De-Mystifying “Medicaid Redesign”

Home care agencies claim there is not enough money to hire more workers to cover the 24-hour shifts and not enough money to pay the overtime wages. They point fingers at Medicaid, while at the state level, Gov. Cuomo takes pride in slashing Medicaid funds and funneling them to insurance companies.

• Home attendant work is paid for by Medicaid funds. Medicaid fun ding responsibility is broken down into Federal: 50%, NY State: 35%, each county: 15%
• Before 2011, Medicaid funds used to be administered by the NYC Human Resources Administration (HRA) for Medicaid patients in NYC.
• In 2011, Governor Cuomo rede signed Medicaid to allow funds to be managed by insurance compa nies through a Managed Long Term Care network, cutting out HRA. The insurance com panies only approve pa tients for home care hours after rigorous evaluation to determine if the patient requires constant care.
• To win 1199SEIU’s for cutting $1 billion from Medicaid in his 2011 Medicaid Rede-
sign, Cuomo agreed to bail out the union’s insurance fund to the tune of $50Million.
• Insurance companies are increasingly being sued for cutting the hours of homecare for clients. The less care they provide, the more profit they make.