LD 1078 Rally and Hearing

Powering Independent Living

We need your help TO ALL PARTICIPANTS IN ALPHA ONE’S CONSUMER DIRECTED PROGRAMS Over the past few years, the State of Maine’s commitment to providing the best possible home based care choices for Maine citizens with a disability as well as seniors has been slipping. The percentage of the long term care budget spent on institutional services -- nursing homes and assisted living -- has been increasing, while the resources for home based care has been cut. In many cases, services and hours have been reduced. Waiting lists have become longer. People have been forced to make choices for institutional care when they would have preferred home based services. WE NEED YOUR HELP TO REVERSE THIS TREND! On Monday, April 6, 2009 there will be an important rally followed by the public hearing on LD 1078, An Act to Strengthen Sustainable Long-term Supportive Services for Maine Citizens. The rally will be at 12:00 Noon in the Welcome Center on the Ground Floor of the State Capitol Building. The Public Hearing on LD 1078 will begin at 1:00 pm before the Legislature’s Health and Human Services Committee in Room 209 of the Cross Office, next door to the Capitol. As the leading advocate for people with disabilities in Maine, Alpha One is joining with AARP, Maine’s leading advocate for senior citizens, and with Local 771, Maine's Direct Care Worker Union, to support this important legislation that will strengthen access to home based care for Maine citizens. Here are some of the features of LD 1078:

• Rebalances state long term care expenditures to be 50/50 between home and institutional settings
• Adds surrogacy to self-directed alternatives for consumers
• Reduces duplicative administrative elements and costs to make the system easy to access and less expensive to manage - more money can go to services
• Simplifies the intake and assessment process, as well as the care management elements of the program
• Increases choices for consumers and makes those choices easier to understand and access
• Standardizes wage rates and administrative rates to make program more equitable and affordable

JOIN US ON MONDAY - LEND YOUR VOICE AND SUPPORT FOR THESE CHANGES.

Let us know if you are interested in testifying so we can coordinate our message to lawmakers, 207-767-2189.

MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD!

SEE YOU ON MONDAY, APRIL 6TH, at noon in the State Capitol in Augusta

Worker-Led Push for Health Care Coverage Makes “Amazing” Progress in Maine

Helen Hanson, third from right; Joyce Gagnon, fourth from right “I’ve only been doing this for a year, but a lot of people who have been doing it for a long time are telling me that this has never happened before,” says home care worker Helen Hanson. “They’re saying: “Wow! This is the closest we’ve ever gotten!” Hanson is talking about a meeting she arranged on Tuesday to talk about LD1059, a bill that would establish a pilot project to provide affordable health care coverage to some of Maine’s direct care workers. The meeting In the room on Tuesday were Hanson and some of her fellow direct care worker advocates along with the most powerful group ever to gather in one state to talk about how to improve health care coverage for direct care workers. They included:

• Senator Nancy Sullivan, the bill’s sponsor;
• Speaker of the House Hannah Pingree;
• Senate President Libby Mitchell;
• Trish Riley, the director of the Governor’s Office of Health Policy and Finance and the governor’s main advisor on health care issues;
• Brenda Harvey, Commissioner of the Department of Health and Human Services;
• Mila Kofman, Superintendent of the Maine Bureau of Insurance; and
• Several Representatives who sit on the Insurance and Financial Services Committee, which is developing the bill.

“We didn’t get any hard and fast ‘We’re going to do this and we’re going to make it work’ - but none of us went in expecting that,” says Hanson. “But we did get the key leadership people in the House and Senate, and a lot of other important people, to start talking about how they could make this happen.” Joyce Gagnon, a former direct care worker and the program coordinator for Maine PASA, the state’s direct care worker association, set the tone at Tuesday’s meeting by talking about the ordeal she went through several years ago when, still doing direct care work and unable to afford health insurance, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Hanson pointed out that poor wages and a shortage of affordable health insurance makes it hard to find and keep the new direct care workers we need. The head of Home Care for Maine reinforced that point, telling the group that her turnover rates average about 45% a year. And Allison Lee from PHI’s Health Care for Health Care Workers campaign described a recently instituted Montana pilot program to cover several hundred direct care workers, which could be a model for Maine. How it happened “This was a true worker-led effort: Joyce Gagnon and Helen Hanson made it happen,” says Roy Gedat, the Direct Care Alliance’s national policy director. “Joyce has been working on this for years through Maine PASA, and it could never have happened without a leader like Helen, who has the dedication and wherewithal to push all this through. They organized a coalition, they got all the movers and shakers together, and they did it in an environment where almost everyone else just has their tail between their legs. This is a very high level of advocacy – it’s amazing.” It took a lot of groundwork to get there. “It’s been a long process,” says Kurt Wise, acting facilitator for the Maine Direct Care Worker Coalition (DCWC), which spearheaded the effort. “We’ve spent five or six years getting studies done and educating people in many committees. It is a great example of an incremental process of educating and building support.” Hanson joined the effort relatively late, becoming involved last year. When the bill died in committee last summer, Hanson sent a letter to Senator Sullivan, the committee’s chair, in hopes being appointed to the work group Sullivan had ordered to study the issue. Hanson was told not to expect a response for at least a couple of weeks, “but the next evening I’d just gotten home, I was washing my potatoes for supper, and the phone rang. It was Mila Kofman, the superintendant of insurance for the state of Maine. I was like ‘Whoa, those wheels turned wicked fast!’” With assistance from Gedat and others, Hanson filed the latest bill, found its sponsor, and worked with Speaker of the House Pingree to figure out how to move it forward. And she set up the meeting this week that got the people who could make it happen together to talk about what it might look like and how it might get done. Why it matters “Thanks to the dogged efforts of Helen Hanson, Joyce Gagnon, and Roy Gedat, it appears that the DCWC now may have the best opportunity yet to secure tangible help for DCWs at the State House,” wrote Wise in an email after Tuesday’s meeting. “This is far more visibility and attention from the actual experts and decision-makers on this issue than we ever have had before. That is very, very good.” Related material: A PHI case study of the Montana plan (pdf) Elise Nakhnikian Communications Director Direct Care Alliance Responses to this post on the DCA Blog Julie Moulton, Fellow VOICES 2008 Graduate Way to go Maineiacs, did you think a year ago you would be having all those stakeholders in one room talking? Rhonda Edwards, Administrator of Tender Touch, Inc., a Home-Based Care Provider I have been an administrator for this Pss Agency now for over 4 years, and that is a very big concern is Health coverage. I can’t even afford health coverage for my family. The deductables are too high, and the monthly payments are unaffordable. We have had many workers leave our company to go where there is coverage for their families. We wouldn’t have lost them if we had an opportunity to offer affordable coverage for them and the business. It is a shame that Gov Baldacci words of no child will have to go with out coverage for health insurance. On a personal note, just last year alone we (husband and I) spent over $10,000 just for our daughter’s medical bills, not even counting ours. I know that the hospitals have offered some help with dicounts, but if there were other companies allowed into the state of Maine maybe the health insurance would be affordable. Or for people applying for MaineCare who are over the income cutoff, why not allow them to pay the difference with the MaineCare guidelines as a monthly payment? I applied last year for MaineCare and I was $200 a month over the guidelines. Why couldn’t I have paid the state that $200 a month towards the Mainecare? Just an idea for someone to hear about different options that are out there to help people recieve health care. Something has to be done.

Two Bills to be heard Monday, April 6

Two bills 771 is involved in; LD 1059, A Resolve to Enhance Health Care for Direct Care Workers, and LD 1078, An Act To Strengthen Sustainable Long-term Supportive Services for Maine Citizens, are to be heard on Monday, April 6, at the State House. LD 1059 will be heard in the Insurance and Financial Services Committee room, Room 427, in the State House, at 9:30 am. LD 1078 will be heard in the Department of Health and Human Services Committee room, Room 209, in the Cross Office Building, at 1 pm. 771 needs its members to turn out for these two bills, showing solidarity and support for fellow direct care workers. I strongly urge members to attend. I understand there may be work conflicts, but if you're not working Monday morning or afternoon, please join us at the State House. You do not need to speak, just be in the room to show support for our consumers and fellow workers. LD 1059 is moving right along. We had a meeting on Tuesday, March 31st, with DHHS Commissioner Brenda Harvey, Insurance Superintendent Mila Kofman, Trish Riley from the Governor's office, House Speaker Hannah Pingree and Senate President Libby Mitchell. Many legislative supporters were also present. Many of the people from the Direct Care Worker Coalition who have been working on gaining health insurance for direct care workers have told me that this is the furthest we've come. We were talking with policy makers who can make the changes happen that we need to gain health insurance. Many have told me that this sort of meeting has not happened before. We've also gained support from the House Speaker and Senate President. We got positive feedback from Commissioner Harvey, Superintendent Kofman and Trish Riley. Commissioner Harvey said she was going to look further into a plan that the State of Montana has implemented, insuring over 900 of its direct care workers starting January 2009. We got the wheels rolling with this meeting. We need to keep them rolling. We cannot afford to let this drop. That is why I'm asking my colleagues in 771 to turn out for these hearings on Monday. This is so important. LD 1059 will need revision as it moves forward. The current wording will be changed as we hear back from Commissioner Harvey. If you can attend and need more information, please send me an email: helen.hnsn@gmail.com. I am looking forward to hearing from you.

Direct Care Worker Insurance Finally in the Forefront of DHHS and Governor's Office

Thanks to the dogged efforts of Helen Hanson, Joyce Gagnon, and Roy Gedat, it appears that the Direct Care Worker Coalition now may have the best opportunity yet to secure tangible help for DCWs at the State House. On Monday morning (April 6th) the Insurance and Financial Services Committee will hear our bill, LD 1059. We are hoping that many of our members will join us at the IFS Committee room to show their support for DCWs and, if they are willing, to speak to the committee about the need for affordable, quality health coverage for these workers. If you, or people you know, are able to join us at the public hearing to show support for LD 1059, that would be very helpful. Background Update: To bring people up to date, through the continued pressure of the aforementioned individuals, the Speaker of the House and Senate President organized and attended a meeting of the relevant agency heads and Governor’s staff to discuss how to use the vehicle of LD 1059 to deliver coverage to DCWs. For those who are familiar with the Direct Care Worker Coalition history and the workings of the Sate House, they will recognize this as a milestone in the DCWCs years-long struggle. This is far more visibility and attention from the actual experts and decision-makers on this issue than we ever have had before. That is very very good. It was a productive meeting to the extent that substantive ideas and options were discussed and agency heads left having made a commitment to work through the details and return to legislative leadership with concrete proposals and cost estimates. Exactly what those proposals will look like remains unclear. It seemed less likely, exiting that meeting, that LD 1059 would remain in its current form. The Montana option remains a possibility, but others were suggested as well. A strong interest, in any case, was expressed by legislators (including leadership and Sen. Sullivan and Rep. Campbell) that this matter be taken seriously and that these agencies coordinate with each other to deliver functional options. In the meantime, leadership requested that we – the DCWC – attend the Monday hearings on LD 1059 and use it as an opportunity to educate the committee members (many of whom are new to us) about the importance of DCWs and the critical role they play in Maine’s health care system and state economy. The DCWC will be supporting LD 1059 at the hearings and express (politely but firmly) the need to quit talking about health coverage for DCWs and to actually get something done in this legislative session. I hope many of you can join us on Monday morning. email from Kurt Wise, the Direct Care Worker Coalition Facilitator

Frances Perkins: The Woman behind the New Deal

When Frances Perkins stepped into her office as labor secretary, the first-ever woman in a presidential Cabinet, her welcoming committee consisted of this: A huge cockroach. It’s a fair guess few had a rougher welcome to a high Washington position than Perkins did in 1933. In a splendid new biography of Perkins, The Woman behind the New Deal: The Life of Frances Perkins, FDR’s Secretary of Labor and His Moral Conscience, Kirsten Downey writes: Some male Labor Department staffers threatened to resign rather than report to a woman But as The Woman behind the New Deal vividly recounts, Perkins already had faced much hostility throughout her career. She had braved a vicious mob of Ku Klux Klansmen at a Missouri campaign rally for the Catholic presidential candidate Al Smith. As a New York state’s industrial commissioner, she had spoken with angry strikers and persuaded them to give up their stockpiles of dynamite. (They “delivered loads of explosives in suitcases, bags, even a baby carriage,” Downey reports—and some creative maneuvers by Perkins soon fractured the employers’ unity and brought about a strike settlement.) She was not someone to be underestimated. The Woman behind the New Deal describes how, in the 12 years of Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency, this extraordinary woman not only overhauled a horribly dysfunctional and gangster-ridden Labor Department bureaucracy from top to bottom-this was the least of her achievements-but helped transform the lives of literally hundreds of millions of Americans, a legacy that continues today. There’s a fair amount of disagreement among historians about who in the New Deal was responsible for which successes. Downey makes a persuasive case that Frances Perkins, more than any other single individual, was the driving influence behind the creation and design of both the Social Security Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act. This really means that every senior citizen who gets a regular Social Security check, as well as every worker who depends on the minimum wage, or counts on overtime pay, or files for unemployment comp, owes a huge debt of honor to Perkins. As if that weren’t enough, she also dramatically cut back child labor, increased workplace safety and expanded the U.S. Conciliation Service. For anyone interested in the ways of politics, one of the more dramatic stories in The Woman behind the New Deal-and it has plenty of them-is the creation of Social Security. It was a project of breathtaking ambition. Perkins had begun her career as an idealistic social worker, but she also had sharp political instincts about what Americans would support and what they wouldn’t. So when Social Security was being designed, she rejected systems other countries used in which government funding was the main support of senior citizens. Instead, as Downey points out: She looked to the insurance model, in which people pay in when they are employed, so that they can get money back when they are not. That deceptively simple insight made a world of difference. It may well have been the ticket to Social Security’s long-term survival. Roosevelt-who, according to his Agriculture Secretary Claude Wickard, “clearly loved and admired” Perkins-understood exactly what was going on. He said Social Security “had been constructed in a way that no future politician would be able to tinker with it because it would be funded by workers’ own contributions.” In devising Social Security, Franklin Roosevelt, a brilliant and ruthless politician, didn’t always give credit where credit was due. Kirstin Downey, a fine historian and a gifted writer, does. Yet Downey’s well-balanced account shows that not all of Perkins’s judgments were sound. When her good friend Sen. Robert Wagner of New York wanted to write legislation giving workers and their unions the legal right to collective bargaining with their employers, Perkins did her best to dissuade him. “People may be made to go into the same room, but they can’t necessarily be made to agree,” she told Wagner. Later, Perkins noted, “I did all that I could to slow the idea down.” Several major union leaders were at least as skeptical at she was. Fortunately, Wagner didn’t listen to them. He pushed forward with the National Labor Relations Act, still known as the Wagner Act and eventually won some support from most of the trade unionists and from Perkins herself (”she tepidly testified in support of the bill,” according to Downey). Wagner’s legislation turned out to be the strongest Bill of Rights that American workers have ever had in the workplace. But if Perkins was initially wrong on the National Labor Relations Act, she was magnificently right on just about everything else. It’s peculiar that “a woman whose intelligence, compassion, creative genius, and fierce loyalty made her an exceptional figure in modern American history,” as Downey accurately describes her, is nearly unknown today. Yet Perkins was little known even at the height of her considerable power. Eleven years into her career as Secretary of Labor, Collier’s magazine published an article that, in Downey’s phrase, “squarely identified the New Deal as a Frances Perkins creation”-and yet the title of the article was “The Woman Nobody Knows.” Perhaps The Woman behind the New Deal will help change that. One can hope that in addition to being a gripping read and a well-crafted biography, it will finally bring to Frances Perkins some of the attention and gratitude and admiration she never had in full measure and always deserved.

Big Money Scare Tactics

Are you scared yet? The Employee Free Choice Act is not that much different from current law. Current law allows for majority sign up or secret ballot. Current law lets management decide if workers can unionize. The Employee Free Choice Act keeps the majority sign up or secret ballot. What it changes is it lets workers decide if they want to form a union, without management/employer involvement. Taking away the secret ballot is a false statement that has gained tremendous spin from big corporations, like Wal Mart, McDonald's, Home Depot, and from the US Chamber of Commerce. Also business groups have poured money into the "no secret ballot" campaign. The way things are now, the law favors the employers. The Employee Free Choice Act is just that, it lets the workers decide, without harrassment, intimidation, threats, from employers if they want to form a union.

Local 771 Meeting; Saturday, March 21, 2009, MINUTES

Present Members: Helen Hanson, Ted Rippy, Pat Crowell MSEA Area I Director: Wade Colpitts Local 771 Field Rep: C.J. Betit Local 771 Organizers: Jay Economy and Aymie Walshe Review of Bargaining Survey 10% returned in first week Top two issues – Pay, Wage Increase, Health Insurance Third – Holiday/Sick Leave benefits Fourth – Increase Mileage Reimbursement Fifth – Better Training Sixth – Work Schedules/Breaks Fair Raise: 12 said 12.00 per hour; 4 said 2.00 per hour; 10 said 1.00 per hour; 2 said 1.00 per hour plus benefits; some said cost of living; some said more hours Health Insurance: 26 have health insurance, 11 of those through a spouse; 8 private pay; 7 receive MaineCare; 15 have no health insurance Membership discussion Some people think they’ve joined 771, but there is no record of their membership Organizers having access to Home Care for Maine orientations, not just area meetings Organizers need to present the issue to Home Care for Maine workers that they need to choose either to be a FairShare member or a Full member Set up a system for new hires/Alpha One lists have no hire date Bargaining survey returns expressed many issues of respect for the workforce. There was agreement that many do not understand the level of skill necessary for the work regardless of the certification someone may have. This profession should get the same respect as other workgroups because this workforce takes care of others. Consumers for Affordable Health Care Voted meeting Jan. 10th to join CAHC, $50 donation; discussion of 771 and Kids First joining CAHC together as MSEA’s Care Unit; Kids First not ready to join; Consensus still for 771 to join CAHC; check written for $50 membership and mailed National Direct Care Partnership An initiative of the Direct Care Alliance; should 771 join? This needs to go before MSEA E-Board to see if 771 needs board approval; Wade will present 771’s wishes to the board, at their next meeting, and find out what the process is Bargaining discussion C.J. Betit: April 30th need to file to demand bargaining for Home Care for Maine; the survey will help with proposals; team will meet and decide on proposals and what the objectives are; CJ will serve as chief spokesperson; HCM has paid time to bargain contract, YES Jay to continue to recruit for both Alpha One and Home Care for Maine bargaining teams Alpha One bargaining; bargaining pending legislation, may start in early summer Set dates for two bargaining forums: MAY 16th, Bangor, 10 am, blue DOT building on Hogan Rd; MAY 30th, Portland, 10 am, MSEA office on Congress Street Legislative Discussion LD 323 – Representative Sharon Treat’s Insurance Transparency Bill; continue working on this through the Kennebec Valley Organization and Consumers for Affordable Health Care; monitor and contribute LD 400 – This comes out of the Blue Ribbon Commission studying long-term care in Maine; Aymie to follow up with Senator Margaret Craven to find out why it is tabled and what will happen with it. LD 1059 – Senator Nancy Sullivan’s bill, directing the Department of Professional and Financial Regulation, Bureau of Insurance to set up a pilot project to insure a small amount of Maine’s Direct Care Workers to see if having health insurance helps with worker retention; not yet known how workers or which agency will be picked to participate; bill worth $500,000 out of General Fund for FY 2010-2011; project to last four years LD 1078 – Representative Matt Peterson’s bill; sustaining quality long-term care in Maine; there’s a companion bill on wages, not out of reviser’s office yet; 771 track closely and work with Alpha One to contribute calls, emails 771 work on member turnout and possible consumer turnout when bills are heard in committee; generate presence to move these bills forward Kennebec Valley Organization Three health care workshops planned in the Kennebec Valley; 4/18, 9-11, Pipefitters Hall, Augusta; 4/28, 6-8 pm, St. Francis Parish Hall, Waterville; 5/7, 6-8 pm Centenary United Methodist Church Hall, Skowhegan KVO focusing on Direct Care Worker insurance bill and transparency bill VOICES Institute Direct Care Alliance’s leadership training for 9/27 through 10/3/2009 in Wisconsin; intensive week long retreat to learn about advocacy, fundraising, organizational development, message development and more; DCA pays transportation and lodging; DCA requests a $300 deposit for workers to attend; Ted interested in attending; DCA cost may be issue; Wade suggested bringing request before board for scholarship for 2 771 members to attend; whoever goes will report back to board on experience; MSEA needs to know when DCA requires deposit Change that Works Rob gave a summary of SEIU Change that Works campaign on health care reform and the Employee Free Choice Act; health care reform – core principles, access, affordability, shared cost, shared responsibility and a wide network; EFCA – current system for union organizing is not working; workers face management threats and intimidation when forming unions, or if they get their union, they face dodging tactics from management when it comes to negotiating contracts; good chance to actually pass EFCA; SEIU organizing house meetings throughout Maine; 600 people have already sent letters, hosted house meetings or spoken with an organizer; blueberry pies are going to Congressional offices with stories on good jobs and healthcare Anthem rate hike hearings; coalition of partners (KVO one of them) worked to get turnout at hearings; 60 people at the Gardiner hearing alone; many people expressing frustration with current health care system; Superintendent of Insurance Mila Kofman offered to hold further state-wide hearings to get stories on how the current system is not working Senator Snowe agreed to meet with workers on 4/22 in DC after Congress recess Chambers of Commerce putting a lot of money into campaign against Employee Free Choice; for the first time EFCA supporters on the offence and have a real chance to change the system so that workers can form unions Next Local 771 meeting: JUNE 20th, 10 AM, MSEA Headquarters, Augusta; brunch of sweets and coffee will be available