 We're back. We're here on think-tech community matters on a given Monday at the 11 o'clock block, and we have Pedro Haro He's with caring across generations and Kathy Jay Cox. She's with fate, which is Faith action for community equity. I get that right. That's right. All right, you guys and they are doing a bill in the ledge Called kupuna care givers and we are here to talk about that Let me preface it by saying everyone knows that the life of kupuna in our community ain't what it used to be You know in the in the earlier generations in the more ethnic family structures of the 30s 40s 50s I guess we'd say in the 20th century We had people taking care of their of their elders and it was a not only an obligation, but a fact Over time however in the nuclear age They've they've left the younger people have left or are unable or unwilling to do that in the same numbers and percentages as they used to be And the result is that a lot of kupuna Need care from the outside and they don't necessarily have the money for it And that's very tragic because you have kupuna middle-class kupuna who have worked all their lives Fingers to the bone all their lives. They don't have the money to take care of themselves in their in their elder years And we must as a humane and moral society We must do something about it and the problem is getting worse and these guys Pedro and Kathy are Collaborating for a bill to help make it better. So welcome in all ways to the show you guys. Thank you. Thank you so much Absolutely Pedro tell us about the bill So this is Senate bill 534 and its companion bill house bill 607 What it does is it establishes the kupuna caregivers program which provides 70 dollars a day as a benefit to working families Who need assistance with caregiving now? We're talking about the sandwich generation is what we call them these are people who are Taking care of their kupuna at home Maybe their parents or grandparents and also maybe have some working some children in school And then they're working full-time jobs in the middle So the idea is that they're stuck not just with all of this financial stress But also this emotional stress we find that caregivers a lot of times put their own health needs aside To be able to take care of those that they're taking care of so this is definitely a population that needs that help We think that the legislature is in a good place this year to be able to pass that What kind of help can you can you put yourself in the skin of an elderly person and be old maybe a little like me And tell me how my life is that I require care Yeah, so some of the people that we talked about and and Kathy can definitely fill in Are people who need things on an everyday basis people who some people who have Problems getting in and out of their bed who have problems bathing maybe preparing their own food And so their caregivers might have to take those responsibilities. Yeah, yeah, this is evidence-based Legislation, so what's the evidence that you have to demonstrate the problem well for one thing We know that every eight seconds somebody is turning 65 We know that here in Hawaii by 2020. We will have nearly 300,000 people age 65 and over that's a substantial part of that. It's a huge percentage There's 1.2 just roughing it 1.2 that means 25% of the population is is elderly exactly exactly And You asked about you know, what kind of care might they need and that's one of the good things about this bill I think is it uses existing Definitions so that a person has to be I think it is it three of the daily life skills If there are at least three that they cannot do themselves feed themselves bathe themselves Whatever Then that would qualify the the sick person for help the other thing is of for this bill the Financially they would be people who are not so low income that they would already qualify for Medicaid but just kind of above that level where They don't really have enough money to pay for full-time caregivers at home Which is why the family member is helping in the first place, but the beauty of this bill we think is that if You as an employer you've got a great Employee, but now you're losing that employee because she's taking time to sandwich generation to take care of Pedro's term the sandwich generation and You're hurting as a business because she's having to take so much time off to care so this bill would enable her to not have to take so much time off work because Her parent or grandparent or whoever she was caring for would be eligible Today exactly the employee exactly and there are so many employees that give it up They give up their jobs so they can stay at home This would make a more productive economy. Exactly and that's actually what we're hearing from businesses We have several businesses who are saying this makes sense to us and you know for in a different kind of ways they want to be productive and they want to be able to reduce absenteeism and even Presenteeism where people are present at their job, but their mind is somewhere else because there's so many care It's all the time and you know if you're driving heavy machinery or you're making paperwork It's easy to make mistakes, so they want to reduce that but they also want to take care of their workers And so the idea is with this is that they're able to do both and so it makes sense for business It makes sense for workers. It makes sense for the kupuna. It makes sense for family makes sense for Hawaii Like you're saying like you were saying earlier. It's it's part of our culture, right? Our culture, but we are unable to realize it in recent years. We're gonna get back to it This is back to you know a more humane expression of our culture. Yeah So let's talk about the the qualification category, you know, the elder person has to be qualified as You know an appropriate recipient benefit. Who does that and how is it done? So The state already has a kupuna care program So this would be administered through that program. So the the same Test that they use about you know, which skills are you unable to do on your own? They would use those Yeah, so in that sense, yeah, we're not having to start from scratch And then like I said the other qualification for the the person in need of care would be that financially They're not so low that their Medicaid, but they're just barely above that so that they don't have the money And the other part just to add on to what Kathy said So what makes this different than any of the other programs is that their caregiver has to be working 30 hours or more a week So that it adds the component that this this help this bill while it'll benefit the kupuna It's really supposed to provide care to the caregivers who haven't really not had had any other place to turn to who say hey Listen, I need help too. I'm working a full-time job going home. I don't have the money to hire exactly because there aren't enough of them Then they're expensive right exactly right footnote by the way about Medicaid you mentioned Medicaid My observation is the Medicaid is in some jeopardy in the Trump administration another observation is that the state legislature has to Sort of try to get a handle on the trajectory of the Trump administration and how the Trump administration Is going to cut the federal's social safety net and that may be one way they do it And we have to look carefully at that and figure out how we're going to be resilient Against cuts at the federal level under Donald Trump So this is one of those bills I would say that fits neatly in the category of trying to deal with the possibility of loss of benefits at the federal level I don't know if you've thought about that, but certainly there are members of the legislature who have thought about that Yeah, definitely. I mean I think it's a face and in other organizations have been working on on elder care Kapuna care for the last 21 years So it makes sense before Trump was in the picture and it makes even more sense now that now that he is in the picture And I think all of us are trying to figure out. How do we make sense of a world that looks and feels a little bit different to us and and at times it's very Nervy to not know what the future funding will look like for the states What the federal structure of some of these organizations would look like and we're trying to make sure that are you know People in Hawaii still have a place to turn to that the world won't change that much that they won't have any places to turn to so I Just want to get a handle on the cost of it $70 do you have a prediction as to how many people would qualify for the benefits and therefore how much it would cost out of the state funds What is being appropriated right now is $600,000 for its first program year which would be from June to the ending of 2017 and then in 2018 six million dollars will come into the fund to be able to provide the services for the people So they need that ramp up money and that ramp up time to be able to set up the infrastructure And then six million dollars to be able to to help those those families We think it's a we think it's not the end. I'll be all we think it's a step in the right direction We're hoping during that first year that we can help at least a thousand families And then be able to build up the data to be able to really make it an evidence-based program That we can come back to the legislature and say look at the success and look at the need that we have in the state because what we know is there's a over a hundred and fifty thousand working caregivers in the state so Starting with one one thousand is certainly a step in the right direction But it won't be enough and so what we're able to do is we were able to get data We're able to get the need the response be able to make tweaks and then hopefully come back to the legislature and figure out What we can do next so six million dollars per annum for now It may be more later depending on what you find that's what we're hoping in examination of this issue on the ground You know, can we afford that we haven't paid the pleasure time and system We have ten twelve billion dollars to go on rail knows who knows how much Nobody knows how much We have all we have the roads, you know forget about rail for a minute We have the roads gonna cost a lot of money to keep the roads in decent shape and I could go on I mean we have unfunded liabilities of something Over forty billion dollars coming soon. Can we afford this? Can we afford not to I mean the idea is that in Hawaii we have the oldest Living population and normally that would be a wonderful thing, right? You'd think that growing older is that one thing that you get for free in life That's the one thing that you're guaranteed that in taxes, right? But the reality is that we're paying about ten thousand dollars more in this state than anywhere else in the nation to do home health care We know that the majority of our kupuna cannot afford to go into Daycare facility for you know where they can live 24 hours a day and and have every all of those needs taken care of that Our families are taking up that responsibility. So is the answer do we have to compete against the rail? I don't think we should because I think that the silver tsunami But what we're calling it the silver tsunami is here and it's only going to get bigger and bigger So the point is can we afford not to do this now? How much of what he said you agree with Kathy? I totally agree Let's take a short break we'll come back and we'll talk about your event. Okay, which is coming about tomorrow This is hot news. That's a Pedro Haro and Kathy Jay Cox talking about the kupuna care giver bill. We'll be right back Aloha, I'm Marsha joiner Inviting you to join us as we navigate the journey the journey to the end of life the journey of looking at our possibilities of choices and options and This is a conversation We want you to join us in this conversation as we visit with people of different traditions different religions and different cultures and See what they do toward the end of life It is a wonderful time to enjoy to talk about things that we don't usually talk about and That we should talk about before the intensive care As well as the elephant in the room the elephant in the room is health care and We really need to look at that as we approach the end of life So join us as we navigate the journey This is Pedro Haro and Kathy Jay Cox talking about the kupuna care giver bill very important kinds of legislation To follow up on what you said a minute ago Pedro is Priorities for state, you know expenses what could be more important than taking care of our own people You don't never forget we live in a state with a cost of occupancy and land. It's too high Someday we got to fix that yeah, but we live in a state where that where the wages are too low We got to fix that yeah in the meantime there's a pincer movement a pinch going on But that pinch hurts the kupuna more than anyone else and we really have to address it absolutely Have to so I commend you guys on your your choice of issues and initiatives. Yeah, thank you So let's talk about tomorrow Your event what what is your event? Where is it? What is going to happen? Well tomorrow we have a rally where we're gonna have advocates from a whole bunch of different organizations We have a RP we have local five Iow we have Society of retired individuals. We have caring across generations face our organized helping organize it And what we're hoping to be able to do is to be able to Create that priority for legislators to be able to say we know that there's a lot of competing priorities We know there's rail. We know there's other things that are sucking up the error of the room because they're it's covered in the Media so well, but there is a group of individuals that really need your assistance and need your help And that's really all that it is tomorrow is uniting our voices to let our legislators Know that there's enough families that have they care about this and you know, I hear about this all the time People who are emailing or just like yourself people who will say, you know, that this is a really important issue I'm glad that you're taking this up I'm glad that you that you're all working on this because we hear time after time caregiver stories I have a friend who took care of his mother for Ten years over ten years going into dialysis and he explains how he and his dad would clean her sore wounds And said nobody nobody helped us with that and he would he would take care of her during the daytime and then drive the bus at night That makes you feel really lonesome. Yeah, exactly bear that burden Nobody to help and he talks about and so what this bill will do is that it will provide two to three hours of Care for a person and I would ask him and say what would that have meant to you? He said it would have meant the difference between life and death said we just felt so alone unprepared for this there was no way to plan for it. We didn't have the money We didn't have the support. Yeah, I mean even if you can imagine the tough times in the silver the silver years You can't you can't do more than work and try to save that's all you can do and it's not enough You were saying oh well I was just gonna say you asked about our event tomorrow and So it's gonna be from 10 in the morning till noon In the you know capital rotunda area near the father Damien statue at what at 11 11 will be out waiting sign so everybody who's out there driving drive by and toot your horns But part of the event will be having people like the person that Pedro was just talking about telling their stories as Caregivers and then we'll also be hearing from some of our legislators who support this and you know other people who have An active role in this bill Yeah, I I know there's a lot of legislators that could would and are supporting the bill But could you mention the champions so that we can give them credit here on the program? Well, definitely We definitely want to thank senator Ross Baker from Maui who has been able to Champion the bill not just this year but last year as well on the Senate side and representative Greg Takayama who will be there Tomorrow to speak on the house side was has champion and they both have championed Several kupuna kupuna issues senator lesi hara has also been very supportive and very Instrumental in a lot of kupuna issues So there's a multitude we have I believe on each side. We have about 25 sponsors for the bill So it really shows the difference in what? Our legislators believe to be to be of importance, which is what the people believe as well So you you've you've submitted this bill before or it's been introduced in previous legislators Yeah, well most recently we had a bill that we submitted last year But it was a very different bill in that It would have been funded with an increase in the GT One half percent increase, but yeah, yeah, so you know where that went last year But also the Nate, you know We talked earlier about this bill and the fact that it's really a small step and that we you know at most We may help a thousand families in the first year or two but the bill that we had last year was sort of a let's try to do everything at once bill and It was great in that sense that it would have done so much, but it would have taken five years Had it passed to accumulate the money in the pot Would have been able to that yeah, so yeah, yeah, so this I think is Yeah, it's better, but let me ask you you know I'm beginning to see this session as the session of the kupuna Really because Marsha Joyner who appears on our show on a regular basis Is trying to advance a bill? It's a death with dignity bill They've been trying to get a bill of that nature passed for 20 years, but this sounds like a good session for it And that would that would make it easier on a lot of people And I think the state would be better off for that bill But my question is is there is there an intersection? Is there a relationship? Do you see a common denominator between your bill affecting the lives of kupuna and the death with dignity bill? That likewise certainly affects their lives Well, I would I wouldn't tie us to the death with dignity bill I personally have a lot of concerns about that one, but there are there's a group of folks like ourselves and and folks who work with other social service Entities and we call ourselves the kupuna caucus and and that group meets monthly and There are there are there's a total of seven bills that the kupuna caucus Has said, you know, yes, we will support all of these bills because we see that they all Impact services to our seniors that we really care about And what we're saying, you know what I see the commonality between all of these different bills that are geared towards kupuna towards the elderly Population is that there are different fragments of society that are realizing We have to do something about this. We was treasure. We're living we're living longer lifespans Which is wonderful, which is great, but that comes with its own set of difficulties and our issues with our with our society and we're not really set up for that We're just as a community We really weren't set up to be able to live these longer lifespans and be able to take care with dignity and with care We're to offer our kupuna stuff. You have to address it like homelessness. We had so it's a problem a growing problem We have to the numbers are, you know formidable. We have to address it So among the people who support your bill There are I suppose the caregivers themselves The hundred fifty hundred fifty thousand, did you say? Yeah? I think that's the estimate from AARP. I believe yeah, so if they if they and I assume AARP is supporting you Yes, yeah, yes, so are they are the caregivers going to be down there tomorrow? You'll have a lot of people if they are yes, we're hoping we're hoping we don't know for 150,000 of them will show up But we're hoping that that at least a few dozen of them will be able to join us to be able to come in I mean one of the things about being a caregiver is that you don't have a lot of free time to be able to do that So that's why they have people like us to be able to speak for them. And that's That's a population. I heard from a friend who is involved in a service organization that He says, you know, he's an employer But he also talked about how service drops dramatically when somebody becomes a caregiver and saying that's another kind of Productivity that we're not looking at saying where we in our organization We help a lot of people but as soon as somebody becomes a caregiver, they have very little disposable income They have very little disposable time all of their time goes into this caregiving. So we we have this brain Braindrain in another way where people are having they're not part of the community anymore because they're so involved in what they have to do We need to incentivize them to spend that time be part of the process and if we don't they won't yeah It's that simple. So how do you define a caregiver? What is a caregiver? Is there an existing system or definition to certify caregivers? There is a system that in order to be able for for our bill in order to be able to receive the $70 benefit It doesn't go directly to the family It will go to a certified caregiver that is registered with the state and they do have a process When we talk about caregiver as far as they will benefit from this We are talking about unpaid family caregivers who have no formal training who are just loved ones who are you know Wanting to take care of their of their loved ones what is great about this bill What we think is that it will incentivize the the industry of home caregiving of the professional side It will be dollars that will they will infiltrate infiltrate the the community that weren't elsewhere Weren't there and hopefully help those families who wouldn't otherwise have been able to afford those kind of services So we think that there will be a higher level of trained caregivers possibly in areas that where there is no caregiving I had a call from somebody on North Shore They're saying we're trying to start caregiving business here because we have a huge need, but we don't have The type of services out here and nobody's willing to drive out here So what we're hoping is by putting some of these dollars into the into those communities that will incentivize the industry grow And be able to meet the demand that there is out there who would actually Implement administer this program you mentioned An executive office on aging would it be that office that would have missed this program? That's right So the executive office on aging is under the Department of Health. It's an office that is that is Set up by the Department of Health to work on the infrastructure for aging population And they have a lot of different programs that they that they are a part of and some of those is having some county offices That are able to administer some of these programs, so that's what it will fall under It's under the executive office and they happy to do it today support the bill They do support the bill they had some amendments to the last version There was a just a little bit technical, you know, let's clean this up and it cleaned that up Yeah, but to them the idea is that this is a great service This is something that they have seen and you know, it's one of those things that makes sense They've been when we kind of hear about it that we say well, of course it does make sense This of course there's caregivers who have nowhere else to turn to we should do something about them And we should do something to help we have to be in touch and understand and sympathize with our community This is part of that so I again I commend you guys on your choice of issues But let me take the next and last couple of minutes of the show to find out more about you and your organizations So Kathy what why are you involved in this issue? What kinds of issues do you like what kind of initiatives you support? What what is faith FAT faith action for community equity? Okay, thanks for asking so face It's an organization that's 21 years old and it is an interfaith group focused on issues of Social justice so we currently and we currently exist on a wahoo and Maui so on a wahoo we have 23 Member units we call them. It's it's an organization of organizations. So I don't belong as an individual You couldn't belong as an individual but through my church. I belong most of the 23 member units are churches, but also We have a developer who focuses on developing affordable housing We have the local five the folks who work in in the hotels and in health care So and and what face does through its member units every year is I have what we call listening sessions where people From the ground up people start talking about well What issues are important and within each unit they identify maybe their top three and then we bring all the units together and say well What did we all identify and then we do the old paper? You know you've got three post-its and you vote on your top three and so that's how we choose and this is one of those For this year this and the other one which you mentioned already is affordable housing So those are faces top two issues for this year Okay, how about you Pedro so I work for an organization called caring across generations It's a national organization that has influence over a lot of different states They work on issues like to think about it as a movement rather than an organization work on issues such as family-paid leave Long-term care and the idea is that there should be an infrastructure For working families across the age spectrum and that there is a lot of these economic issues that impact the working family We are heading the the campaign for care for our kupuna Here locally and definitely would like to invite any of your viewers to go to our website care for kupuna org That's care the number four and kupuna dot org. I have to explain that because otherwise Yeah, and there we have all of the information about this movement about all the different work that we're doing across the island and Yeah, thank you so much. Yeah, good for you. You guys are dedicated and you're spot on with this issue Thank you so much for coming down and talking about it here on think deck on community matters Pedro Haro and Kathy Jay Cox. Thank you so much