Key Initiatives

Oftentimes, proposed and new legislation can have a profound impact on the lives of individuals with disabilities and the elderly. It is important that you be aware of laws and regulations that will affect your quality of life or that of a loved one, whether for the better or the worse. Here is information that you should be aware of.

The Pennsylvania Consumer Workforce Council (Pa CWC)
The Pa CWC is an intergovernmental cooperation agreement being proposed by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania by and through its Departments of Aging and Public Welfare and its Office of Long Term Living. It is a legal entity established under 53 PA C.S. CH 23 SUBCH. A). The commonwealth is attempting to solicit counties for their support of the creation of this legal entity.

The Commonwealth believes that establishing the CWC will assist them in achieving the following goals:

1. Rebalancing Pennsylvania's long-term care system
2. Increasing independence and choice of those in need of services
3. Expanding the availability of consumer directed home care services
4. Assuring quality in long term care
5. Controlling costs
6. Improving recruiting, training, and retaining direct care workers.

UDS, in partnership with the Pennsylvania Association of Personal Care Agencies (PAPCA) strongly opposes the establishment of a state-run agency for the following reasons.

1. The CWC reduces choices for consumers - Homecare workers employed by their relatives, friends or neighbors with disabilities often have full-time jobs other than homecare work, a duty they may perform just a few hours a week. They don't want to join a state run agency.
2. It fixes a "problem" that does not exist. Consumers already have the free resources needed to help them find homecare workers, including 60 already existing CareerLink offices, Area Agencies on Aging and other publicly funded programs.
3. It creates Mandatory requirements for workers are too restrictive. A worker who doesn't want to work for multiple consumers may choose to stop working rather than spend hours in the training programs that would be required.
4. The CWC wipes out the consumer-directed model that PA has worked hard to establish. People with disabilities and older Pennsylvanians fought hard to obtain and protect the authority to hire and manage their homecare workers and to be exempt from onerous government regulation.
5. And finally, it costs the state and taxpayers money. With a CWC, we would pay more money to change a system that already works-and in doing so, create unfair competition for private industry and a barrier between consumers and workers.

In short, a CWC is an unnecessary, state-run agency that takes away control from people with disabilities and older Pennsylvanians. For more information and to write your representatives on the issue, please click on www.realinhomecarepa.com.