“Michiganders would no doubt be shocked to learn that many of the 1 million residents of our state without access to health care are themselves health care workers,” says an excellent editorial in the May 9 Traverse City Record-Eagle. “Many nursing home workers, for example, are offered extremely expensive health care plans that will cover the worker but not their families.”

In “Health care workers don’t have benefits,” Marge Faville (pictured), a registered nurse and the secretary-treasurer for SEIU Healthcare Michigan, outlines the stories of three uninsured or underinsured workers, including Linda Braddock, a CNA in a nursing home, and home care worker Ernie Hobbs.

Hobbs, who cares for his disabled stepson, is “getting older but not quite eligible for Medicare, doesn’t have health insurance,” Faville writes. “He worries in particular about his son, who depends on Ernie for even the most basic tasks. ‘It scares me to think what would happen if I wasn’t around,’ Ernie says. ‘I’m getting old and I get scared every time I get a cough or something starts to hurt.’”

Elise Nakhnikian, Senior Online Editor
enakhnikian@phinational.org