The television ads are so encouraging. You are disabled, you qualify for Medicaid, you need to hire caregivers and you can hire family or friends.  Your caregivers will be paid with state funds - but up until recently, the hourly pay was $13 an hour.

 That’s $13 an hour for full time care for a disabled person who may need help getting to the bathroom, bathing, grooming, feeding, emptying a catheter or a colostomy bag, distributing medication and caring for a person who may be completely helpless.

I personally require assistance each day with essential tasks of living. Due to these low wages, I lost all support at home and now reside in a nursing home at 42 years old. I fear more disabled neighbors may have their freedom removed if these raises don’t reach the agencies who pay our community caregivers. 

We fought for a pay raise, and after lobbying and calling our state lawmakers we were able to raise the hourly pay by $2 as of Oct. 1, still not enough to even come close to what our caregivers deserve.
 

Now with October 1 just a few days away, we find out that our state-allocated funding will be distributed to private insurance companies who will be able to keep over 80 percent of the state funding for home care raises instead of the monies going to home care workers and the agencies that employ these workers.

 We must send a strong message to Governor Kathy Hochul to give the money we won for raises to workers and providers, not insurance companies.

 The New York Caring Majority is a national membership organization made up of home care workers, personal care attendants, seniors, people with disabilities and family caregivers who are fighting for a real care infrastructure in New York State.