The COVID-19 pandemic has redefined what it means to be a hero. Ordinary people have risked their lives doing essential work — and not just in health care. People who care for children, the elderly and those with disabilities have supported the most vulnerable members of our communities when we needed them most.

It’s long past time that caregivers get the support — and the pay — they deserve. To that end, Congress’ recently passed budget reconciliation instructions provide an opportunity for a historic investment in the care-giving economy.

For those who care for the elderly, people with disabilities and more, President Joe Biden has proposed $400 billion for home and community-based services. These funds would strongly encourage states to expand Medicaid HCBS, putting resources and additional staff where it’s most needed.

These care workers, many of them AFSCME members, allow seniors and individuals with disabilities to enjoy greater dignity and independence. They help with everything from basic tasks like bathing and feeding to building social skills and job training. Their work makes it possible for these individuals to have a wider array of choices in how they live.

But too often, these dedicated caregivers are an afterthought, rarely getting the respect they deserve or a family-supporting wage.

Child care providers are also among the lowest-paid workers in the country. President Biden’s Build Back Better agenda would build the seamless child care system working families deserve. He has proposed $250 billion to make care affordable, and to raise standards and better support the workers who care for our kids.

Our union is proud to represent thousands of Illinois public service workers who enrich the lives of children, the elderly and people with disabilities. We strongly support President Biden’s plans to invest in these workers and reform the systems that have failed to recognize their worth. Congress must act with haste to pass the President’s plans in full.

West Virginia’s deputy secretary of Health and Human Resources stood before state lawmakers earlier this week and described the latest death at one of the state’s group homes for intellectually and developmentally disabled people.

“It was a situation where, basically, the individual [was] emaciated, and was not properly cared for, and died as a result of that lack of care,” Jeremiah Samples said.

He didn’t give any additional details about the person, or the health care provider responsible for their death at Tuesday night’s meeting of the Legislative Oversight Commission on Health and Human Resources Accountability. But the tragedy was not an anomaly.

“We’ve had some heinous deaths, and I don’t use those words lightly,” Samples said.

It’s been four months after an initial report on abuse and neglect at group homes was delivered to the same group of lawmakers. That report outlined grave conditions: a teenager who died in a car wreck after getting the keys to a facility vehicle, residents who weren’t provided with hundreds of necessary doses of medication, excessive uses of restraint, a resident who drank antifreeze but wasn’t taken to a hospital for hours even after complaining. There have also been reports of sexual and physical abuse in group homes.

But the dire conditions have continued, and the state continues to do business with behavioral health centers that have had severe violations.

Now, another person has died. While state officials have instituted small changes to address the problem — the Office of Health Facility Licensure and Certification is in the process of closing or transferring management of 10 problematic facilities and is working on new training materials with the Department of Health and Human Resources — the behavioral health facilities’ issues are numerous, and will require more drastic action to correct.

“Regulators have reported some improvements, but they continue to report situations with deplorable living conditions, even after all of the attention, which is very concerning,” Samples said.

There are nearly 2,000 people living in these group homes around West Virginia.

But despite the urgency of the situation, legislators aren’t likely to act soon. Tuesday’s meeting focused on recommendations from stakeholders,

The Oklahoma Department of Human Services said it plans to drop a five-year residency requirement for people seeking to sign up for intellectual or developmental disability waiver services after a letter from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services stated the requirement was unconstitutional.

Services stated the requirement was unconstitutional.House Bill 2899, was passed by the Oklahoma Legislature and signed by Gov. Kevin Stitt in May. The law sought to address the state’s waiting list for developmental and intellectual disabilities services, a list that has

Just before Frank Berry left his job as head of Georgia’s Medicaid agency this summer, he said the state “will be looking for the best bang for the buck” in its upcoming contract with private insurers to cover the state’s most vulnerable.

But whether the state — and Medicaid patients — are getting an optimal deal on Medicaid is up for debate.

Georgia pays three insurance companies — CareSource, Peach State Health Plan and Amerigroup — over $4 billion in total each year to run the federal-state health insurance program for low-income residents and people with disabilities. As a group, the state’s insurers averaged $189 million per year in combined profits in 2019 and 2020, according to insurer filings recorded by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. Yet Georgia lacks some of the financial guardrails used by other states.

“Relative to other states, Georgia’s Medicaid market is an attractive business proposition for managed-care companies,” said Andy Schneider, a professor at Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families.

Georgia is among more than 40 states that have turned to managed-care companies to control Medicaid costs. These contracts are typically among the biggest in these states, with billions of government dollars going to insurance companies. Insurers assume the financial risk and administrative burden of providing services to members in exchange for a set monthly fee paid for each member.

The health plans, though, have at times drawn questions both on spending and quality of care delivered to Medicaid members.

“The transition to managed care was supposed to save states money, but it’s not clear that it did,” said Katherine Hempstead, a senior policy adviser at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. (KHN receives funding support from the foundation.)

States can require Medicaid insurers to pay back money if they don’t hit a specified patient-spending threshold. That threshold is typically 85% of the amount paid to the insurance companies, with the rest going to administration and profit.

But Georgia does not require its Medicaid insurers to hit a specific target for spending on patient care, a federal inspector general report noted. Though Georgia is trying to “claw back” $500 million paid to its Medicaid insurers, it could have lost out on recoupment dollars, the report indicated.

And state documents show that the Peach State company, which now has the largest Medicaid enrollment of the three insurers, failed to reach the 85% mark from 2018 to 2020.

Queen of Hearts Therapeutic Riding Center aims to improve the lives of individuals with mental, physical and emotional disabilities through the power of the horse. Riding and working with horses can have a beneficial effect on a variety of diagnoses, including cerebral palsy, autism, post-traumatic stress disorder, intellectual disabilities, sight impairment and hearing impairment according to Robin Kilcoyne, the organization’s founder and executive director.

“Through counselling and learning to care for the horses, clients learn to find their value,” Kilcoyne said. “They find their purpose, self-worth and compassion for themselves as well as for others.”

The three-dimensional movement a horse makes when it walks moves the rider’s pelvis into a walking position. This helps activate centers in the brain to help riders develop balance and strength, Kilcoyne said. An individual who is not able to walk finds a lot of power being able to sit on the horse and steering. Through therapeutic riding, clients learn to process information faster and develop a faster response system.

Queen of Hearts was briefly shut down at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and when the

Albert Einstein College of Medicine has received a five-year, $5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to support the Rose F. Kennedy Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center (RFK IDDRC), which has been at the forefront of research on normal and abnormal brain development for more than 50 years. The funding will sustain and deepen collaborations between Einstein scientists and clinicians at Montefiore Health System aimed at improving the care and treatment of children with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), including those stemming from rare diseases.

“Our center is home to dozens of basic science and translational researchers who investigate the biological pathways and neurological mechanisms that underlie a range of intellectual and developmental disabilities,” said Sophie Molholm, Ph.D., co-primary investigator on the grant and co-director of the RFK IDDRC. “But ultimately, our sights are set on helping the children with IDDs in the Bronx and empowering their families and caregivers, a goal this new grant will help us achieve,” added Dr. Molholm, who is professor of pediatrics, in the Dominick P. Purpura Department of Neuroscience, and of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Einstein.

Previous NIH support helped establish a research program on 22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome (22q11.2DS), an incurable genetic disorder associated with delayed intellectual development and psychiatric conditions.