Opinion: New York's home care transition was a mess. Here's a chance for accountability.

Source: Times Union

By Leroy Comrie & Jessica González-Rojas for Times Union

Last year, New York handed an $11 billion contract to a private equity firm to manage home care under the Medicaid Consumer-Directed Personal Assistance Program. We were promised high-quality, personalized care. What we got instead was disastrous for hundreds of thousands New Yorkers, and a stunning lack of transparency and oversight.

With the upcoming budget, however, Albany has an opportunity to course-correct.

Gov. Kathy Hochul claims the CDPAP transition to Public Partnerships LLC has saved the state $1.2 billion, yet has not provided any real accounting of those so-called savings. Despite hearings, legislative requests and FOIL filings, we still know little about how the money has been spent. As a result, lawmakers and taxpayers have no clear picture of whether the switch to PPL is actually saving New Yorkers money while delivering adequate care.

What we do know is that PPL has a troubled legacy. It has lost or had similar care program contracts terminated in New Jersey, Washington, West Virginia, Virginia and Tennessee amid allegations of mismanagement, including wage theft, “egregious fiscal and operational failures,” and failure to provide adequate care.

Unfortunately, New York's experience with PPL has been no different. Since CDPAP’s payroll was consolidated under PPL, home care workers across the state have reported being paid late, being underpaid or not paid at all. These failures have triggered multiple class-action wage theft lawsuits. New Yorkers are losing care or being driven towards more expensive, less desirable alternatives, and the working families who relied on home care as a sustainable, dignified job are now facing economic hardship.

CDPAP consumers are reporting longer wait times, difficulty finding workers willing to work for PPL, staffing cuts, an inability to speak with anyone by phone about their care, and worsening access to services. Workers are reporting payment issues, wage theft, loss of health insurance — all while leaders in Albany like us remain largely in the dark with little access to any data.

These are not hiccups. They are systemic breakdowns.

Gov. Hochul defended the move to PPL as a way to root out “waste, fraud, and abuse.” But without independent oversight, there is no way to know whether those problems have been solved.

There is a straightforward way to bring this process into the light and rebuild trust. We introduced legislation that would require monthly public reporting from PPL and authorize a comprehensive, independent audit of the CDPAP transition.

Transparency is not an obstacle to good governance; it’s the foundation. And it is how Albany continues to work for the people we serve, not covering for private companies.

New York faces the worst home care shortage in the nation, and we need every dollar for care in order to address this growing crisis. State leaders must provide more transparency and oversight for CDPAP and Medicaid funds. They must address the many challenges of the PPL transition and take back our home care system from Wall Street. They must take a stand and invest in the care that New Yorkers deserve.

State Sen. Leroy Comrie of Queens represents the 14th Senate District. Assemblymember Jessica González-Rojas of Queens represents the 34th Assembly District.