Medicaid cuts threaten California’s in-home caregivers

This article was produced by Capital Main It is published here with permission For Maria Paredez the slashing of Medicaid funding is no political football or specific abstract argument emanating from Republicans in Congress about the size of governing body It hits her where she lives a small house in a small town in Tulare County where she struggles to get from one month to the next Paredez is not a victim though she s an employee She has for the past three years cared for her grandmother who s now through a plan special to California called In Home Supportive Services The IHSS pays people to take care of Medi-Cal eligible Californians who are elderly blind or disabled allowing those folks to hire their family members of whom are relatives They can thus remain in their homes or with family rather than being funneled into costly care centers or nursing facilities for which the state would have to pay The work is complex and the compensation is minimal Paredez who stated she is in her s makes an hour a wage set by Tulare County representatives Despite she noted being with her grandmother day and night after the elderly woman suffered a stroke and began requiring constant care Paredez is paid for only hours per month a little less than before taxes She took a part-time second job to make ends meet Our family wants to care for Grandma and I was the best person to do it Paredez announced But it s been hard to make it all work It s not easy It could get harder If the GOP follows through on its resolution to cut Medicaid spending by billion over the next decade California s budget for Medi-Cal the state s version of Medicaid could take a heavy hit For In Home Supportive Services which uses federal dollars to fund more than of its effort the conclusion might be a reduction in services and in hours for people like Paredez And should Paredez who has the auto-immune infection lupus become ill herself it would be a double whammy I also use Medi-Cal for my own wellness requirements she commented If they cut Medi-Cal services I don t know what I ll do Home healthcare workers use Medi-Cal too Paredez is not alone According to research by the UC Berkeley Labor Center more than half of all state home medical care workers rely on Medi-Cal for their own medical coverage That is perhaps not surprising considering what they earn Using the MIT Living Wage Calculator as a guide the Labor Center uncovered that none of California s counties pay home fitness care workers enough to afford basic living expenses The hourly wage ranges from the state minimum of in Siskiyou County to in San Francisco County and it s negotiated on a county-by-county basis A bill by Assemblymember Matt Haney D-San Francisco at present making its way through the California Legislature would enable IHSS workers to bargain on a statewide basis and seek uniform wages and strength care benefits based upon the state itself becoming the employer of record The bill is co-sponsored by two unions that represent IHSS workers United Domestic Workers and the Operation Employees International Union Disclosure UDW and SEIU are both financial supporters of Capital Main The Berkeley Labor Center estimates that depending on the timing and mechanisms for slashing the venture California could lose between billion and billion per year in federal Medi-Cal funds Laurel Lucia the center s Strength Care Project director mentioned the next several weeks should bring chosen clarity about how Republicans plan to carry out the massive cuts Lucia declared the center estimates job losses of between and in the state If federal Medicaid spending is cut Lucia announced it would affect vitality care providers and vitality care jobs Less funding means less system fewer providers getting paid and or those providers rates for institution being slashed The loss is multiplied for businesses that backing Medi-Cal which serves roughly million Californians about a third of the state s population An overall shrinking of Medi-Cal for example would hit food and laundry services and other contractors that work with hospitals and care facilities Wellbeing care workers Lucia declared also could find themselves with less to spend at local restaurants and retail stores California can t absorb the cuts There s still plenty unknown about what Congress will do It is also not clear how Gov Gavin Newsom and his staff will try to account for prospective Medicaid cuts in their revision of the proposed - state budget Lucia declared the state can t just absorb the range of federal cuts that the Labor Center is predicting Even the lower end of its billion to billion projection is nearly what the state budgets over a full year for the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation billion The numbers are huge Their effect though is local In Yreka in Siskiyou County -year-old Alice Demers is caring for her partner who has a rare skin condition that requires constant care and who she stated has been in declining robustness for years Demers is paid an hour under IHSS but the project has authorized only hours a month for her partner s care She drives about minutes to care for another client a couple of days a week but Demers reported she and her partner were still forced to move into Section low-income housing several months ago In past times of budget stress the state has cut hours for IHSS workers across the board Such cuts now would mean less income for Demers but she has another concern A Medi-Cal individual herself she s been putting off needed surgery to repair a nerve issue that causes shattering pain in her face She relies on the campaign for the medications that help with the pain so that she can put in her hours as a caregiver All of my partner s strength care comes from Medi-Cal and mine and in a way our income does too she explained We could really get screwed over here Capital Main is an award-winning nonprofit publication that reports from California on the most of pressing economic environmental and social issues of our time including economic inequality surroundings change physical condition care threats to democracy hate and extremism and immigration Copyright Capital Main