Senator Gustavo Rivera and Home Care Workers Sound Alarm: Thousands Losing Health Coverage July 1

NEW YORK, NY (06/30/2026) (readMedia)-- On Tuesday, home care workers, CDPAP consumers, and Chair of the State Senate Health Committee Gustavo Rivera held a virtual press conference to warn that hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers and thousands of home care workers are days away from losing their health insurance. On July 1, federal cuts to the Essential Plan will eliminate coverage for many home care workers across New York, a workforce that's already been left exposed. Governor Hochul's decision to hand New York's $11 billion CDPAP program to a private equity-backed company, Public Partnerships LLC (PPL), eliminated the flexible coverage options workers previously relied on and drove as many as 150,000 workers and 90,000 consumers from the program entirely. Now, with the federal government cutting the Essential Plan, thousands of home care workers will be left with nothing.

A recording of the press conference can be found here.

What makes this even harder to accept is that New York had the power to fill in for the federal cuts and chose not to. State lawmakers, including Senator Rivera, proposed a state-funded fix that would have maintained coverage for the more than 400,000 New Yorkers set to lose the Essential Plan on July 1. New York State sits on an emergency fund that exists specifically for moments like this one. But that solution never made it into the state budget, meaning Governor Hochul had the resources and the opportunity to protect these workers and chose to walk away.

When Governor Hochul handed CDPAP to PPL in 2025, home care workers lost more than a payroll system. They lost the ability to direct their wage parity dollars toward take-home pay. They lost access to health care coverage they had obtained through community-based fiscal intermediaries. And they lost time and wages, absorbed into a chaotic transition marked by unpaid wages, broken timekeeping, and a private insurance offering plans that cost workers thousands of dollars a year before insurance pays for meaningful care. PPL's two health care offerings – a Bronze plan that could expose a worker to nearly $9,000 in costs in a bad year, and a Silver plan at $270 a month – were never a real choice for a workforce already going unpaid.

"I make just enough income to be denied Medicaid, but way too much to afford any of the marketplace options available. Tomorrow, I will lose my Essential Plan insurance, the coverage that has finally let me address health issues I had put off for years," said Kelly Foster, Statewide Systems Advocate at the Northern Regional Center for Independent Living, who also cares for her retired and disabled mother. "I live paycheck to paycheck like most New Yorkers. A $55 specialty copay is manageable. An unaffordable, high-deductible marketplace plan is not. As a lifelong New Yorker, I have never felt more let down by my state government, and I am calling on the governor to fix this consequential error."

"I know what it means to fall through the cracks of a system that was supposed to catch you. No home care worker should have to choose between their health and their job," said Raine Reilly, a member of the New York Caring Majority. "Tomorrow, so many home care workers will lose their only remaining option for coverage. New York had the power to stop this and chose not to. That has to mean something to the leaders who are supposed to be fighting for us."

"Tomorrow, New York will see the largest single-year decrease in health insurance enrollment in state history, with 450,000 New Yorkers losing coverage, including thousands of home care workers who perform essential work for our older adults and people with disabilities," said Emily Eisner, Executive Director of the Fiscal Policy Institute. "Instead of funding Senator Rivera's and AM Paulin's proposal to keep these New Yorkers covered, the state chose to spend over a billion dollars subsidizing hospitals and health care providers. That choice tells you who this administration is prioritizing, and it is not New York's most vulnerable. Restoring health coverage to this population and others losing Medicaid due to federal cuts is still possible, but it will take real political will from the governor and the legislature."

The PPL takeover is now the result of two legal actions. The U.S. Department of Justice sued the Hochul administration earlier this month, alleging officials rigged the bidding process in favor of PPL for the $11 billion CDPAP Medicaid program. Separately, a proposed $160 million class action settlement could deliver back pay to approximately 200,000 home care workers in New York City who allege PPL shortchanged them on wages and benefits they were owed. A hearing on the settlement is scheduled for July 1, the same day thousands of workers stand to lose their health coverage entirely.

The stakes extend beyond home care workers. CDPAP is a lifeline for older and disabled New Yorkers, allowing them to hire and direct their own caregivers. When workers are uninsured, underpaid, and locked out of a dysfunctional system, consumers lose care. Governor Hochul claimed the PPL transition saved New York $1.2 billion, but has never provided documentation to support that figure. New Yorkers still have no clear accounting of how Medicaid dollars meant to provide care are actually being spent. The New York Caring Majority is calling on New York State leaders to restore coverage options for workers losing the Essential Plan and end PPL's monopoly over a program that hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers depend on to live.

About the NY Caring Majority

NY Caring Majority is an organization of people with disabilities, older adults, family caregivers, and homecare workers. We are organizing to build a sustainable and just caring economy. We call for greater investments in home and community-based care, as a necessary means to meet our broader goal of dignity, self-determination, access and justice for all.

###