LD 1059 and LD 1078 Hearings

These two bills had their public hearings this past Monday. LD 1059 was heard in the legislative committee of Insurance and Financial Services. LD 1078 was heard in the Health and Human Services Committee. After sitting through the hearings of two bills before 1059, our turn came about noon time. I was going to wish the committee a good morning, but ended up with a good afternoon instead. The hearing itself went great. Many speakers from the Direct Care Worker Coalition spoke in favor of the bill. There was no one speaking against it. Where it was so late in being heard, many workers had to leave. Their testimony was submitted to the clerk and Dan Koehler, KVO’s former lead organizer, spoke on their behalf, letting the committee know that they had to leave to get back to work. Superintendent of Insurance Mila Kofman spoke at the end, neither in favor, nor opposed. She wanted the committee to understand that the current way the bill is drafted will not work. The current language of the bill is directing Insurance and Financial Services to set up a pilot project with Medicaid money. First, Insurance and Financial Services does not handle Medicaid money. Second, this is an issue for DHHS. Ms. Kofman informed the Insurance and Financial Services Committee of this. The Committee had questions that Ms. Kofman could not answer. They were questions for DHHS. The DHHS spokesperson, Dianna Scully, from the Office of Elder Services, had left the committee room, by the time Ms. Kofman was speaking. So, no one from DHHS was available to answer questions that Ms. Kofman could not. That was extremely aggravating. Where that hearing ran over, I missed the rally for LD 1078. I did make it into the hearing in order to testify. That went great. Ted Rippy, 771’s secretary, also testified on behalf of this bill. He was fantastic! 771 is lucky to have such a great leader as Ted. He’s another true advocate for this workforce. I noticed DHHS Commissioner Brenda Harvey’s note taker in the crowd in the hearing room. After I testified, I went and told her that we need someone from DHHS in the work session on 1059 in Insurance and Financial Services. There were a lot of folks testifying in favor of LD1078. I hope the committee really heard what the testifiers were saying. The recurring theme was that people want to stay in their own homes as long as they can, whether disabled or elderly. That was the message, loud and clear. I just hope that the committee members heard what was being said. The next step in the process is the work session on both these bills. I think 1078’s was this afternoon. I’m not sure what happened as I was working and could not be there. Tomorrow, LD 1059’s work session is scheduled for 1 pm in IFS. But, we managed to gain a delay in the work session so that DHHS can help us with the proper language of the bill. The delay is good. It will give Commissioner Harvey and the other key players in this a chance to come up with a plan for health insurance for direct care workers. One plan being looked at is the Montana plan. It is basically a Medicaid enhancement that provides a higher rate of reimbursement to providers that take the extra enhancement and turn it directly into health care insurance for their workers. Imagine?! I’ve found more information on the Montana plan at the Health Care for Health Care Workers website. Click on the link and scroll down until you see State Analysis. Under that, you'll see Montana. Under that is the link for the PDF file to view. This plan went into effect this past January. It is insuring roughly 900 of Montana’s direct care workers. We should be able to do this here too.

State Library Launches Website Listing Resources Available to Those in Need

As an aid to Maine families struggling with difficult financial circumstances, the Maine State Library has launched a website providing a list of resources available for those in need. This site is intended to serve as a centralized website to guide the public to Maine State government and non-profit agencies that offer assistance. The site also includes a directory of Maine's local public libraries, which often have additional, more localized information available. Public libraries are supplying Mainers with resources on resumes and job hunting, small business start-up, personal finance, stretching grocery dollars, do-it-yourself home and auto repairs, and improving job skills or learning new ones. This site is available at http://www.maine.gov/msl/services/toughtimes.shtml. in an email from Rep. David Cotta

Free Fresh Local Produce for Low-Income Seniors

Senior age 60 or older with individual incomes below $20,036 and $26, 995 for couples, are eligible to receive $50 of free fresh locally-grown fruits and vegetables this coming season through the Maine Senior FarmShare Program. To find a participating farm, interested seniors are encouraged to contact their local Area Agency on Aging (AAA) on the toll-free line 1-877-353-3771. The list of participating farms is also available online at http://www.getrealmaine.com/connect/farmshare/senior.html. Participating farms throughout the state offer a variety of systems for providing produce to seniors. Farmers will explain their individual farm's offerings to interested seniors; and if they both agree the system will work for them, they sign a "share" agreement, which outlines the arrangements. The supply of the $50 "shares" is limited and will be distributed by farmers on a first-come-first-served basis. When a farmer's available shares are filled, interested seniors will be placed on that farmer's waiting list. The Senior FarmShare program, now in its ninth year, is funded primarily through a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food and Nutrition Service grant. The program serves seniors by providing access to highly nutritious fresh produce, which many seniors find difficult to afford on their limited incomes. It also provides an additional retail market for Maine vegetable and fruit growers who are paid in the spring for the produce they will provide later in the growing season. The Maine Department of Agriculture manages the Senior FarmShare program in collaboration with other agencies and organizations, including the Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Elder Services, University of Maine Cooperative Extension and the Maine Nutrition Network. For more information, contact: Deanne Herman, Maine Department of Agriculture, 207-287-7526, or Mary Walsh, Maine Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Elder Services, 207-287-9200. Please share this information with your consumers. This came in an email from Representative David Cotta.

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