Everyone agrees: A $9 billion state home care program under Medicaid needs reform. But some officials have kicked up a last-ditch effort to delay planned cuts as sources say the state is leaning toward contracting with a company that's known for wage theft and mismanagement in other states.
Multiple people, including state Senate Health Committee chair Gustavo Rivera, said Thursday they have heard company Public Partnerships LLC is a frontrunner to win the state Health Department's multi-billion-dollar contract to manage the state's Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program.
PPL has lost or had contracts terminated managing similar home care programs in New Jersey, Washington, West Virginia, Virginia and Tennessee.
"I would be incredibly concerned if that is the way the state wants to go forward," Rivera, a Bronx Democrat, told Spectrum News 1 on Thursday.
The five-year contract, to start Oct. 1, will be awarded to a single company to manage CDPAP, which allows family members to care for disabled or elderly relatives and help them stay in their homes.
PPL, one of a handful of companies to submit a bid, has a history of delaying home care worker pay for months, which resulted in a class action suit involving 20,000 workers. And the company has faced allegations it fraudulently obtained its former contract in Pennsylvania.
Public Partnerships LLC has had at least seven changes in CEO in the last four years. The company did not respond to a request for comment.
The state received more than 100 bids for the contract, according to Gov. Kathy Hochul's office. The state Health Department will make a decision by Tuesday's planned start date. The state Budget Division has yet to receive, or review, the new contract.
New York's $9 billion program that serves more than 250,000 New Yorkers has reports of widespread fraud, made worse by more than 600 fiscal intermediaries, effectively middlemen, taking advantage of the program's current structure. FIs lack oversight and are not required to have a state license.
The company to win the bid will have six months to transition New York's program to one system — a timeline all stakeholders involved have said will be impossible to meet without issues.
Bill Hammond, the Empire Center for Public Policy's senior fellow for health policy, said the program must be consolidated after years of dramatic growth, but the state has rushed the process.
"You would hope they're reviewing those track records in other states for all of their bidders and figuring out who's the best choice," Hammond said. "... They haven't chosen their contract yet, so it's still possible [the state] will go with another firm."
Earlier this month, Rivera introduced legislation to delay program cuts until later next year, and mandate FIs get a state license to combat fraud. State lawmakers are not expected to return to Albany until next year.
"... The notion, by the way, that we can't reconsider, that we don't have an opportunity to change what we're doing is belied by the fact that this is the same administration who actually pulled the rug out from under us on congestion pricing with barely a couple of weeks left before it went into effect," Sen. Rivera said.
Gov. Hochul changed her mind in June to indefinitely pause congestion pricing a few weeks before the average $15 charge to drive below 60th Street in Manhattan was set to take effect. And she made the decision without an alternative plan.
Rivera said that doesn't have to be the case with the program, with budgeted cuts to take effect April 1 — or the start of the state's next fiscal year.
"When it comes to CDPAP, supporting home care users is our top priority and that will never change," a spokesperson with Hochul's office said. "Our reforms will strengthen CDPAP, protect home care users and ensure taxpayer dollars are effectively serving the people who need them. Our plan does not change CDPAP eligibility for home care users and ensures that caregivers will continue receiving timely payment so they can keep providing the care that CDPAP users need."
Rivera supports reform, but wants more than one company to manage New York's large program. He's unconvinced that removing hundreds of businesses in six months that manage the program will net the intended savings longterm.
"Here we have an administration that is insisting that they can transition an entire progeram that is bigger than any program in the nation, and they can do it in a couple of months' time," the senator said, "and they can't even tell us today, just a couple of days before they're supposed this contractor, how many people they're going to have to transition?"
Rivera has selected a lawmaker to carry the bill in the Assembly, but would not name the person expected to lead the lower house fight.
Leaders with the influential Service Employees Local Union 1199 SEIU United Health Care Workers have talked with at least four companies in the running for the state's multi-billion-dollar contract to take over CDPAP.
Recent news reports show 1199 is working behind the scenes to unionize home care aides under the new company and boost staff pay.
"We are a labor union and we wear that as a badge of honor," 1199SEIU Interim Political Director Helen Schaub said.
But unionized workers would also increase program costs.
Schaub argued unionizing all CDPAP workers will help hold the new single company accountable for mismanagement or other wrongdoing.
"We think organizing workers is the best way to ensure that there is real investment in both the workers and the services, and we're very proud of that," she added.
Schaub agrees the state needs to take at least 18 months to two years to consolidate the program the right way.
Several lawsuits recently filed by home care agencies could also halt the intended timeline.
"The whole process could be blown up," Hammond said of pending litigation.
Rivera said the state budget, headed for a steep budget gaps in the coming years, should not be balanced with quick changes that force people off care they need.
"The notion that this is going to save money is probably accurate," the senator said. "But the way that we're going to save money is by cutting people out of the program who are going to wind up needing services anyway ... we will then wind up with these folks in emergency rooms, nursing homes, or worse. There is a reasonable alternative."