FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 10, 2024
CONTACT: Daniela Perez, [email protected]
Kamala Harris’s Historic Home Care Expansion Plan is a Win for Working Families and Care Economy
Harris’s plan would take a huge financial and emotional weight off of workers and families
Sandwich generation caregivers across the country saw headline after headline in the last 24 hours about Vice President Harris’ new plan to cover long term care at home through Medicare. It’s a commonsense proposal that will take a huge financial and emotional weight off of workers and families.
See below for a quote from Ai-jen Poo, founder and senior adviser to Care in Action, and select coverage and social media highlighting how Vice President Harris’s plan will lower families’ costs and help them find the care options that are right for them and their loved ones.
“Vice President Harris has put forward an answer to questions that keep one in four Americans up at night: how on earth do I care for my aging parents and my kids, and keep my job? Why is every option unaffordable? By allowing Medicare to cover long-term care at home, she’s helping seniors and people with disabilities live independently and with dignity, she’s taking a huge financial and emotion weight off of families across the country. And don’t forget: while Vice President Harris wants to strengthen and expand Medicare, President Trump has tried to cut Medicare in every single one of his budgets, has called for raising the retirement age to 70, and his Project 2025 plan would raise families’ costs by $4000 a year. This is a difference we’re hearing about nonstop on the doors, and it’s a difference that’s going to matter as tens of millions of caregivers cast their ballots.”
See coverage below:
Axios: Harris campaign leans into long-term care at home
October 9, 2024
By Maya Goldman
- The big picture: America faces a looming senior care crisis, with nearly 70% of older adults projected to need long-term care services that are hard to come by, let alone pay for. Seniors tend to prefer receiving these services at home, and studies show at-home care is more cost-effective than hospital stays.
- “This is huge, because at every kitchen table in America, people are talking about how they’re going to afford the cost of care for their aging parents, their disabled loved ones and their kids,” Ai-jen Poo, a national caregiving policy advocate, told Axios.
NBC: Harris’ mission critical in final push: Wipe out Trump’s advantage on the economy
October 9, 2024
By Sahil Kapur
- Harris unveiled her latest policy plan Tuesday on ABC’s “The View,” hitting both economic and health care concerns with calls to expand Medicare to cover long-term care and home health aides, a major issue for middle-age voters — especially women over 50 — who are caring for both children and aging parents.
- “I took care of my mother when she was sick. She was diagnosed with cancer,” Harris said. “And so it is a personal experience for me, as well as something I care deeply about.”
New York Times: Harris Proposes a Medicare Plan to Provide Home Care, Vision and Hearing Benefits
October 8, 2024
By Reed Abelson and Margot Sanger-Katz
- Home health services that last more than a few months represent “the biggest gap in Medicare,” said David Grabowksi, a health policy professor at Harvard who studies long-term care. Medicaid, the federal-state program for the poor, covers home care for elderly and disabled Americans who need such assistance, but people are forced to spend all their savings to qualify, and often face long waiting periods.
- In a fact sheet published on Tuesday, the Harris campaign also endorsed expanding Medicare to cover vision and hearing benefits — proposals that have been floated before but rejected by Congress. Medicare, the federal insurance program for older Americans, does not cover such services, which many older people use. Some private Medicare Advantage plans offer it as an optional benefit.
CNN: Harris proposes Medicare pay for home health care for first time
By Tami Luhby and Ebony Davis
October 8, 2024
- On the heels of Harris’ announcement, Care in Action PAC — the political arm of an organization advocating for care workers and care givers — announced a multimillion-dollar additional investment across battleground states and praised Harris’ longtime commitment to working adults who care for both their aging parents and their children.
- “This is the financial relief that families are screaming for,” said the group’s executive director Hillary Holley. The money will in part support a new digital ad featuring a woman talking about her mother brushing her hair as a child and how she now has the responsibility of doing the same for her mother and daughter.
TheGrio: Kamala Harris’ proposal for home care could be game changer for Black Americans
By Gerren Keith Gaynor
- Hillary Holley, executive director at Care in Action, told theGrio that Harris’ new proposal for at-home care is a game changer, particularly for Black and brown Americans.
- “I cannot stress how the financial burden of not having Medicare cover long-term care for our aging parents and loved ones is on Black and brown families,” said Holley, whose organization advocates on behalf of millions of U.S. domestic workers, who are mostly women of color and immigrant women.
NPR: Harris proposes Medicare cover home care costs to help the ‘sandwich generation’
October 8, 2024
By Deepa Shivaram
- Harris announced the plan — squarely aimed at “sandwich generation” women who take care of aging parents as well as their own kids — on ABC’s The View, a daytime television talk show popular with middle-aged and older women.
- “There are so many people in our country who are right in the middle. They’re taking care of their kids and they’re taking care of their aging parents, and it’s just almost impossible to do it all, especially if they work,” Harris said.
AP: Harris proposes expanding Medicare to cover in-home senior care
By Will Weissert
October 8, 2024
- Appearing Tuesday on ABC’s “The View,” Harris talked about taking care of her mother when she was dying and personally experiencing the challenges many families face when seeking affordable in-home care for their aging loved ones.
- She promised that if, elected in November, she will seek to expand Medicare, the federal health insurance program for older Americans, so that it covers long-term care and includes services like in-home aides. Harris said aides could help seniors do things as simple as preparing meals or putting on sweaters because it is “about dignity for that individual. It’s about independence for that individual.”
Washington Post: Harris proposes that Medicare cover long-term care at home
October 8, 2024
By: Yasmeen Abutaleb
- Harris’s announcement was designed to address the growing number of elderly Americans with serious medical needs who hope to stay in their own homes, as well as the children and other relatives who tend to them with little financial help.
- The problem has grown increasingly acute in recent years as the baby-boomer generation ages, studies suggest. Medicare offers coverage for at-home services only under narrow circumstances and on a short-term basis, and most private insurance plans do not cover long-term at-home care.
CNBC: Harris proposes expanding Medicare to cover long-term care at home
October 8, 2024
By: Annie Nova
- Vice President Kamala Harris announced a new proposal on Tuesday that would require Medicare to cover the costs of long-term care at home.
- “It’s been a long time – decades – since a presidential candidate put forward a Medicare proposal to help middle income families cope with the crushing cost of home care,” said Tricia Neuman, senior vice president and executive director for Program on Medicare Policy at KFF.
HuffPost: Kamala Harris Proposes Major Initiative To Help Millions Of Seniors — And Their Caregivers
October 8, 2024
By: Jonathan Cohn
- The Democratic nominee has a plan to help the “sandwich generation,” aging Americans and people with disabilities.
- Such a plan could mean the option of staying at home, rather than in a nursing facility, for the millions of seniors and people with disabilities who need help with the daily tasks of life.
Online: Select Tweets from #KamalaWillDeliverCare
“Many felt hope watching this. With this, older folks can stay in their homes, and kids won’t have to face the daunting question of how to afford it. This makes America better! #KamalaWillDeliverCare
- @JoJoFromJerz
- Trump doesn’t talk about managing care for our older & disabled loved ones at home.
He doesn’t talk about the emotional, physical and financial toll it can take on families.
He doesn’t talk about any of that.
Because he doesn’t care.
Kamala Harris cares. #KamalaWillDeliverCare
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About Care Can’t Wait Action:
Care Can’t Wait Action launched in 2023 to mobilize tens of millions of Americans centering care as a winning issue for policymakers, representing one of the largest coalitions of labor unions, advocacy organizations, and grassroots groups focused on care in history. With Americans supporting new investments in care by a wide margin, the coalition has pledged a $50 million investment to mobilize tens of millions of Americans this year.
The Care Can’t Wait Action Coalition includes: ❖ AFL-CIO ❖ AFSCME ❖ American Federation of Teachers ❖ Be A Hero ❖ Care in Action ❖ Child Care for Every Family Action ❖ Community Change Action ❖ Campaign for a Family Friendly Economy ❖ Family Values @ Work Action ❖ MomsRising Together ❖ National Partnership for Women & Families Action Fund ❖ National Women’s Law Center Action Fund ❖ Oxfam America Action Fund ❖ Priorities USA Action ❖ Paid Leave for All Action ❖ Service Employees International Union ❖ Supermajority ❖ United Domestic Workers