A few years ago, a policy changed at work.
An accommodation that had made it possible for me to sustain both my professional responsibilities and my role as a caregiver was not extended. I was told, in words I have not forgotten, that caregiving is something everyone manages. That the weight I was carrying was not categorically different from what anyone else carries.
They were not wrong about the law. There was no statute that said my situation was different. No protected class. No accommodation framework that survived the policy change.
I left that meeting and told my wife: I will change the law.
She did not believe me.
This week I also want to tell you about a Saturday morning in a grocery store parking lot.
I take my mother Rose shopping on weekends - my part of the relay that gives my wife, who carries the primary caregiving weight through the week, a chance to rest. Rose has end-stage progressive dementia. She used to come inside with me. Now she says she is a little tired and asks to wait in the car. I keep a magazine there for her - one with a subscription label that has her name on it. She notices it every time. Every time, the discovery is real.
When I come back and open the car door, she looks up from the magazine and says - brightly, in the voice that sounds like herself before the disease:
"Mission Accomplished?"
Yes, Rose. Mission Accomplished.
This week the New York Times confirmed what this petition has always been about: when the people with the most expertise are not in the room, the decisions made in that room cost everyone else.
In the White House Situation Room on February 11, the economists and energy analysts who understood what closing the Strait of Hormuz would cost were secondary considerations. A foreign leader's presentation carried more weight. Every prediction made in that presentation was wrong. Every warning from the intelligence community was right.
In a parking lot in Denver, the person who has built the deepest expertise in the world on one specific human being's evolving needs is not in any room where decisions are made. Not in HR. Not in the Colorado Joint Budget Committee - which is cutting Medicaid home care hours this session while the Long Bill is read aloud to an empty chamber. Not in any statute in this state.
The Colorado CARE Act would change that. Proposed for the 2027 session - zero general fund cost, projected $9 to $18 million in annual Medicaid savings - it would add family caregiver status as a protected class under Colorado law for the first time. It would put the person in the parking lot into the statute.
My wife said something to me after that meeting, in the words she uses when she means something exactly: They will rue the day they told Mark Fukae he has no leg to stand on.
She was right. Legislators are listening. The coalition is forming. The law is being built.
We are at 757 signatures and 677 supporters. We need 243 more to reach 1,000.
Read and Listen to this week's full piece - "Mission Accomplished" - and share it with one person today:
Share our Petition here: https://chng.it/DLWncS9wtT (share with anyone that wants to make a difference for anyone that is a caregiver and there are over 63 million of us in the US!)
Every name is evidence. Every signature is someone saying: the expertise in that parking lot is real, it is irreplaceable, and Colorado should see it.
Thank you for being here and thank you for making a difference.
Kindly and Gratefully,
- Mark Fukae Director of Advocacy, Professionals Who Care Founder, CASI - Caregiver Advocacy Support Initiative mark_fukae@casiadvocacy.org | casiadvocacy.org | professionalswhocare.org