As the 2024 presidential campaign hurtles towards the finish line, we need to focus more than ever on the fact that the election results will impact the daily lives of Americans from coast to coast. It will matter to all of us who wins the White House.
Now, more than ever, we need to take a deeper dive into what the presidential candidates propose. Last week, VicePresident Harris proposed a ground-breaking proposal to expand Medicare coverage to provide home care to the millions of families who struggle to pay for long-term care. According to the independent and well-respected Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), 14.7 million Medicare beneficiaries would benefit from this proposal. In addition to covering care at home, Harris proposes that Medicare cover vision and hearing as well.
Many people mistakenly assume that Medicare already covers care at home. Instead, Medicare home health care is very limited. As KFF points out, “home health aide services for people who need skilled services on a part-time or intermittent basis, such as nursing or physical therapy, and are “homebound.” Because of the skilled care requirement, Medicare does not cover home care for many people who need help on an ongoing basis due to limitations in activities of daily living or cognitive impairments, but don’t also require skilled services.”
How much are people paying out of their own pockets for home care? According to the KFF, half of all people who used long-term care or paid fora family member’s care had to cut back their spending on food, clothing, or basic household items to pay for this care.
When faced with Medicare’s lack of coverage for home care, far too many families are faced with the option of spending down their assets to qualify for Medicaid. Even if families make this difficult and truly heart wrenching decision, Medicaid services are provided at the discretion of the individual states. Furthermore, roughly 700,000 people are on waiting lists in the states for Medicaid home care benefits.
Now, the question you may be asking is: how does Vice President Harris plan to pay for her Medicare at home proposal? The answer is that she will increase Medicare’s ability to negotiate for prescription drugs thus saving the program the funds necessary to pay for the new home care benefit.
Harris’ expanded Medicare coverage would also save the program money because it would reduce hospitalizations while providing care for people where they want it — at home.
For years, politicians have danced around the issue of long-term care. Everyone acknowledges the problem but few are bold or care enough to propose real solutions. Thoughts and prayers for family caregivers are nice but they do little to solve the problem. Vice President Harris has proposed a step that will go a long way towards solving our nation’s long term care crisis. If you are a caregiver or an individual receiving care (and sooner or later we all will be one or the other), you have an obligation to vote for Kamala Harris so she can work to enact her Medicare.
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