I am a parent PCA for my child that has a g-tube and other skilled nursing needs. I have been his PCA for over 2 years during the pandemic. I have been on a waitlist for a nurse for 6 months because a regular PCA is unable to provide the care my child needs. There is such a tremendous shortage of healthcare personnel and NO ONE wants to work for $12 an hour to be our PCA. I am a certified clinical medical assistant and I can’t even find a job outside of my home because there is NO ONE to care for my child. I would love to be able to go back to my regular job and passion and make more money to provide for my family but it has been impossible and these proposed changes are unrealistic and cruel to families. We have to jump through hoops just to care for our own child for minimum wages. It’s humiliating and inhumane. These people who wrote these polices clearly don’t have loved ones that are disabled and are more worried about funding and their bottom line. These changes would force many family’s to lose even more income and suffer more hardship in already difficult times. The cap on hours is also an issue. My child gets 56 hours a week even though he is 24/7 care due to his illness. It hurts single parents too. At this point if this moves forward I will barely be able to pay my bills on the little I make already. We will become even more in poverty because no one wants to look after him and I can’t afford to pay out of pocket for a sitter that has no medical experience. These families have suffered mentally, financially, and so on. Doing this would make matters worse and in return hurt the very community DMAS is supposed to help and support. Keep appendix K standards alive because if you don’t these proposed changes will cause more harm than good and it will be the person who is disabled that suffers the most.