Nearly a third of Michigan’s Home Help providers are uninsured, according to When Michigan Caregivers Lack Coverage (pdf), a survey of the Home Help workforce, which provides home care services to Medicaid recipients.
The survey was conducted by HCHCW Michigan and funded by the Michigan Quality Home Care Coalition. Among its findings are the following:
- The uninsurance rate among Home Help providers is almost three times as high as that of the state’s general population.
- A third of the providers who have insurance are covered by Medicaid and/or Medicare. Another third get it through a second job or a spouse.
- Home help providers pay significant out-of-pocket health care expenses despite low household incomes. More than half (56 percent) report household incomes of less than $30,000 a year.
- Half of those without health insurance say they have chosen not to seen a doctor when they needed one.
