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Battleground Bulletin: ❤ Workers?

From the transit workers who get us where we need to go to the firefighters, teachers and caregivers whose work is so much more than a job—Labor Day season is when we say “thanks.”

There are two ways you can say “thanks” to workers this weekend:

Tell us who you heart. I ❤ Wisconsin workers. Who do you ❤? It takes about 15 seconds to let us know who you heart and share it with the world.
Find an event near you. Events are taking place this weekend and beyond. See what’s happening in your area, or add your own event. Read the rest of this entry »

Will Ending Adult Day Health Care Services Save State Money?

by David Gorn, California Healthline Sacramento Bureau

The California Department of Health Care Services recently sent a letter to most Medi-Cal beneficiaries participating in the adult day health care program, informing them that their coverage for ADHC will end Dec. 1. Medi-Cal is California’s Medicaid program.

In Sacramento, legislators are holding hearings on how to help 36,000 elderly and disabled residents continue to receive ADHC-type services in other programs. A lawsuit pending in federal court challenges whether the state can adequately supply replacement services for this population. ADHC providers have accused the department of bad planning for rushing elimination of the services.

All of this turmoil is predicated on one basic outcome: saving money for the state. Read the rest of this entry »

Merced County: New Timesheets are Coming for IHSS Independent Providers

The IHSS program will be using a new timesheet for providers to claim the hours worked beginning December 1, 2011. It is important that these new timesheets be completed correctly, as all incorrect timesheets will be returned and this will cause lengthy delays to your paycheck.

DO NOT USE THE DROP BOX
(located at Wardrobe Ave).

Timesheets will not be processed at the Merced IHSS office. All timesheets need to be mailed with correct postage. All IHSS timesheet received at the county will be returned to the provider (see below). Read the rest of this entry »

Hundreds of San Diegans Participate in UDW Health and Resource Fair

From blood pressure and cholesterol checks to face-painting and dance classes; there was something for everyone at UDW San Diego’s second annual Health and Resource Fair, Saturday, August 20, at the Salvation Army Kroc Center.

More than 600 San Diegans participated in the afternoon event, where they met with representatives from more than 50 local organizations and businesses to get important information about their health and fitness and to learn about everything from acupuncture to Zumba dancing. Children received backpacks and balloon animals and dozens of door prizes were distributed throughout the day.

Special guests included U.S. Representative Susan Davis, State Assemblyman Marty Block, San Diego City Council member Marti Emerald, and UDW State President Laura Reyes and Executive Director Doug Moore.

In this photo: (l-r) UDW Activist -Alexis Bada Maurer, UDW President Laura Reyes, SD Chapter Chair Editha Adams, U.S. Representative Susan Davis and SD Chapter Vice Chair Mohamed Osman

New Medical Certification Requirement for IHSS

Please Share this Important Information With Your IHSS Clients

Starting August 1, 2011, all current IHSS recipients–and new applicants for the program–must have a licensed health care professional provide medical certification that the recipient has a medical need for IHSS.

Under the law, your client should receive a new medical certification form (SOC 873) during or shortly after his or her annual assessment. (This is in addition to the form usually requested by the social worker during the assessment.)

The SOC 873 form must be filled out by a licensed health care professional and returned to the county within 45 days of the date of your assessment. Unless this form is completed and returned, your client will lose authorization for IHSS services. Read the rest of this entry »

Wisconsin’s Warning to Union-Busters

New York Times, Opinion. August 10, 2011

Five months after Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin pushed through a law stripping public unions of their bargaining rights, the Republican Party has paid a price. Two of the state senators who backed the law were thrown out of office by voters on Tuesday and replaced with Democrats. Mr. Walker’s opponents did not succeed in turning over the Senate, but it was still an impressive response to the governor’s arrogant overreach.

Recall elections are extremely difficult to win; only two had succeeded in the state in the last 80 years. The districts lean Republican, and getting people to turn out in an unusual off-year election is always a struggle. Had Democrats won one more district, they would control the Senate, but they were also trying to send a warning to Republican lawmakers around the country who are trying to break public employee unions. In that, they succeeded. Read Article

“We Are Wisconsin” Helps Make Working Families’ Voices Heard in State Senate

This week, the Battleground Bulletin comes to you from Antigo, WI, site of the successful SD 12 recall defense on Tuesday. AFSCME reports on the results from the latest special state legislative elections, the upcoming march to commemorate the opening of the MLK Memorial in DC, and highlights the ways in which corporate greed threatens to ruin the American economy and destroy good jobs

We Are Wisconsin
Antigo staging location (SD 12)

Final WI Recall Election Results — Democratic State Senators Jim Holperin (SD 12) and Robert Wirch (SD 22) successfully defended their seats from recall attempts by a Tea Party leader and Chicago-based corporate lawyer. Wirch was expected to easily defeat Republican attorney Jonathan Steitz, who works out of his firm’s Chicago office. Holperin, however, had a tougher fight in the rural 12th senate district — the most conservative district in Wisconsin represented by a Democratic state senator. Holperin pulled through with a combination of on-the-ground canvassing from We Are Wisconsin, AFSCME, and other progressive groups, as well as major missteps made by his opponent, Northwoods Tea Party leader Kim Simac. Among Simac’s many mistakes were past blog posts comparing American public schools to Nazi training camps and printing the two childrens’ books she authored in China. Read the rest of this entry »

Olmstead Advisory Committee Meeting August 18th

CDCAN Report 160-2011 – AUGUST 17, 2011

* 2nd Meeting This Year Convened by CA Health & Human Services Secretary Dooley

* Focus on Key Health & Human Services Budget Issues Including Trigger Cuts Impacting IHSS – Medication Machine Pilot Program and Community First Choice Option

* Update on Adult Day Health Care Elimination

SENATE BUDGET SUBCOMMITTEE TO HOLD ADULT DAY HEALTH HEARING

* Oversight Hearing On Brown Administration’s Transition Plan Aug 25th 1:30 PM

SACRAMENTO, CALIF (CDCAN) [Last updated 08/17/2011 03:30 PM] - The Olmstead Advisory Committee, composed of state health and human services department heads and appointed advocates and convened by California Health and Human Services Agency Secretary Diana Dooley, will hold its second meeting under the Brown Administration on August 18th (Thursday) from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM, at the Department of Rehabilitation building, Room 242, 721 Capitol Mall (corner of Capitol Mall and 8th Streets), Sacramento, CA. Persons can also participate in the meeting by calling in using a toll free number: 1-888-232-0362 Passcode: 785453 (persons not on the Olmstead Advisory Committee can make public comments either at the meeting site or on the phone at stated times on the agenda – usually after each agenda item, and as the chair announces). [CDCAN Note: Marty Omoto has been a member of this committee since it was established in 2005 - there will be a full separate CDCAN Report on the meeting on Friday] Read the rest of this entry »

Stop Coddling the Super-Rich

By WARREN E. BUFFETT
New York Times, Published: August 14, 2011

OUR leaders have asked for “shared sacrifice.” But when they did the asking, they spared me. I checked with my mega-rich friends to learn what pain they were expecting. They, too, were left untouched.

While the poor and middle class fight for us in Afghanistan, and while most Americans struggle to make ends meet, we mega-rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks. Some of us are investment managers who earn billions from our daily labors but are allowed to classify our income as “carried interest,” thereby getting a bargain 15 percent tax rate. Others own stock index futures for 10 minutes and have 60 percent of their gain taxed at 15 percent, as if they’d been long-term investors. Read Article

Orange County Health Fair & Resource Fair

What: UDW–Orange County County Health Fair

When: Saturday, September 24, 2011

Time: 11:00 a.m.- 2:00 p.m.

Where: At St. Callistus Catholic Church,
12921 Lewis Street, Garden Grove, CA 92840
(corner of Lewis St & Garden Grove Blvd)

This will give you another opportunity to raise awareness of your organization among our 16,000 members, their clients, and the Orange County community.Free Event – Open to the Public
Call UDW for more information:1(877) 483-9937

Unions 101; how unions represent the middle-class and working poor

Reprinted with permission, from UDW’s parent union, AFSCME’s national publication “Public Employee”

One On One With Barbara Ehrenreich

By Jon Melegrito

Photo by Sigrid Estrada

“It’s been the historical role of unions to fight not only for their own members, but also for the entire working class.”

Poverty and the working poor are familiar subjects in Barbara Ehrenreich’s writings. In 1998, she undertook an “experiment” to find out how the roughly four million women about to be thrown into the labor market by welfare reform were going to survive on $6 or $7 an hour. The only way to know, she said, is to “get out there and get my hands dirty.” So for three months, she waited on tables, changed bed sheets and scrubbed floors. The resulting book, Nickel and Dimed, which hit The New York Times best seller list, related her experiences working as a waitress, hotel maid, cleaning woman, nursing home aide and a Wal-Mart sales clerk. Read the rest of this entry »

Advocates Fear More Cuts to In-Home Support Services.

KPBS, Health
By Pauline Bartolone, California Capitol Network, August 10, 2011

California health advocates are concerned about the possibility of another round of state budget cuts to services for the most vulnerable.

State revenues came in half a billion dollars below projections last month. If the trend continues, that could trigger new cuts that include a 20 percent reduction to in-home support hours for the low-income elderly and disabled.

Deborah Doctor of Disability Rights California said those cuts would affect some 430,000 people. Read Story or hear Audio

Adult Day Healthcare; State Lambasted Over Transition Plan, Lack of Communication

California Healthline, Capitol Desk
August 10, 2011

Jill Yungling was trying to hold in her exasperation yesterday, but it just kept spilling over.

“It is appalling to me how they can sit up there and say all of these things, and it’s all so full of holes,” Yungling said, “and we’re just supposed to sit down here and believe them.”

Yungling came from Carmichael to attend yesterday’s adult day health care stakeholder meeting in Sacramento. The California Department of Health Care Services convened the session to discuss the elimination of ADHC as a Medi-Cal benefit, a move that is likely to shutter most of the 300 ADHC centers across the state.

Yungling runs one of those ADHC centers. Her question was the same as almost everyone’s at the meeting: What will happen to the roughly 35,000 senior and disabled Californians who count on ADHC services to keep them out of nursing homes and emergency rooms? Read Full Article

Advocate Alert: Website established for Home and Community Based Medication Dispensing Machine Pilot (MDM Pilot) Project

This project relates to state budget and IHSS funding. See State Budget Facts

California Department of Healthcare Services announced the establishment of a MDM Pilot Project web page containing useful information such as project status for interested stakeholders such as advocates, consumers, counties, legislative staff, vendors, providers, and state associations.

The MDM Pilot Project web site is: http://www.dhcs.ca.gov/services/Pages/MDMPilotProject.aspx

Background

On March 24, 2011, the California legislature adopted Senate Bill 72 (SB 72), which authorized the establishment of a Home and Community Based Medication Dispensing Machine Pilot (MDM Pilot) Project. The intent of this project is to assist individuals who are living in the community to remain within their home environment and avoid unnecessary emergency room, hospital, and nursing facility admissions due to those individuals not taking medications as prescribed (non-adherence). This assistance will be in the form of automated medication dispensing machines that can improve medication adherence. The beneficiary population most affected by this initiative is high risk seniors who are dually eligible for both Medicare and Medi-Cal, as well as persons with disabilities and other select Medi-Cal recipients.

Dems, Officials Voice Support for Suits Challenging Medicaid Cuts

California Healthline, August 9, 2011
Topic – Medi-Cal

On Monday, Democratic congressional leaders and former federal health officials filed amicus briefs with the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that Medicaid beneficiaries should be able to file lawsuits against states that make cuts to the program, the New York Times reports (Pear, New York Times, 8/8).

Background

In 2008 and 2009, the California Legislature passed laws that cut reimbursements to Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program.

Health care providers and Medi-Cal beneficiaries challenged the cuts in court, arguing that the payment cuts violated federal law that says Medicaid rates must be “sufficient to enlist enough providers” so beneficiaries can access care to the same extent as the general population in a particular area (California Healthline, 8/8).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said that beneficiaries could sue under the U.S. Constitution’s supremacy clause, which lets federal law take precedence over state law (New York Times, 8/8).

California appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court (California Healthline, 8/8).

Details of the Briefs — Read Article, California Healthline

San Diego County Health Fair & Resource Fair

Tell Friends: Download/print Flyer

What: UDW–San Diego County Health Fair

When: Saturday,
August 20, 2011
from 12:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.

Where: At the Salvation Army Kroc Center
6753 University Ave., San Diego, CA 92115

Free Blood Pressure & Cholesterol Screening, Zumba Instructions, Massages, Child Activities and much more!

Free Event – Open to the Public

Call UDW for more information:1-800-621-5016
Download Flyer

Advocates Allege Two-Faced Approach To Community Living

By Michelle Diament
Disability Scoop. August 9, 2011

A group of self-advocates is calling out federal health officials for publicly supporting community-based services for people with disabilities while quietly advising states on options to curtail such programs.

The brouhaha comes after federal officials outlined ways in which states could modify their home and community-based services offerings without violating so-called maintenance of effort requirements in a letter to state Medicaid directors late last week.

Among the possibilities, states could alter benefits, rates or set new criteria for individuals to receive specific services under a Medicaid home and community-based waiver, wrote Cindy Mann, who oversees Medicaid at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Read the rest of this entry »

Wisconsin Members Make History

Together, we made history in Wisconsin — winning two recall elections yesterday. Only two lawmakers have been unseated by recall in the state’s entire history. And having picked up two seats, Scott Walker’s anti-freedom bill would not have passed with the new state Senate makeup.

True, we did not retake the Senate. This was an uphill battle from the start, in very conservative districts – but we won two seats because we had no choice other than to stand up against Walker’s extreme anti-worker agenda. Read the rest of this entry »

State’s Revenues Down by $539 Million In July Reports State Controller

CDCAN Report #158, August 9, 2011

Chiang Hopes For Better News In Months Ahead But Expresses Concern That Any Drop In Projected Revenues Puts State Closer To Pulling State Budget “Trigger Cuts” That Could Go Into Effect January 2012 Impacting IHSS, Developmental Services, 3 Medi-Cal Programs, Education and Other Budget Areas

Read the rest of this entry »

Kern County Members Approve New Provider Contract

Tuesday, July 9 2011

Kern members counting ballots.

The new Kern contract was ratified today by a very high margin; 99.3% of voting members voted “yes”. This contract will maintain providers’ wages at the current level through June 30, 2012.

Negotiations have been very tough in this economic climate. Thanks go out to UDW Negotiator Yvonne Olivares-Maldonado, Kern Regional Organizer Yesenia DeCasaus, the member-providers on the Bargaining Committee as well as all the Kern homecare providers that supported these negotiations and approved the contract.

California Controller’s July report threatens “trigger” on IHSS

Trigger cuts to IHSS can only be stopped if more state revenues are raised. The following press release from the State Controllers Office signals the beginning of a hard fight for all UDW staff and members:

Controller Releases July Cash Update

PR11:31 8/9/2011

Contact: Jacob Roper, 916-445-2636

SACRAMENTO – State Controller John Chiang today released his monthly report covering California’s cash balance, receipts and disbursements in July, showing revenues were down $538.8 million (-10.3 percent) below projections from the recently passed state budget.

“While July’s revenues performed remarkably similar to last year’s, they still did not meet the budget’s projections,” said Chiang. “While we hope for better news in the months ahead, every drop in revenues puts us closer to the drastic trigger cuts that could be imposed next year.”

Income taxes were above projections by $89 million (2.9 percent) in July. But sales taxes were down $139.4 million (-12.5 percent), and corporate taxes were down $69.5 million (-19.3 percent) in the same month.

The State faced an $11.1 billion cash deficit on July 31. That deficit was covered by internal borrowing, or short-term loans from special funds, along with external borrowing.

For more details, read July 2011′s financial statement and summary analysis.

###

UDW Video explains how this State Budget impacts IHSS

Summary of the California 2011-12 Enacted Budget: Impact on Older Adults and People with Disabilities

Comprhensive Report Published bythe Scan Foundation reveals detail of negative impact on health & human services programs serving older adults and people with disabilities.

The SCAN report covers mulitple services not only IHSS.

Fact Sheet No. 21:
On June 30, 2011, California Governor Jerry Brown signed the 2011-2012 budget. The enacted budget includes significant cuts and prepares the framework for additional cuts in the following 2012-13 budget year that negatively impact health and human services programs serving older adults and people with disabilities.

To read The SCAN Foundation’s Fact Sheet No. 21, “Summary of the 2011-12 Enacted Budget: Impact on Older Adults and People with Disabilities,” Clic k here (PDF dosument)

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By WARREN E. BUFFETT New York Times, Published: August 14, 2011

This will give you another opportunity to raise awareness of your organization among our 16,000 members, their clients, and the Orange County community.Free Event – Open to the Public Call UDW for more information:1(877) 483-9937

Related Content on KPBS

Tell Friends: Download/print Flyer

What: UDW–San Diego County Health Fair

When: Saturday, August 20, 2011 from 12:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.

Free Event – Open to the Public

Call UDW for more information:1-800-621-5016 Download Flyer

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By WARREN E. BUFFETT
New York Times, Published: August 14, 2011

This will give you another opportunity to raise awareness of your organization among our 16,000 members, their clients, and the Orange County community.Free Event – Open to the Public
Call UDW for more information:1(877) 483-9937

When: Saturday,
August 20, 2011
from 12:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.

Call UDW for more information:1-800-621-5016
Download Flyer