A new Vermont fact sheet (pdf) from the Health Care for Health Care Workers Campaign shows that one in four direct-care workers in Vermont lacks health insurance. Even more startling, is the fact that 50% of the workers who are uninsured work full-time.
While Vermont has been a national leader in creating health insurance options that are affordable and comprehensive, the HCHCW campaign has found that reaching direct-care workers to inform them about those options is difficult since no centralized list of workers exists. In the last few months, HCHCW has partnered with AARP-Vermont, the Vermont Association of Professional Care Providers, and the Vermont Campaign for Health Security to implement a worker and employer outreach campaign to spread the work about the various health care options that are available.
“From what we know about direct-care worker wages, most of the uninsured workers in Vermont are eligible for one of the state-funded health care programs at little or no cost per month, “said Alex Olins, New England Policy Director for PHI. “The challenge is reaching them. I hope that by combining our efforts we’ll be able to reach significant numbers of workers and tell them about these great programs.”
HCHCW Vermont hopes to work with policy makers to develop solutions for both outreach and tracking of health care enrollment by occupation, an additional problem, in the coming year.
Allison Lee
National Campaign Manager
HCHCW
alee@phinational.org
Everytime I look at this newsletter and the briefs, I am impressed by the breadth and depth of relevant information. Our formal work in Vermont with Better Jobs Better Care (BJBC) has come to a conclution. And our formal work with PHI on the Vermont LEADS project has mostly concluded. Nonetheless, the Community of Vermont Elders’s (COVE) interests in the healthcare workforce cannot stop. A healthy, qualified, well compensated healthcare workforce is essential to our mission - promoting and protecting the dignity, security and well being of older Vermonters. This resource information is so timely with current Vermont activities: Governor’s Proclamation of Healthcare Awareness;statewide campaign to encourage people to enter the healthcare workforce; efforts to strengthen home & community based services; advances in person centered care;discussions with the Legislature on the Direct Care Workforce Study and its recommendation; presentations to the Healthcare Access Oversight Committee & Joint Fiscal Committee; efforts to make sure that direct care workers have real access to health insurance programs and more importantly- healthcare. In sum, thank you PHI colleagues for putting time and resources into research, policy and communications. The field needs these kind of resources to build a case, aspire to something more just and hold ourselves accountable for that higher vision. Thank you.
Dolly Fleming
Community of Vermont Elders