Truth Squad: Technical foul on pro-home health care claim

MICHIGAN TRUTH SQUAD ANALYSIS: "Monette," "Gene" and "Proposal"

Who: Citizens for Affordable Quality Home Care

What: "Monette," TV/Internet ad; "Gene," TV/Internet ad; "Proposal," a mailer from Home Care First, Inc.

Truth Squad call: Technical foul

Few proposals on 2012’s crowded ballot require as much background knowledge, for a fully informed vote, as Proposal 4, which would amend the state constitution to create the Michigan Quality Home Care Council, and allow home health-care workers limited collective-bargaining rights.

A recent Citizens Research Council memorandum on the proposal offers a comprehensive history of the issue, which dates to 2004, when the Granholm administration formed an interlocal agreement between the state’s Department of Community Health and the Tri-County Aging Consortium of Clinton, Eaton and Ingham counties. Thus was born the Michigan Quality Community Care Council, or MQC3, as it became known.

The council was formed to maintain a registry of home health-care workers under the Home Help program, which serves Medicaid recipients. It also ran background checks on those workers, and provided some training for both workers and employers. Those in search of someone to provide such services could contact the council and receive a pre-vetted list of workers.

The controversy came with the state’s stipulation that those workers, who are paid out of Medicaid or Medicare funds, are public employees, because the following year, the Service Employees International Union Healthcare Michigan was recognized as the bargaining unit and an election was held, certifying it as such (with only about 20 percent of 43,000 ballots returned). That allowed SEIU Healthcare Michigan to start collecting 2.75 percent of workers’ wages as dues, which CRC estimates at about $6 million annually.

In 2011, under a new governor, the Legislature defunded the MQC3, and in 2012, it enacted Public Act 76, stripping these workers of their public-employee status and nullifying the union representation. The union sued, and a federal judge issued a temporary injunction in favor of the union until its contract expires in 2013.

The aides registry still exists in a limited form due to the work of various councils on aging and some nonprofits. Criminal background checks continue under the provisions of MCQ3, explained Dohn Hoyle, executive director of the Arc Michigan, a disability rights advocacy group, and co-chair of the pro-Prop 4 campaign.

Proposal 4 would create a new council and reinstate the old order, including the collective-bargaining rights.

The pro-Prop 4 ballot group is Citizens for Affordable Quality Home Care. According to the most recent campaign finance statement (from July), it had raised about $1.89 million – almost all of it from something called Home Care First Inc. of East Lansing. Home Care First does not have to report the sources of its revenue, however.

The primary opposition group to Prop 4 is Citizens Protecting Michigan’s Constitution. As of July, it had raised $340,000, with the bulk coming from the Michigan Chamber of Commerce and several other business organizations.

Questionable statements: One TV ad features an older woman, Monette Winfield, expressing gratitude that her home-care aide is able to provide services that keep her in her own home and out of a nursing home. Proposal 4, the voiceover says, will give seniors and the disabled access to "safe, quality home care. And criminal background checks for home care providers."

The other ad stars Ingham County Sheriff Gene Wriggelsworth, who states, "It’s my job to make sure people in our community are safe. And that’s not just on the streets. My mom had safe, quality home care, and everyone in Michigan deserves the same. This November, we can vote to make home care safer for seniors and people with disabilities, by requiring criminal background checks." The screen displays a roster of what Wriggelsworth calls "others in law enforcement," which includes police chiefs and prosecutors, as well as a fire chief and firefighter, who endorse Proposal 4.

The mailer takes a starker tone. "Politicians in Lansing and Washington are trying to gut our vital home health care services," it reads. "The new tax law on retirement income, as well as proposals in Lansing and Washington, may end Medicare as we know it and limit home care and will have a negative effect on seniors, people with disabilities & their families.

"For years, seniors and disabled Michiganders were able to live safely and independently in their homes while selecting their own home-care providers. In 2011, the partisan-controlled Legislature defunded the state’s vital home-care registry."

The proposal explicitly states that the council will perform background checks on workers, as well as offer training opportunities, although it doesn’t detail how much or what sort of training is involved. The CRC analysis noted, "Many home health aides are family members or friends of the disabled or elderly participants."

The references to taxes on retirement income and ending "Medicare as we know it" seem to be, first, to Gov. Rick Snyder’s overhaul of Michigan tax policy in his first year in office, which phased in taxes on pensions, previously either entirely (public employee) or partially (private) exempt from taxation.

The Medicare reference appears to be to the much-discussed Medicare overhaul proposed by Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan. In his "Roadmap for America’s Future," Ryan, a Wisconsin congressman, laid out a plan to phase in Medicare changes, eventually installing a structure where recipients would get vouchers to spend on health insurance after age 65.

There doesn’t appear to be anything in the Ryan plan to "limit home care." In general, the concept of "aging in place," i.e., living as long as possible in one’s own home, enjoys wide support in public-policy circles, as it is far less expensive than institutional care.

Overall impression: Both the videos and the mailer stress home care as a positive alternative to nursing homes.

The problems lie in what they don’t say – that workers can unionize, the role of the SEIU – and the implication that quality care can’t be obtained outside of this particular council. The mailer’s use of fear of a changing world to motivate action is troubling, when it isn’t clear whether those changes have anything to do with the issue at hand.

Foul or no foul: Technical foul. The ad presents Proposal 4 as a bulwark against policy actions that are mischaracterized (such as the state income tax on pension) or have not occurred ("ending Medicare as we know it"). The ad featuring Sheriff Wriggelsworth would have the viewer believe that criminal background checks are not in place right now, but the co-chair of the Prop 4 campaign admits such checks are being done.

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