EDWARDSVILLE – Educator Katie Stuart, candidate for the 112^th House District, on Tuesday pledged to oppose the $200 million cuts to home healthcare for seniors in the Governor’s proposed budget that is supported by incumbent Rep. Dwight Kay.
“My own grandparents are in their 90s and I can’t imagine the impact on our family if they were to lose a daily visit from someone who provides them food and checks on their well-being,” Stuart said to a crowd of seniors convened at the Main Street Community Center by the Illinois Alliance of Retired Americans.
Though details are sketchy, the cuts for some 44,000 seniors would be made up via a patchwork and unproven system of food and dry cleaning vouchers, as well as the possibility of robotic monitoring.
“What the governor is proposing makes no sense,” said Tiffany McMorris, a home healthcare worker from nearby Collinsville. “It looks like he just wants to force seniors into (costlier) nursing homes.”
McMorris quit her job as a postal worker to care for her parents and grandparents, as well as other seniors in the Community Care Program now on Rauner’s chopping block.
McMorris and Stuart said they were disappointed that Kay supported Rauner’s manufactured budget crisis that has damaged the Meals on Wheels program, sought to limit eligibility into home care programs, cut training to home healthcare workers, and delayed payments to workers.
Stuart, a mother of two and math educator at SIU Edwardsville, said that, “When elected, I pledge to work for the senior and disability community to make our services better, which will make our state better.”

###