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December 21, 2007
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In This Issue:
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Recent additions
Click here to see what's new in the Clearinghouse.
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Pennsylvania Legislative Update
The Pennsylvania Legislature adjourned for the remainder of the year without addressing the insurance reforms and Cover All Pennsylvanians (CAP) insurance expansion contained in Governor Ed Rendell's proposed Prescription for Pennsylvania.
The primary obstacle to passing the bill is the cost of the proposal. According to a December 16 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article, the state's Republican Party fears CAP could turn into "a permanent and expensive government entitlement program."
The rest of the story
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Michigan Advocates Learn How to Talk About Health Care Reform
Long-term care provider and consumer representatives, health care advocates and researchers, labor, and foundation staff from across the state of Michigan recently met to learn about the importance of health care among voters and what language is most effective when talking about health care reform.
Celinda Lake, president of Lake Research, presented findings from a Herndon Alliance survey on voters' values and perspectives on health care reform at a November 19 breakfast forum in Lansing. The forum was co-hosted by Health Care for Health Care Workers and AARP Michigan.
The rest of the story
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Brown University to Create Comprehensive LTC Database
Brown University has won a five-year, $10-million grant from the National Institute on Aging to create the first research database aimed at improving the nation's long-term care system and the lives of the people it serves. Vincent Mor, chairman of the Department of Community Health and a member of the university's Center for Gerontology and Health Care Research, heads a team that will take federal data on Medicare reimbursement claims, patient hospitalization rates and other data and combine it with new information gathered by the team. This will create what Mor calls "the single-most comprehensive data set on long-term care in the United States." When completed in 2012, the database will be the first to track nursing home performance and policy for all 50 states, according to a Brown news release.
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If you're reading this in a web browser, return to your e-mail to vote. Votes cast from the browser are not counted.
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In a recent study, how many CNAs were the targets of aggression from residents over a two-week period?
The correct answer (which 9 percent of you chose): 77.3%
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Dear Friend,
No, you're not seeing double: Quality Care/Quality Jobs is showing up twice as often as it used to. The news about direct-care workers, just a trickle when we launched QC/QJ in 2002, pours in pretty fast these days. That's great, of course, but you can get too much of a good thing, and our biweekly newsletter has been getting awfully bulky. To trim it back, we decided to go weekly.
Well, almost weekly. I'm taking next week off, to give us all a break over the holiday. I hope you have a healthy and happy one. See you next year.
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Home Care Aides Remain Nation's Fastest-Growing Workforce
Home-based workers will grow to be an even larger majority of the direct-care workforce over the next decade, according to the latest occupational projections from the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics. Combined, the BLS's two categories for home- and community-based workers - home health aides and personal and home care aides - outnumbered nursing aides, orderlies and attendants, the BLS category for direct-care workers in residential settings, for the first time last year. The home-based workers have been widening their lead ever since.
Home health aides are projected to be the fasted-growing job category in the United States between 2006 and 2016, increasing their numbers by 56 percent. Personal and home care aides are expected to be the tenth fastest-growing category, growing by 41 percent.
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Michigan County Passes Unfunded Living Wage Law
Mental health providers in Macomb County, Michigan have been given an unfunded mandate to pay employees a living wage.
According to the Macomb Daily News, the county's direct-care workers earn an average of about $8 an hour. The county's living wage policy, which was passed last year, requires companies that do business with Macomb County to pay workers at least $9.59 an hour if they are provided health insurance benefits and $12.09 an hour if they are not. Sounds good, but Michigan's Medicaid agency did not increase reimbursement to cover the extra costs to providers not already paying a living wage -- nor did the county offer any funds of its own.
Bob Stein, general counsel for the Michigan Assisted Living Association (MALA), told Quality Care/Quality Jobs that the 250 providers who contract with the county probably represent somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000 employees, of whom roughly 80 to 90 percent are direct support workers .Some employees already make the mandated living wage or more, but these are "probably for the most part individuals such as therapists, program managers, managers of residential homes, and a number of the longer-tenured direct support professionals. A majority of the direct-care workers definitely are not getting the living wage."
The rest of the story
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DVD captures DSP Dedication
A close-captioned DVD of the inspiring stories told in You know that it's got to be dedication that I am still here: The experiences of Direct Support Professionals during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and the aftermath is now available from the University of Minnesota's Research and Training Center on Community.
The 45-minute DVD and the report document the experiences of direct support workers and the consumers they helped before, during, and after the hurricanes.
Cost: $49 including shipping.
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Virginia Forms New Worker Association
A new direct-care worker association in Virginia is growing fast.
Launched at the beginning of this year, the Virginia Association of Personal Care Assistants (VAPCA) spent its first few months "talking to health care workers and consumers and family members and advocates about what kind of improvements they needed," explains VAPCA State Director David Broder. One thing he learned, he said, is that "People in Virginia want more resources going into home- and community-based services. Virginia, like the nation, is aging pretty significantly, and people want to be able to age in their homes."
The group began signing up members only about two months ago. Since then, it has brought on more than 500 dues-paying members.
The rest of the story
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Illinois Report Calls for Affordable Health Care, Living Wage for Personal Assistance Workers
A report on the state of personal assistance services in Illinois identifies affordable health care and living wages as needing immediate action.
The November 19 report says home care aides in Illinois average just $13,000 a year, and 48 percent have no health insurance. It calls on the state to avert a long-term care crisis by investing in the home care workforce, noting that half the home care workers surveyed who had left the field said they would have stayed if they were offered health insurance.
The Right Care at the Right Price was published by Service Employees International Union Local 880.
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February 23, 2008
National Association of Workforce Boards (NAWB) Annual Forum
January 27, 2008
The 3nd Annual Private Duty Home Care Leadership Summit
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