ALBANY – New York’s powerful 1199 SEIU union is already cashing in on Gov. Kathy Hochul’s disastrous and allegedly rigged revamp of the state’s $11 billion home care Medicaid program, The Post has learned.
The politically influential labor group has started moving to unionize the hundreds of thousands of home health aides employed through the allegedly fraud-ridden taxpayer-funded program, and will likely reap a massive windfall in dues.
Officials from 1199, which supported the overhaul, have been meeting weekly with Public Partnerships LLC, the company that was awarded the contract to manage the massive Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program as part of Hochul’s reshuffle.
Hochul’s administration has for months been dogged by allegations that the bidding process for the roughly $1 billion contract to oversee the CDPAP payroll was rigged in favor of PPL.
“Everyone — taxpayers, consumers, providers — loses if 1199 SEIU unionizes the CDPAP program,” Ken Girardin, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, told The Post.
“There’s no room for a labor union between consumers and the people they hire and train. This would be nothing more than an excuse to skim cash and feed 1199 SEIU’s political apparatus,” Girardin said.
“The White House needs to step in because this would be one of the worst abuses of taxpayer money in the history of the Medicaid program.”
A rep for 1199 didn’t deny its efforts to unionize the upwards of 200,000 aides in the program. Sources said 1199 may get enough interested members to hold a formal election to create the union beginning in 2026.
“We have called upon PPL – as we did other companies that bid for the single fiscal intermediary contract – not to waste valuable public dollars pressuring their employees and instead allow workers to make their own decisions about forming a union through a democratic process,” 1199 SEIU spokeswoman Rose Ryan wrote in a statement.
“1199 has always been an important stakeholder in CDPAP and we will continue to work closely with them throughout the transition.”
The move comes as evidence continues to mount suggesting Hochul’s administration worked to steer the contract to PPL — this time in an email unearthed by the government watchdog group Empire Center for Public Policy.
The communications appear to confirm that officials from Hochul’s office and the state Department of Health met with reps from PPL on April 4 — weeks before Albany lawmakers signed off on giving the company the contract.
The governor pushed for the CDPAP overhaul last year, saying she wanted to slash rampant waste, fraud and abuse in the program, which had ballooned to $11 billion from $3 billion in 2018.
The revamp consolidated hundreds of middlemen firms — which acted as “fiscal intermediaries” between Medicaid, which funds the program, and the home health aides employed by it — under one company’s umbrella.
But a letter obtained by The Post shows the company handpicked by Hochul’s DOH for the effort is preparing to saddle the state with more costs next year.
The Health Plans Association, a group representing the insurance providers who front the payroll money to PPL before getting reimbursed by the state, accused the company of making a “significant increase” to its rates with “no detailed justification” with no substantive involvement from DOH, the letter shows.
“If PPL insists on its one-size-fits-all, non-negotiable rate, it will put at risk services to members and will undoubtedly undermine the very financial savings that the State projected,” the HPA wrote.
A spokesperson for PPL maintained that the rate increase was due to a statutory 55-cent spike in the minimum wage for home care workers going into effect in 2026.
“PPL retains nothing from the increase and every added dollar goes directly to worker pay. This adjustment does not violate PPL’s contract,” the company’s rep said.
Regarding the April 4 meeting with Hochul admin staffers, the PPL spokesperson declined to share details of the conversation but said it followed a legal, competitive bidding process for the contract.
A spokesperson for the governor’s office declined to address PPL’s rising rates and wouldn’t provide details on the meeting.
Many state lawmakers have soured on the overhaul they signed off on as part of the state budget last year and have expressed serious concerns about the bid-rigging claims.
“As federal cuts threaten to unravel Medicaid’s foundation, every public dollar must be protected and directed—toward people, not profit,” state Sen. Robert Jackson (D-Manhattan) said.
Jackson and Hochul’s estranged Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado made their fury over the overhaul known at a press conference hosted by the advocacy group New York caring majority at the state capitol Wednesday.
Despite the mess, Hochul continued to argue the overhaul was a victory, telling reporters last week that her budget office projected $1 billion in savings year-to-year, half of which from the state and half from the feds.
“It made sense. It was a war, was a major fight, and those are the kind of issues I’m willing to take on,” Hochul said.
Some fiscal experts still question whether the state will actually save money overall from the transition to one company, given that around 80,000 consumers left CDPAP for other home care programs.
“This transition caused many tens of thousands of consumers to switch to agency care which is a more expensive form of care,” Michael Kinnucan, Health Policy Director at the Fiscal Policy Institute, told The Post.
“Some of the savings is illusory.”
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