LD 1687, An Act to Increase Health Care Coverage for Front-line Workers in Long-term Care, was still alive when the Maine legislature wrapped up its 2007 session. The bill, which would create a pilot program to increase health care access for direct care workers, has been carried over to the session that convenes in January 2008. Meanwhile, a legislative committee of House and Senate members will study Maine’s Dirigo Health insurance program over the summer in hopes of arriving at an agreement and a means to provide additional funding to continue the program’s growth.
The Maine Direct Care Worker Coalition worked hard to promote both bills and to ensure that they meet the needs of direct-care workers. The coalition is regrouping this summer to consider various study mandates regarding this workforce from the session and to develop strategies for moving its proposals forward in January.
The coalition’s campaign began in 2006, with the passage of a study bill to look at direct-care worker wages, health care options, and an expanded worker registry. Its March 2007 report (pdf) was favorably received by the legislature’s Health and Human Services Committee, which called it “just the kind of information we need.”
The reception to LD 1687 was positive as well, but legislators decided against adding new costs to the already strained MaineCare budget to fund it. However, there may be opportunities for new spending in the supplemental budget passed next year.
Coalition members also had productive meetings with the legislature’s Insurance and Financial Services Committee, resulting in a proposal for a pilot project within Dirigo to address the needs of low-wage part-time workers, with direct-care workers specifically named as a target group. However, the legislature adjourned without taking action on Dirigo Health because consensus could not be reached on certain contentious issues and no action was taken to commit the funding needed to continue to grow the program. In addition, the spiraling costs of health insurance in the individual market, where almost half of Dirigo members are covered, limits the coalition’s ability to press for coverage of new direct-care workers who need the discounts provided to low-income beneficiaries.
The legislature also passed several other bills to strengthen the state’s direct-care workforce this year. Actions included:
- Raising reimbursement rates to increase wages for homemakers;
- Mandating a planning process for the first phase of expanding the CNA registry; and
- Making direct care workers who are hired by for-profit, third party employers eligible for minimum wage and overtime.
–By Lisa Pohlmann, associate director of the Maine Center for Economic Policy and facilitator of the Maine Direct Care Worker Coalition.
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