson at a DCA focus group

Angel Saylor (R) with home care aide Kelvin Jefferson at a DCA focus group

The Direct Care Alliance’s signature program, the Voices Institute, is about to hold its second National Leadership Program. The week-long retreat is an intensive learning journey, and this year’s class is another remarkable group, which will surely join the pioneers from the VI inaugural class to leave its mark on the direct care worker movement. We are returning to the DeKoven Center, where the roots that were planted at the first Voices Institute National Leadership Program will again thrive.

This year, we are welcoming men and women who care for people of all ages in a variety of settings, including nursing homes, hospice, group homes, day programs, assisted living, and home- and community-based programs. Consistent with the DCA’s objectives to build a broadly inclusive movement of empowered direct care workers, the class of 2009 represents a wide spectrum of direct care workers. Continue reading »

Real Wages Keep Falling for Personal and Home Care Aides

Posted by on September 9th, 2009 at 11:17 am | 1 Comment »

state chartbook coverAs every direct care worker advocate knows, personal and home care aides earn far too little for the important work they do. And now an updated version of PHI’s State Chart Book on Wages for Personal and Home Care Aides (PDF) gives advocates a valuable tool, proving that real wages are actually getting worse.

The chart book analyzes data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, adjusting last year’s wages for inflation to see how their earning power compares to average wages in 1999.

Nationwide, these inflation-adjusted rates, which the chartbook calls “real wages,” have decreased by 3 percent over the past nine years, dropping from $7.50 an hour to just $7.31. Real wages increased in more than half the states during that period, but not enough to make up for their decline in the other 21.

Median wages in 2008 ranged from $7.05 an hour in Texas to $12.55 in Alaska in 2008, or real wages of $5.61 to $9.90. “Wages for personal and home care aides are so low,” says PHI Director of Policy Research Dorie Seavey, “that about 20 percent of these workers received a raise on July 24 when the minimum wage increased to $7.25/hour.”

The chartbook also compares wages to federal poverty level wages for a one-person household.

Elise Nakhnikian
Communications Director
Direct Care Alliance

Hanson Calls for Better Health Care for DCWs in Maine Editorial

Posted by on September 8th, 2009 at 11:26 am | No Comments »
Helen Hanson

Helen Hanson

The good news just keeps coming from Maine, where a federal grant will provide health care coverage for thousands of uninsured direct care workers and others and where direct care workers Helen Hanson and Julie Moulton have been appointed to the group that is revamping the state’s long-term care system.  On August 28, The Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram published a strong editorial by Hanson, in which she calls for “a health care plan that meets the needs of direct-care workers and millions of other low-wage workers across America.”

Hanson applies what she has learned from her work in Maine to the national situation in her editorial, which begins by describing her struggle to find affordable health insurance for her family in the years before her husband got a job that offers health insurance. She also writes about the high rate of uninsurance among direct care workers and how it contributes to the profession’s high turnover rates. “When our family didn’t have insurance, I always feared that if I were to get cancer, I would have to give up my caregiving work and find a job that offered health coverage,” she says. “This was a choice I didn’t want to make, but it is one that faces Maine’s direct-care workers every day.”

Hanson makes the connection between a stable direct care workforce and quality care for elders and people with disabilities and lays out ground rules for insurance that would adequately cover direct care workers and other low-wage employees.

Direct Care Workers in the Lead as Maine Revamps Its LTC System

Posted by on September 8th, 2009 at 9:25 am | No Comments »
L to R: Roy Gedat, Helen Hanson, Sen. Margaret Craven, Sen Nancy Sullivan and Julie Moulton

L to R: Roy Gedat, Helen Hanson, Sen. Margaret Craven, Sen Nancy Sullivan and Julie Moulton

Here in Maine, the Department of Health and Human Services (DHSS) is revamping its long-term care system, and two direct care workers – Julie Moulton and I – are helping to lead the process.

As you know if you’ve been reading this blog, our past legislative session saw four separate bills dealing with long-term care, two involving workers and two dealing with the system. I wrote about three of them in an earlier blog post. The fourth is LD 400, which looks at long-term home-based care and community-based care.

For all but one of the four, DHHS has to report back to the legislative Health and Human Services Committee with findings on how to improve the system. For LD 1059, DHSS will report back to the Insurance and Financial Services Committee.

DHHS figured the best way to do all this reporting and analysis is by setting up a LEAN process. LEAN is a manufacturing term used when companies look into their operations to see what can be removed from their processes to make manufacturing “leaner,” thereby taking less time, energy and money to manufacture something. That leads to more money available for employees, for research, for investment, whatever the company wants to do with it. Continue reading »

Advocacy Work Pays off with Maine Grant to Cover Uninsured Direct Care Workers

Posted by on September 8th, 2009 at 9:23 am | 2 Comments »
Hear what Roy and Mila Kofman, Superintendent of the Maine Bureau of Insurance, have to say about extending health care coverage to more direct care workers in Maine
 
Just before the Labor Day holiday, Maine’s direct care workers got some excellent news: Our state is receiving a federal grant that will provide health insurance for thousands of uninsured people, including many direct care workers.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has awarded Maine $8.5 million this year to expand coverage to up to 3,500 low-income people without insurance. “These are much needed funds that enable the Dirigo Health Agency to serve more uninsured part-time, seasonal and direct-care workers,” said Governor John E. Baldacci in a press release about the grant. The state can renew the grant for the next four years, for a total of $42.5 million.

The funding will allow the Dirigo Health Agency to grant vouchers to part time, seasonal and direct care workers in firms with more than 50 employees who have access to employer-sponsored coverage but can’t afford the premiums and copays. The program will be established as of next January.

This victory comes after almost five years of work by hundreds of advocates working together to get the state government’s attention and garner support from the legislature and governor’s office. While the road has been long, it does go to prove: Persistence pays, and keeping a clear and specific focus on advocacy is crucial. Continue reading »

DCA Video Diary: Helen Hanson, Eunice, and Jeanne

Posted by on July 22nd, 2009 at 5:23 pm | 3 Comments »

In this new video from the Direct Care Alliance’s Video Diary series of videos by direct care workers, home care worker Helen Hanson talks about her work. She also interviews her daughter Jeanne about the sacrifices her family has to make because of her low wages and tapes Eunice Spooner, the woman she works with, as Eunice talks about what her home care workers mean to her. It all adds up to a 360-degree view of the challenges and rewards of direct care work.

Testifying for Consumer Choice: A Direct Care Worker’s Perspective

Posted by on July 9th, 2009 at 11:56 am | 3 Comments »
Ted Rippy testifying on behalf of LD 1078

Ted Rippy testifying on behalf of LD 1078

My name is Ted Rippy. I am a direct care worker, a consumer advocate, and a union organizer for Local 771 MSEA-SEIU, a union for direct care workers here in Maine.

It is my pleasure to work with Helen Hanson. I met Helen through Local 771 – she’s the president and I’m the secretary. One of my favorite stories about Helen is what happened when I first met her. I asked her to keep me busy and the next thing I knew, I was on a jet plane to Chicago!

I’ve been working with Helen and other direct care workers on some of the bills before the Maine senate, legislature, and Department of Health and Human Services. I was at the meeting with Hannah Pingree about LD1059, the health care for health care workers bill. I also helped advocate for LD1364, the bill to increase hourly wages to $12 for home care workers. But what I’d like to share with you today is my testimony on behalf of a bill I advocated for along with Helen, other union members, members of AARP, and health care consumers.

Continue reading »

Maine Direct Care Worker Advocates Make Progress on Improving DCW Wages, Health Coverage

Posted by on June 25th, 2009 at 11:28 am | 1 Comment »
Helen Hanson

Helen Hanson

Here in Maine, we’ve been working on two bills that offer big possibilities for direct care workers, one by expanding health care coverage and the other by improving wages. A third bill, which would revamp the way long-term care is delivered, could also raise wages for home care workers.

Improving health care coverage

The health insurance bill, LD 1059, would set up a pilot program here based on what Montana did for its direct care workers. (pdf) The Maine Direct Care Worker Coalition (DCWC), which I’m a member of, developed the bill’s title and purpose and found a sponsor to introduce it in the legislature, but we never did come up with specific language.

What Montana did was secure an enhanced Medicaid reimbursement for agencies that provide health insurance for their workers. (Imagine that!) The money goes directly to the workers in the form of health insurance. It does not stay at the top as perks for the administrators, nor does it come down as health care fairs (or fluff, as I like to call them) where workers learn how to take better care of themselves. I think we all know how to do that.

Montana’s plan was implemented this past January. Last I knew, 900 workers had gotten health care coverage as a result — a small step in the right direction.

Continue reading »

DCA Publishes Fact Sheets for Direct Care Worker Advocates and their Allies

Posted by on June 25th, 2009 at 10:56 am | No Comments »

A full set of DCA Direct Care Fact Sheets, one for each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia, is now available in the Resources section of our website.

The one-page sheets were created as a resource for direct care worker advocates and their allies, legislators, policymakers, members of the media, and others interested in direct care issues. They include key facts such as:

  •   The number of home health aides, nursing assistants, and personal and home care aides in the state in 2006 and the projected numbers of each in 2016
  •   The average hourly wage for the state’s direct care workers
  •   What percentage of direct care workers in that state or region are without health insurance

Elise Nakhnikian
Communications Director
Direct Care Alliance

My Trip to DC with the DCA: A Home Care Worker’s Report

Posted by on May 4th, 2009 at 6:06 pm | 3 Comments »
L to R: DCA board member Dennis Fitzgibbons, Helen Hanson, Congresswoman Chellie Pingree, Julie Moulton

L to R: DCA board member Dennis Fitzgibbons, Helen Hanson, Congresswoman Chellie Pingree, Julie Moulton

I just got back from a trip to DC with the Direct Care Alliance. It was a great start to achieving the FLSA rule change and to achieving health care reform that keeps direct care workers in the conversation. I think we started something that will just get bigger and keep raising awareness.

What is unique is that the Direct Care Alliance is having us workers talk to members of Congress. They need to hear from us – not the policy experts or service providers, but the hands on, day-to-day workers. I never would have thought a couple of years ago that I’d be on Capitol Hill, talking with my congressional delegation about my job and the tough work issues I and my fellow workers face every day. The DCA has made that possible for me.

I got the opportunity to personally thank Congresswoman Linda Sanchez and Congressman Mike Michaud for sponsoring our “Dear Colleague” letter to Secretary of Labor Solis. I am so honored that I got the chance to do that.

But the highlight of the visit for me was getting to talk with Congresswoman Chellie Pingree herself. Congresswoman Pingree was very supportive of the workforce and agreed direct care workers need to be included in health care reform. She also wanted to know more about the FLSA. She sounded as if she’ll probably sign the letter. We encouraged her to talk to her congressional colleagues about the FLSA, and we’ll do some follow-up with her.

Continue reading »

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