Health Care for Health Care Workers

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New York state has been “a national leader” in expanding health care coverage for home care aides and other workers, yet 30 percent of its home care workers lack insurance according to a fact sheet from PHI’s Health Care for Health Care Workers campaign.

Caregivers Without Coverage focuses on home care workers because they are the largest and fastest-growing segment of the state’s direct-care worker population. It explains the conditions contributing to the high rate of uninsurance among direct-care workers, including low wages that make it difficult to afford premiums and copays.

Among the facts it presents:

• One in seven low-income workers in New York City is employed as a home care worker;
• Starting wages for home health aides are just $7.50 - $8 an hour in New York City, though its cost of living is one of the highest in the nation; and
• The statewide median hourly wage for home care workers is $9.74 an hour, compared to $16.91 for all workers.

“The issues surrounding this workforce are complex,” says Carol Rodat, New York Policy Director for PHI and a coauthor of the fact sheet. “They’re a high-risk group with high occupational injury rates. At the same time, this is a workforce that has erratic hours. They lose a client; they lose wages – and they often lose eligibility for coverage. And the rising costs of coverage are increasingly competing with the rising cost of living – including gas, which is a particularly sensitive issue upstate.”

Rodat and colleagues are in the midst of conducting what she calls “an in-depth study and analysis of the health care status of the state’s home care workforce, so we can expand coverage and ensure family-supportive wages.”