Message from the Executive Director

IT’S TIME TO FIX IHSS FOR GOOD

Doug Moore, UDW Executive Director

“The current IHSS system is not sustainable.” State Senator Mark Leno, Chair, Senate Budget Committee, Feb. 23, 2012

Year after year, we have had to battle to save IHSS. Year after year, we have had a target on our backs.

Hours and services for IHSS consumers have been cut again and again. We had a 3.6 percent cut in 2010. In 2011, it was a 20 percent across-the-board “trigger” cut that we have temporarily stopped by filing a lawsuit against the state. And now we are trying to fight a proposed new cut in domestic and related services that will impact more than a quarter million IHSS recipients.

The current IHSS program is fragmented and uneven. The kind of care an IHSS recipient currently gets too often depends on where he or she lives. In some counties, IHSS consumers get good support and have a strong voice. But in many counties they do not.

In some counties, IHSS consumers and providers are treated with dignity and respect. But in others, they are targeted as fraud criminals and denied a living wage. In some counties, Public Authorities are effective. But in others they are simply mouthpieces for their Boards of Supervisors.

Furthermore, the number of Californians who need home care will double in the next ten years. And it is clear that the current IHSS program isn’t ready to meet the needs of the future.

We can’t go on like this. We cannot maintain a fragmented system that is constantly a budget target. The status quo is no longer an option.

But we can create a new program:

A program that coordinates home care and health care to keep consumers healthy and saves money.
A program that maintains the kind of strong consumer choice that has made IHSS a national model of
consumer-directed care. This will include the explicit right of any consumer to opt-out of the program.
A program that emphasizes and encourages provider training to meet consumers’ special needs.
A program that guarantees a stronger voice for consumers in Sacramento and across the state and more effective collective bargaining for providers.
A program that ensures that any savings to the state are returned to IHSS rather than to the general fund.

That’s why UDW is proud to announce a new statewide campaign: “Let’s Get Healthy At Home,” which will protect and improve IHSS for us and for future generations of Californians. You can add your voice to the thousands of home care providers, consumers, elected leaders, and community allies who are coming together in this campaign for better care at home. You can find out more at our campaign web site: www.letsgethealthyathome-udw.org

Brothers and sisters, Bob Dylan was right when he said: “The times they are a-changing.”

Our choice is simple: Do we lead or do we follow? Do we create the changes that are coming in IHSS or do we let others do it for us. I say we lead. And I say we start NOW.