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Local home health care workers gathered outside of Rep. Jared Huffman’s Eureka district office this afternoon to demonstrate against a Congressional Republican budget proposal that would slash billions of dollars in spending on Medicaid, threatening health care coverage for some of the 80 million U.S. adults and children enrolled in the safety net program, according to the Associated Press and other news outlets.

Clad in their custom-issue purple t-shirts, the assembled union members are employed through California’s In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) program, which provides assistance to seniors and disabled individuals while allowing recipients to remain in their homes.

Jonathan Peña, an organizer with SEIU Local 2015, said the GOP budget proposal, which aims to reduce federal spending by $880 billion over the next decade, would create an existential threat to the IHSS program. Roughly $15.3 billion of the program’s $25 billion annual budget currently comes via federal funding.

“So if this passes, it’s either going to get rid of the IHSS program or it’s going to defund it by a large amount, which means people are not going to have care,” Peña said. “People are going to be homeless, and the economy is going to get even worse.”

Neither Huffman nor any members of his staff were present at the demonstration, and while the North Coast’s Congressional representative has voiced support for in-home caregivers, the demonstrators said they hoped to reinforce that stance and encourage him to convince his Republican colleagues to oppose the spending bill.

[CORRECTION/UPDATE: Local District Representative John Driscoll met with the demonstrators shortly after the Outpost interviewed them.]

Some of the workers described what the loss of the program would mean to them personally.

“I have a daughter who’s 13 and has severe autism, and I am her mom and her caregiver,” said a care worker named Danielle. She said it’s already difficult to find backup help. “Nobody wants to do this work. I can’t get respite care; I can’t get any help. So if this [spending proposal] goes through, I’ll have to get another job and find somebody to take care of my daughter, which is already impossible.”

With a vote on the spending bill scheduled for early next week, Peña said he and his fellow demonstrators hoped to drop off letters for Huffman in which IHSS caregivers tell their stories and describe how they’d be affected if IHSS ceases to exist.

“The elderly are going to be left to die in their homes,” said Heidi Chandler, another union member at today’s gathering. “The person I take care of doesn’t have transportation. I do his shopping and his medicines, everything. I’m the only contact he has.”

Danielle wondered how the budget might impact The Glen Paul School, which serves severely disabled students at its Eureka main campus and in classrooms across the county. 

“The Area 1 on Aging also is going to be affected by this, and they provide meals on wheels,” Chandler said. “I mean, it’s going to devastate Humboldt County if this happens.”

SEIU Local 2015 members plan to demonstrate again outside the Humboldt County Courthouse on Monday.