1 week Ago By Post Editorial Board
Gov. Hochul has rightly blasted a $9 billion home health-care program, calling it a “racket” that’s socked taxpayers — but now 1199 SEIU, the political-powerhouse health-workers union, is looking to turn her reform drive into an even bigger cash drain. Hochul has called the state’s Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program, which uses state funds to compensate family members who care for loved ones at home, “one of the most abused programs” in New York history.
Yet The Post’s Vaughn Golden reports that 1199 is looking to unionize the family workers who deliver the care — which is basically guaranteed to hit taxpayers even harder. Easier CDPAP eligibility rules set in 2015 goosed enrollees from 20,000 to 250,000, with Medicaid spending on the program tripling over the past five years as it became wide-open to abuse . In 2020, the FBI busted a Brooklyn outfit that manipulated the hours of care workers to pocket millions in state and federal Medicaid funds.
Yet Hochul’s office now won’t say whether her reforms — consolidating the 700 payroll agents between Medicaid and caregivers into a single middleman — will actually lower costs. Right: 1199 is strong-arming the companies bidding to serve as that middleman to “advocate” for higher caregiver wages and benefits. And to help unionize these workers.
It wants the bidders to sign a memorandum of understanding, shared with The Post, saying they and 1199 SEIU “will jointly advocate for funding sufficient to increase [caregiver] wages and benefits” and the contract “will remain neutral with respect to the question of whether” the caregivers sign up with the union. And bidders are all too likely to fold: “The political world does not mess” with 1199 SEIU,” snarks Empire Center health-industry expert Bill Hammond. “Any bidder with the slightest understanding of what they were getting into when entering into this contract would know what that meant when [1199 SEIU] put that piece of paper in front of them.
” Unionizing 200,000 caregivers would be a huge win for 1199, which already boasts 450,000 members. Yet it would defeat the purpose of the program — which, again, is to help family members , not unionized employees, to care for loved ones. And if funding is boosted so “workers” get higher pay and benefits, taxpayers won’t save a dime; quite the reverse.
The gov might well blink from bucking the union, and the Legislature is all too likely to play along. But if Hochul truly wants to end the “racket” she’s deplored and rein in runaway costs, she’ll stomp on this naked power grab immediately..
