Archive for ‘Wisconsin’

A Landmark Day for Home Care Workers

Posted by on December 20th, 2011 at 12:03 am | 5 Comments »

Last Thursday was a big day in the history of the fight for direct care worker rights, and I was lucky enough to be right there in Washington, DC, representing DCA and my fellow home care workers when President Obama made the announcement. (That’s me in the video, right behind the President’s left shoulder). The President was telling the press about a proposed rule that would finally give home care workers Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) protections.

I felt truly honored and humbled as I headed in to the Department of Labor on Thursday morning and met the other home care workers who were there for the announcement. We got to meet the staff who had made this proposed rule change a reality, who are all very passionate about correcting this injustice against home care workers. It was strange because they treated us like royalty. I told them that I wanted to thank them for all their hard work, but they kept saying we workers were the ones who deserved to be thanked for all that we do.  Continue reading »

Why We Stopped Offering Health Insurance to Our Home Care Workers

Posted by on October 18th, 2011 at 9:00 am | 2 Comments »

Tracy Dudzinski

Some things just don’t make sense.

As many of you know, I am an employee-owner of a supportive home care agency in Wisconsin that is a worker-owned cooperative. I chair the board of directors, which recently had to make a very difficult decision: We had to stop offering health insurance coverage to our employees.

I was on the insurance so I had to excuse myself from the board’s discussions, but from what I heard afterward, it was a difficult decision for the board to make. One of the reasons the cooperative was founded was to offer health insurance to its members. It was hard for the board members to let go of that goal, but we just couldn’t afford not to.

The cheapest plan we could find was too expensive—for us and for our employees.  Continue reading »

Wisconsin Honors Exceptional Direct Care Workers and Employers

Posted by on October 4th, 2011 at 8:23 am | 1 Comment »

Tracy Dudzinski

Every year here in Wisconsin we honor four direct care workers, one supervisor of direct care workers, and one administrator in long term care. I was honored to present the awards last week to my fellow direct care workers.

I got to visit with most of the winners before the presentation, which was at a luncheon at the Wisconsin Personal Services Association conference. Vivian Havens has been a direct care worker for 45 years, 25 of which have been for her current employer. She is 80 years old. I call that dedication. Continue reading »

Believe, Achieve, Succeed

Posted by on August 22nd, 2011 at 1:13 pm | 4 Comments »

Tracy Dudzinski

Being elected the chair of the board of directors for the Direct Care Alliance at our annual meeting this year was a great honor and an important step in a leadership journey I’ve been on for a few years. It’s also been an honor to work with my talented fellow board members, including several new Voices Institutes graduates who began serving their terms this year.

As many of you already know, I am the chair of the board of directors for a worker-owned home care cooperative I work for in Wisconsin. A few years ago, I became chair of the Wisconsin Direct Caregiver Alliance, and I am on the board of directors of the Wisconsin Long Term Care Workforce Alliance.

But being the chair of a powerful national organization like the DCA brings new opportunities and responsibilities. My fellow direct care worker board members and I are responsible for representing the voice of the workers. We make up the majority of the board members, and that is an excellent start, but it’s our responsibility to make sure that our voices are heard loud and clear–not just within the DCA but in wider discussions about the work we do. Over the next year, I plan to help the DCA become better recognized as the voice of direct care workers.
Continue reading »

Elders, Community Organizations & Disability Leaders in Wisconsin Fight Cap on Home Care Funding

Posted by on July 25th, 2011 at 1:29 pm | No Comments »

The following letter was sent to U.S. Secretary of HHS, Kathleen Sebelius by the Survival Coalition of Wisconsin Disability Organizations.

The Survival Coalition of Wisconsin Disability Organizations is writing to join various other organizations and elected officials in asking you to deny Wisconsin Department of Health Services Secretary Dennis Smith’s anticipated request to eliminate the entitlement feature of Wisconsin’s Family Care Waiver. As you know, the current agreement in effect between CMS and Wisconsin includes the following language:

“Every eligible person will have entitlement to Family Care within 36 months of implementation of the Family Care Waiver in his or her county. Every person with a nursing home level of care will have the choice of receiving the Family Care (or in some parts of the state Partnership) benefit by enrolling in a managed care organization or to choose Medicaid fee-for-service benefits including participation in IRIS, Wisconsin’s self-directed supports waiver, if desired.” Read full letter to Secretary Sebelius.

Woo-Hoo, Our Co-Op Toolkit is Finished! Or Is This Just the Beginning?

Posted by on March 21st, 2011 at 3:28 pm | 5 Comments »

Tracy Dudzinski

When I was approached to write a toolkit about starting a worker-owned home care cooperative, I wasn’t sure where to start.  But if you have read some of my previous blog posts, you know I say that you can’t grow as a person if you don’t step out of your comfort zone.

I have to say that it was an intimidating project, but the more I thought about it the more excited I got.  Working with the DCA’s communications advisor on this toolkit has allowed me to share one of the most empowering experiences of my life. I hope we will empower other people to experience the same thing.

I’ve been part of a worker-owned home care co-op in Wisconsin for eight years, on the board for seven, and the board chair for three. Being a worker-owner has many advantages – having a voice, being heard, and owning part of a business, which includes sharing in the profits at the end of the year. The skills I have learned and the experiences I’ve had there have broadened my horizons in all kinds of directions.

Co-ops are also a good way to create stable jobs and quality care for rural communities like mine. DCA Executive Director Leonila Vega says: “Co-ops are a good way to address the shortage of qualified home care providers in rural America, not to mention the long distances and lack of contact with coworkers that makes too many rural home care workers feel isolated and alone. We hope this toolkit will help bring providers together around this model to improve access to health care for rural residents.”

I would love to see at least one worker owned home care co-op in every state of the union.  If you think you might be interested in belonging to one, check out our toolkit. It lays out what’s involved in starting and operating a home care co-op and links you to the websites, experts, forms, and other resources you’ll need. And since I’m a direct care worker just like you, it’s written in down-to-earth language.

Continue reading »

Wisconsin’s Budget Repair Bill Threatens Health Care for Vulnerable Residents

Posted by on February 25th, 2011 at 1:34 pm | 3 Comments »

This is a guest post by Mike Bachhuber, Executive Director of the Independent Living Council of Wisconsin.

Update (3/23/2011):  The Senate version of the “Budget Repair Bill,” SB-11, failed due to Constitutionally required procedures.  The Senate did not have enough members present since the 14 Democratic Senators exercised a “walking veto.”

The lower house did pass a similar bill.  This bill was amended and passed by the Wisconsin Senate on March 9. It was passed by the Assembly the following day and signed by Gov. Walker on March 11.  The bill was passed largely on party line votes.

At least two law suits contend that the procedures followed were not legal.  A court has ruled in one suit to prevent the bill from being published and going into effect as of March 22.

The enacted version of the Bill still transfers authority to make changes to medical assistance from the Legislature to the Secretary of Health Services.  However, it now requires the Secretary to use regular administrative procedures to change the program.  These procedures require a public hearing, usually before the changes would go into effect.  They also allow the Legislature to block the rule.  In addition, the special authority and any rules changing the program will expire January 1, 2015.

Original Post: Senate Bill 11, Wisconsin’s “Budget Repair Bill” gives government officials power to change health care available to the state’s low-income residents without public opportunity for input.  The legislature has held this power since the beginning of the program.

State statutes provide most of the details for BadgerCare, the state’s federally-supported “medical assistance” program.  Until now, these statutes have defined details such as:

  • Which people needing care are eligible;
  • Types of care available to them;
  • How care providers are paid and
  • What people needing care must pay.

Continue reading »

Turmoil in Wisconsin: How Governor Walker’s Proposal Impacts Families and Consumers

Posted by on February 25th, 2011 at 1:23 pm | 5 Comments »

Tracy Dudzinski

You’ve probably heard about the turmoil going on here in Wisconsin, but most of the talk about our budget repair bill is being focused on collective bargaining rights. There are other things buried in the bill that scare the heck out of me, but hardly anyone is talking about them.

A provision in the repair bill would allow the Secretary of the Department of Health services to make changes to the Wisconsin Medicaid program without going to the full legislature. This is clearly a ploy to make it easier for the new governor to make cuts in the program without risking being voted down by legislators who think some or all of the proposed cuts are too drastic. The changes that could take place might be changes in eligibility guidelines, increased premiums and increased co-pays. Any one of those could be devastating to my family.

My husband and daughter are insulin-dependent diabetics. They are both on Badger Care (Wisconsin Medicaid), since I am the only member of my family who can work. I work 40-plus hours a week, but my direct care worker salary is not enough to pay the premiums for a family health insurance plan, let alone the co-pays and deductibles. If we lost our Badger Care, I am not sure what we would do. We would not be able to afford the insulin they need to inject so they can live. I suppose we would have to choose between getting their life-saving insulin and having a roof over our head, since there’s nothing else we can cut out of our already bare-bones budget.

There are a lot of us hard-working low-income people who cannot afford to buy health insurance – including probably the majority of the direct care workers I know. Some of them have more than one job and work part-time at each, or they work in home care and can’t rely on getting full-time caseloads most weeks, so they’re not offered the option to buy health insurance even if one of their employers has it. And for those of us fortunate enough to get steady full-time work, the insurance is so expensive we usually can’t afford it.

We’re already hanging on by a financial thread, so any change that made Badger Care less accessible would leave a lot of us stranded. If the state raises the income limit for participation to disqualify more of us, we’ll be left without insurance. If Badger Care premiums or co-pays are increased, we might not be able to pay for the gas we need to get to work. Some people would probably work fewer hours on purpose so they can qualify for coverage again, making them even poorer and making it harder for their clients to get the care they need. It is a vicious circle.

I am also worried for the people who are served by my home care company. What will happen to them? The people we care for, who are also Medicaid recipients, are already under-served. They are making it, but just barely. If the services they receive are cut or decreased, some might have to go without a bath, without grocery shopping, without transportation to doctor appointments. Will they die at home with no one to help? Continue reading »

Wisconsin Investing in People Living with Disabilities

Posted by on February 14th, 2011 at 10:49 am | No Comments »

Tracy Dudzinski

The Wisconsin Direct Caregiver Alliance is working together with the Survival Coalition to bring direct care workforce issues to light. WIDCA has a seat at the table with the Survival Coalition, and we were invited to a statewide disability summit. The summit was a daylong event where we talked about what we hoped could be accomplished if we had all constituents – workers, employers, people living with disabilities, their families and other allies – working together.

That day, the Survival Coalition created papers geared towards inspiring action and making recommendations to strengthen the workforce and provide opportunities for people living with disabilities to maintain their autonomy and remain active in their communities. From the introduction:

“People living with disabilities are much less likely to be part of the labor force and this group is disproportionately impacted by the recent recession. According to the Department of Health Services, only 6 percent of Family Care members who want to work are working in integrated settings in the community, even though studies in Wisconsin show supported employment services are more cost effective than facility-based services. Good jobs in the community are not only possible, they are good for Wisconsin.”

Continue reading »

Using My Voice Saved My Daughter’s Life

Posted by on December 13th, 2010 at 12:07 pm | 3 Comments »

Tracy Dudzinski

I recently posted a blog entry about a challenge my family was facing with my daughter and her insulin. As I stated in the blog, I was going to contact my elected officials to ask for help in keeping my daughter alive. I wrote those letters and was fortunate that my state senator’s office wrote back to me.

Senator Olsen’s office contacted me and put me in touch with someone from constituent services in the department of health services. I talked to this person and she forwarded my concern on to someone in the division of healthcare access and accountability. I played phone tag for several days with this person. On October 18, at 5:22 p.m., we finally touched base. I was asked what the division could do for me and I explained the situation one more time and asked her to help me figure out a way to keep my daughter alive. She stated that the Benchmark plan does not cover name brand prescriptions but there was a way to get the insulin covered. She went on to explain that the doctor writing the prescription needed to write on the prescription that my daughter had a physical in the last year. It was that simple; one sentence was all that was needed to get the insulin covered.

Needless to say, I was on cloud nine when I found out, I called everyone who knew about the crisis that my family was facing and told them the good news. As the high wore off I started to think about other families who may be facing the same situation and wondered how I could get the word out about this simple fix, which I think we should have been told about right away. I am writing this blog to encourage others facing similar situations to not take “no” for an answer. Before I attended the DCA’s Voices Institute, I would have taken no for an answer – but VI taught me to stand up for what I believe in and advocate for myself and my family. Continue reading »

« Older Entries