Healthcare hornswoggle

Keith Gurgui at home with Scout

After 10 years working for the Resource Center for Accessible Living, an organization that fights to ensure self-determination for those living with disabilities, 33-year-old Keith Gurgui decided to retire.

A decade of talking to politicians, crafting agendas and commuting back and forth to Albany- all the time relying on the use of a motorized wheelchair- has worn thin.

“I’ve had enough,” Gurgui says.

Leaving a job can be stressful under the best of circumstances, but Gurgui’s decision comes at a time when the New York legislature looks to significantly reshape the at-home health care program he relies upon, known as the Consumer-Directed Personal Assistance Program (CDPAP).

Gurgui lives with paralysis from the neck down- the consequence of a badly chosen dive on a Delaware beach fifteen summers ago.

The goal for the politicians leading the effort to reform the behemoth $9 billion-a-year health care model is to consolidate the administrative and payroll services currently performed by 600 Fiscal Intermediaries down to just one company, the Georgia-based Public Partnerships LLC (PPL).

To pull off such an immense transition while avoiding a hopelessly muddled result will take time, an element that advocates for those most seriously affected by disability say is neglected in the state plan.

By March 28, at least 280,000 chronically ill or physically disabled Medicaid recipients throughout the state must be enrolled with Pubic Partnerships or face interruption to the services they depend on.

Additionally, 425,000 home care workers who provide the services to those in need, known as personal assistants, must also be enrolled or have no way to get paid.

For the most seriously disabled, the consequences which would arise from a prolonged interruption in services or the inability to pay the workers they depend upon couldn’t be more dire. It’s the difference between living independent lives out in the world or surrendering their autonomy in favor of a nursing home.