Senator Hochadel Leads Passage of Legislation Enhancing Elder Care

Senator Jan Hochadel, D-Meriden, led passage Tuesday of a bill intended to increase access to home-based services for seniors by establishing better training for home care workers and creating a presumptive Medicaid eligibility program for services provided at home.

The proposal, House Bill 5001, passed the Senate on a unanimous vote and will now head to the governor for a signature. The bill was a top priority of House Speaker Matt Ritter and originated in the legislature’s Aging Committee.

Senator Hochadel, the committee’s Senate chair, said the legislation would make several changes to state law designed to make aging in place easier for senior citizens.

“As more and more of our seniors choose to age in their homes, we must adopt policies that preserve their safety and dignity,” said Senator Jan Hochadel. “This bill takes steps to ensure our elders can spend their later years at home, surrounded by their families and loved ones.”

By presuming that home-based services will be covered by Medicaid, the bill is designed to spare seniors the choice between residing in a nursing home or forgoing care while awaiting a Medicaid approval process that can take up to 90 days.

The proposal creates a new database of home-based workers, allowing consumers to identify and match qualified home aides based on characteristics like language, certifications or special skills, as well as previous experience. This also helps the providers and their agencies by giving them access to recruitment, retention, and training programs.

The bill connects residents with a consumer dashboard, which uses a five-star rating system to compare nursing home facilities on metrics like their quality of care, their staff and health inspection results.

Other provisions of the legislation include new training requirements and photo ID badges for Personal Care Attendants and other home health care workers, and an expansion of fingerprinting locations for employment background checks.

The bill expands the duties of local senior center staff members to better assist elderly residents with accessing housing opportunities.

Costs related to the first year of the bill’s presumptive Medicaid eligibility program are estimated at around $500,000 and would be covered by remaining federal funds under the American Rescue Plan Act.

However, the policy is not expected to result in additional costs to the state because nearly all of the impacted services are covered by Medicaid and will be reimbursed under the program. If the Department of Social Services concludes after two years the eligibility presumption has not been cost-effective, the bill includes a provision allowing the agency’s commissioner to discontinue the policy.

Senator Hochadel Votes to Expand Paid Sick Leave

Senator Jan Hochadel, D-Meriden, voted Monday to expand Connecticut’s decade-old paid sick time law from covering only about 12% of the state workforce to covering nearly the entire state workforce – about 1.6 million people – by 2027.

The bill passed the Senate on a 23-12 vote and now heads to the governor for his signature into law.

“No one should be compelled to go to work sick. That’s common sense and I’m proud to cast a vote in favor of expanding our policy to ensure that all employees are covered,” Senator Hochadel said. “This bill’s passage is a victory for Connecticut workers, their families, and the countless employees who will now be spared unnecessary contamination.”

Connecticut’s current paid sick leave law dates back to 2011 and only requires businesses with 50 “service worker” employees or more – about one out of every 8 jobs in the state – to give up to 40 hours of paid sick leave annually.

House Bill 5005, “An Act Expanding Paid Sick Days in the State,” will increase Connecticut’s outdated paid sick leave law in several ways:

• It expands current state law by covering nearly all private-sector employees and employer, moving from 25 employees in 2025, to 11 employees in 2026, to those with at least one employee in 2027.

• It broadens the range of family members for whom an employee can use their paid sick leave to care for.

• It increases the rate at which employees can accumulate paid sick leave.

• It broadens the reasons why employees can use paid sick leave.

Several New England states already exceed Connecticut’s outdated paid sick leave law, including Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Vermont – each of which requires paid sick time for all employees.