Rachelle Lewis, 66, spends about 60 hours a week caring at home for her 40-year-old daughter, who suffers from schizophrenia and a learning disability. For this Lewis receives $11.18 an hour via California’s Medicaid program, Medi-Cal. From that she pays a dollar a month for a union-sponsored healthcare plan.
Now she’s worried that this benefit, along with others she receives via the union, might disappear. That’s because Medicaid authorities have launched a new attack on unions serving home healthcare workers like herself, aimed transparently at depriving their unions of financial resources.
“If this goes through, that means I’ll have to find insurance elsewhere, and I can’t afford any other type of health insurance,” she told me. “Why is it that they’re only penalizing home healthcare workers?”
That’s a good question, and the answer appears to be: Because they think they can. (read more)