The $768 Million Question - and a New Phase of Strategy
Hello Caregivers and Caregiver Advocates:
737 of you have signed this petition. Today it gets a new name and a clearer mission.
The Colorado Care Firewall.
On Thursday September 17, the Colorado Commission on Medicaid confirmed $213 million in Medicaid overspending last fiscal year - and projects $443 million more in the current year, with $918 million projected for the year after that. The mechanism driving those numbers is one the Commission has no instrument to measure: employed family caregivers losing workplace flexibility, leaving the workforce, triggering nursing home placements at $33,614 more per person per year on Medicaid.
The arithmetic: $443 million divided by $33,614 equals 13,179 forced institutional conversions. 1.4% of Colorado's caregivers. Not a budget failure - a workforce failure that shows up as a budget failure.
The intervention is a two-phase strategy I am introducing publicly today for the first time:
Phase 1 - FLEX Act (2027): Title 8 labor standard. Right to request modest schedule flexibility. Mandatory 21-day process. Zero appropriation.
Phase 2 - CARE Act (2029-2030): Title 24 civil rights protected class. The destination.
Together: $768.92 million in projected Medicaid cost avoidance over ten years.
But the evidence base is critically underpopulated. The Caring Costs Survey - the instrument that turns this modeling into Commission evidence - has received only 2 total responses. Zero on Modules 2-4. Zero in Spanish.
If you have signed this petition and have not yet taken the survey - please do it today.
Module 1 is 90 seconds. Modules 2, 3, and 4 go deeper. All anonymous. Available in English and Spanish.
Without survey data, we walk into December 11 with arithmetic. With it, we walk in with proof.
Para cuidadores de habla hispana: los Módulos 1 y 3 están en español ahora mismo en casiadvocacy.org/research. Hasta ahora cero respuestas en español. Por favor tómenlos hoy - su experiencia es la evidencia que la Comisión necesita.
737 signers. 263 from 1,000. The petition has a new name. The strategy has a new phase. The ask is the same: sign it, share it, take the survey.
Substack and Podcast:
Kindly and Gratefully,
- Mark Fukae Founder, CASI | Director of Advocacy, PWC Registered Colorado Volunteer Lobbyist Author, Colorado CARE Act & FLEX Act