Letter: Caregivers, clients getting less so government unions get more

If you’re one of the 50,000-plus individual health care providers subsidized by Medicaid, you may be funding agendas you don’t support. The state allocates millions under the Medicaid program to pay a modest salary to private individuals to reimburse them for caring for parents, spouses, children and friends.

From this small salary, SEIU 775 rakes off hundreds in dues or representation fees from each caregiver, most of whom never authorized the deduction and may not realize they’re paying it. SEIU 775 spends the money funding agendas completely unrelated to the caregiver’s working conditions.

Everett’s Brad Boardman was just such a person until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last summer that his relationship with his client (his disabled sister-in-law), is fundamentally different from that of a conventional state worker and the agency paying their salary.

With help from the Freedom Foundation, Brad opted out of the union entirely despite the union’s best efforts to intimidate him. Brad’s story is the subject of a TV ad airing in the Yakima/Tri-Cities market. After seeing it, ask yourself what you’d have done in Brad’s shoes. If you’re already in Brad’s shoes, do the same thing.

This story was originally published December 17, 2015 at 7:11 PM with the headline "Letter: Caregivers, clients getting less so government unions get more."