03/28/2024

How California skims federal Medicaid payments to fund a powerful union

Home caregivers serving Medicaid patients in California are being shortchanged and, chances are they don’t even know it.

Medicaid pays for elderly and disabled individuals who need support with activities of daily living to receive support at home from a caregiver. But California and 10 other states deduct union dues from caregivers’ Medicaid payments, in many cases without the knowledge or approval of patients and their caregivers. Given the fact that many caregivers work in their own homes caring for loved ones and relatives, unions typically have little role to play in exchange for the dues they collect.

In this way, unions skim an estimated $200 million each year in dues from Medicaid payments before those checks ever reach the patients they were intended to help. In short, dues skimming takes funds meant to provide care for our country’s most vulnerable people — the elderly, sick, poor, and disabled — and sends it to a politically favored special interest group that provides no services to the needy.

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