Bronxite Jose Hernandez has been quadriplegic since he had a spinal cord injury in 1995. He relies on four different caregivers throughout the week to help him with tasks such as cleaning his apartment, eating, bathing and going to the bathroom.
He hired them through the state’s Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program — a Medicaid program that some 200,000 New Yorkers rely on, and that has exploded in popularity in recent years. The program is meant to give patients flexibility in connecting with home health aides. Caregivers may be family or friends who receive training, rather than the licensed and certified professionals available through staffing agencies.
Gov. Kathy Hochul hopes to cut compensation for aides hired through the program, as part of a broader effort to shave upward of $1 billion off New York’s growing Medicaid budget. But some advocates say there are better ways to reduce home care spending without hitting workers’ wages.
Hernandez worries if Hochul succeeds with her proposal, it’ll be harder to hire the help he needs.
“Why would you come into my house, clean my house, clean my person and deal with my bowel and bladder care for less than what they’re paying you now?” Hernandez asked.
The bulk of home care in New York is paid for with public dollars through Medicaid. Under state law, home care workers receive a minimum base pay that’s slightly above the general minimum wage, as well as an hourly bonus that can be paid out in the form of cash, benefits or both. Hochul is seeking to cut the caregivers in Hernandez’s program out of that bonus. That means their minimum hourly rate would drop from $20.09 per hour this year to $19.10 next year.
At the same time, aides hired through traditional agencies would see their rates rise from at least $20.09 to $21.64, with the new minimum wage factored in.
Cuts to the program would save an estimated $200 million in fiscal year 2025 and twice as much the following year, according to Hochul’s…
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