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When a state policy assumes care "could go uncompensated," it is describing a person. When paid hours fall, care doesn't stop-it is absorbed silently by working family caregivers at the expense of their jobs, income, sleep, and household stability. By Mark Fukae - Director of Advocacy - Professionals Who Care On Friday my phone rang at work. It was my mother's caregiver. My mother had just had staples removed after a fall and wanted to hear from me, so I stepped away from my

While state budgets track dollars spent with precision, they leave out the invisible safety net keeping thousands of Coloradans at home: working family caregivers. By Mark Fukae - Director of Advocacy - Professionals Who Care 8 percent of Colorado's Medicaid members use long-term services and supports. They account for about 48 percent of Medicaid's General Fund spending. In today's Research Desk, CASI founder Mark Fukae looks at what that number shows and what it leaves out:

Good advocacy requires policy built on evidence, not assumptions. This week, we are resetting our analytical baseline and launching The Research Desk to focus on the unmapped intersection of workplace policy and home care outcomes. By Mark Fukae - Director of Advocacy - Professionals Who Care Advocacy runs on numbers, and this month I had to retire some of mine. For most of 2026, I cited a figure of $33,614 as the yearly cost difference between nursing facility care and home-

IWB Dispatch 6 On Thursday, September 17, the Colorado Commission on Medicaid received a critical update: state Medicaid overspent by $157.9M net ($213M gross) last fiscal year, with a projected $443M increase for the current year-a combined $1.3B to $1.5B budget impact in a single fiscal cycle. By Mark Fukae - Director of Advocacy - Professionals Who Care Thursday's Colorado Commission on Medicaid meeting confirmed $1.3–$1.5 billion in combined Medicaid budget impact - in on

Standing in a field in Estes Park at the 50th Longs Peak Scottish-Irish Highland Festival-listening to bagpipes, singing Gaelic songs with the Hebridean Baker, and watching mountain views-reminds you why Colorado is worth living in. But for family caregivers, even an afternoon off comes with an invisible tax. By Mark Fukae - Director of Advocacy - Professionals Who Care Yesterday I stood in a field in Estes Park and listened to bagpipes while the week kept running in my pocke

Professionals Who Care examines why naming and defining this labor is the crucial first step toward statutory protection. "Caregiving is infrastructure. It has always been infrastructure. It has never been encoded into law." By Mark Fukae - Director of Advocacy - Professionals Who Care The Caring Costs Survey is live at casiadvocacy.org/research. It was built to give a name to the invisible labor that has kept the economy moving for generations - the pivot, the swap, the simu

Major policy milestones aren't just celebrated when a bill passes-they're built brick by brick through rigorous legal vetting, data collection, and statutory analysis. By Mark Fukae - Director of Advocacy - Professionals Who Care Two independent Colorado attorneys have now reviewed the Colorado CARE Act's independence provision - the clause that decouples accommodation rights from leave eligibility - and reached the same conclusion: no preemption problem. The provision holds.

A revenue neutrality argument - and why 731 petition signers are also the most important survey respondent pool in Colorado caregiver policy right now By Mark Fukae - Director of Advocacy - Professionals Who Care In "Care Futures - 33: The Number Colorado's Medicaid Commission Hasn't Seen," Professionals Who Careexposes the critical flaw in the state's caregiver hour cap modeling. The Department of Health Care Policy & Financing (HCPF) projected $1.1 million in savings by cap

Three conversations. One week. The math Colorado's Medicaid Commission hasn't seen. This week, advocacy moves into three critical, load-bearing conversations: Employment Law: Resolving FAMLI and FMLA preemption questions to preserve the Colorado CARE Act's statutory independence. Colorado Commission on Medicaid: Presenting the actuarial gap behind the caregiver hour cap-where just 33 arrangement failures out of 910,000 family caregivers completely erases state fiscal savings.

In "The Infrastructure We Build - Dispatch Two: What Holds," Professionals Who Care addresses the double-edged sword of domestic competence: when we do the job too well without statutory backing, healthcare systems and policymakers assume we don't need help. By Mark Fukae - Director of Advocacy - Professionals Who Care The second dispatch of The Infrastructure We Build is live this weekend, and it carries a number that reframes what petition support can look like. Ten people

For August 1, 2026, Professionals Who Care launches "The Infrastructure We Build - Dispatch One" to challenge how healthcare systems and policy models define "support." By Mark Fukae - Director of Advocacy - Professionals Who Care This week, the orthopedic imaging confirmed callus formation at the fracture site around my mother Rose's hip prosthesis. For a periprosthetic fracture in a 94-year-old with advanced dementia, callus is the word you want to hear. The body building n

A technical review with Colorado's civil rights agency surfaced two hard questions. Here's what happened when I listened. The Math of Prevention: For July 25, 2026, Professionals Who Care breaks down what Colorado's Department of Regulatory Agencies (DORA) sunset review data reveals about the real financial return on supporting family caregivers.Opponents of caregiving legislation often cite initial implementation costs as a burden. But when you examine the regulatory math, t

What discharge preparation actually costs - and what happens when a family can't afford it. By Mark Fukae - Director of Advocacy - Professionals Who Care Rose is being discharged from Julia Temple skilled nursing facility on July 23. Before she arrives home, Mark Fukae and his wife Janet are spending this weekend building the infrastructure her return requires: a commode, a bathing bench, an entry ramp, a gait belt for two-person transfers while she remains zero weight bearin

A family caregiver in a week that included an ER, an unanswered brief, and the clearing of Colorado's Medicaid rulemaking board. By Mark Fukae - Director of Advocacy - Professionals Who Care The smart safety system starts with a voice Rose knows: "Mark and Janet are on their way. Please stay where you are."While technology stands watch on the nightstand to patch the holes in physical safety, families are simultaneously forced to build defenses against bureaucratic threats. In

A functional care system cannot evaluate a patient in isolation. True systemic data infrastructure must account for the care dyad, validating the lived expertise of the household to build transition plans that actually stand a chance of surviving outside facility walls. By Mark Fukae - Director of Advocacy - Professionals Who Care American healthcare assesses individuals. It diagnoses individuals, authorizes care for individuals, and produces bills organized around individual

The legal standard for skilled therapy has been settled since 2013. The floor underneath it was never built. A dual-track analysis from inside a family navigating it right now. My mother Rose is in skilled rehab. She got up off the floor. She is not going to get better. Both are true - and only one was ever supposed to determine whether she keeps her care. By Mark Fukae - Director of Advocacy - Professionals Who Care My mother, Rose is recovering from a hip fracture in a skil

When a care crisis hits-like a sudden fall-federal tools like FMLA only protect your right to be entirely absent. They do absolutely nothing to protect the micro-flexibility a working family actually needs to coordinate medical arrivals, manage rehab transfers, and keep a loved one connected to the joy of everyday life. Without a protected statutory floor like the Colorado CARE Act, caregivers remain completely unprotected from blanket workplace policies that can sweep their

The Colorado Commission on Medicaid met for the first time June 4. The brief was already in the room. This is what happened. By Mark Fukae - Director of Advocacy - Professionals Who Care Managing the Wrong Pressure Point: For Dispatch Three of The Long Game, we bring the cold, hard math straight to the floor of the capitol. The floors of the Colorado State Capitol are white marble. But if you look closer - at the wainscoting, the walls, the grand columns - the stone changes.

Five analytical gaps in Colorado's Medicaid Commission documents - and the tools being built to fill them. The Missing Variable: For May 30, 2026, Dispatch Two of The Long Game explores the difficult math state committees face. Tasked with balancing budgets under heavy federal mandates, commissions are forced to focus on cost-containment. However, the formulas often assume a baseline that isn't guaranteed: that family caregiving capacity is permanently stable. Today, we look

Page four. $1.1 million. Divided by $33,614. The answer is 32.7. This is "What Rose Costs" - Dispatch One of The Long Game, documenting the Colorado CARE Act campaign from the inside. #ColoradoCAREAct #TheLongGame #COleg A registered lobbyist reads four Colorado budget documents. He finds the number on page four. This is Dispatch One of The Long Game. By Mark Fukae - Director of Advocacy - Professionals Who Care Page four of Colorado's Budget Reductions Fact Sheet. FY 2026-27