Team Trump lost a court battle that could have pushed our nation’s low-income elderly, disabled and blind out of their own homes and into deathtrap nursing homes during the coronavirus pandemic.
A California federal judge called the Trump rule that bars states from withholding part of the paychecks of some home healthcare workers for things like health insurance and voluntary union dues a “legal error.”
Judge Vince Chhabria wrote the Trump rule appears “contrary to the overall purpose” of the Medicaid law. He noted that improving working conditions for home health workers, who have median hourly pay of $10.49, improves the quality of care the workers provide for Medicaid patients.
“It is unclear how barring the payroll practices would serve the purposes of the Medicaid program,” wrote Chhabria, an Obama appointee. He threw out that provision of the law and sent it back to the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare
