Lamont backs 4% Medicaid increases

HARTFORD — The whoops and cheers of the purple-shirted workers rang in the Capitol when they heard the news.

In a letter to two associations of nursing home operators, Gov. Ned Lamont’s administration Monday endorsed a 4 percent increase of state Medicaid funding over the next two fiscal years. This increase is half of what labor leaders asked for earlier this month, but it still may be enough to avert a strike of more than 3,000 nursing home workers across Connecticut who have been decrying years of stagnant wages.

“As health care workers, our labor is a labor of love, but you can’t eat love,” said Rob Baril, president of SEIU 1199 New England, speaking to workers Monday.

The news came the same day that SEIU announced 25 nursing homes were ready to strike as soon as June 3.

Melissa McCaw, secretary of the Office of Policy and Management, wrote that Lamont’s administration will support increasing Medicaid rates by 2 percent in July 2019, 1 percent in October 2019 and 1 percent in January 2021. This money will be in addition a 2 percent increase in November 2018 that was earmarked for nursing home worker wages and benefits, McCaw wrote.

She promised to work with the General Assembly to get these increases in the new two-year state budget, which is now under negotiation by legislative leadership. The budget must be passed by the House and Senate and signed by the governor.

Nursing home workers — mostly black and Latino — who have worked for years say they have only received raises of about 25 cents in the past three years, on wages of about $15 an hour.

After announcing the news to workers Monday afternoon, Baril held an impromptu union meeting with workers at the Capitol to discuss how to pressure nursing home operators to turn these funding increases into raises for workers. The union has not officially called off a strike yet.

McCaw’s letter was addressed to Matt Barrett, president and CEO of the Connecticut Association of Health Care Facilities, and Mag Morelli, president of LeadingAge Connecticut. It was also sent to top Democratic leaders of the House and Senate, Lamont’s chief of staff and the commissioner of the Department of Social Services.