A protester of California's cuts to home care. (photo by Steve Rhodes)

California’s ongoing budget disaster edged nearer to some sort of resolution last week as state lawmakers approved a proposal to close the $25.3 billion gap through a package of 29 pieces of legislation.  The bills included spending cuts, revenue solutions, borrowing, and fund shifts. The state’s In-Home Supportive Services program (IHSS), long recognized as one of the most generous home care programs in the nation, lost $226 million in funding.

The IHSS budget cut is expected to remove 40,000 elderly people and individuals with disabilities — nearly 10 percent of all recipients – completely from the program, to cause 85,000 more recipients to lose domestic services (e.g., laundry, meal preparation, transportation to medical appointments), and to raise the monthly cost for care by as much as $200 for many others. Continue Reading

PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
July 27, 2009

Contact: Karen Kahn
Director of Communications
KKahn@phinational.org
978-740-9844

PHI Establishes New National Policy/Advocacy Office in Washington DC

Receives $300,000 in joint funding from The SCAN Foundation and The Atlantic Philanthropies

Bronx, NY — PHI, a nonprofit working to strengthen eldercare and disability services in the United States, announces that it has opened a national policy/advocacy office in Washington, DC. The opening of the DC-based office caps a year in which the Bronx-based PHI has significantly increased its efforts to shape federal policy in support of a stable, well-trained direct-care workforce capable of supporting the growing demand for eldercare and disability services. Continue Reading

A scene from the hearing.

Carol Rodat, PHI New York Policy Director, testified (pdf) in favor of the Together We Care Act of 2009 and the Earnings and Living Opportunities Act at a Congressional field hearing held in New York last week by the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity. Continue Reading

The Scan Foundation has released a policy brief titled Long-Term Care in Health Reform: Policy Options to Improve Both (pdf) that presents four distinct policy options for including long-term care support and services in health care reform.

The report comes on the heels of a SCAN foundation poll released in early July showing that nearly 80 percent of Americans would be more likely to support a health care reform package that includes improved coverage for long-term care services. Continue Reading

The U.S. Department of Labor has launched a $220 million competitive grant program aimed at training new workers for health care and other high-growth industries.

Funded with dollars from the Recovery Act and administered by DOL’s Employment and Training Administration (ETA), the program will provide grants for both public and private nonprofit entities in order to train individuals for careers in nursing, allied health, long-term care, and health information technology, as well as other high-growth industries based on regional needs.  Continue Reading

Congressman Dave Loebsack

An amendment to America’s Affordable Health Choices Act added in the House Education and Labor Committee would require:

• the development of recommendations for promoting and investing in the direct-care workforce
• the development of recommendations for assisting states with direct-care workforce plans
• the creation of a Personal Care Attendant Workforce Advisory Panel

In addition to other responsibilities, the advisory panel would be charged with developing core competencies for personal and home care aides as well as necessary training curricula and resources. Panel recommendations would then serve as the basis for a demonstration project in up to four states to test the effectiveness of the proposed training standards and curricula.

The amendment was introduced by Congressman Dave Loebsack (D-IA) and Congressman Jason Altmire (D-PA), at the encouragement of PHI and the Iowa CareGivers Association.

“Direct-care workers are at the frontline of health care,” said Congressman Loebsack. “They are the heroes who care for our elderly and disabled, and we must do everything we can to ensure that they have the training and resources they need so that we can continue to provide Iowans, and all Americans, with the quality health care they deserve.”

While some states have training requirements for personal and home care aides, there are no federal training standards for this segment of the workforce despite the fact that this occupation is among the second fastest-growing in the country.

The 2008 Institute of Medicine report, Retooling for an Aging America: Building the Health Care Workforce, garnered much public attention and included strong recommendations for creating training standards for personal and home care aides.