What Real People Get About Kamala Harris' Big New Idea

Saturday, October 12, 2024

This week Kamala Harris proposed to have Medicare cover in-home care for seniors and people with disabilities, in what would amount to a major expansion of the beloved federal health insurance program. And while it doesn't appear to have registered as such in the political conversation (more on that in a minute), her plan made an impression on a lot of everyday Americans who heard about it.

Posted by tonyroma at 10:30 PM | 10 COMMENTS | permalink

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Medicare doesn't currently cover long-term care except in limited circumstances, and decent private coverage is almost impossible to find. That leaves Medicaid, which varies by state and requires people to impoverish themselves or transfer assets before they can qualify. Even then, it has limits on home care, often forcing people into nursing homes when they'd rather stay home.

Harris' solution is to make in-home care a regular Medicare benefit, available to all enrollees. Her campaign didn't provide a ton of detail - another reason, I suspect, the political world didn't pay a lot of attention. But the official release cited an independent study that sketched out what such a program could look like and estimated it would require about $40 billion a year in new federal spending.

Harris has suggested offsetting much of the cost with savings from another campaign proposal, one designed to reduce Medicare spending by extracting lower drug prices from manufacturers. Whether that would provide enough money and whether the fiscal tradeoffs are worthwhile are just some of the many questions Harris would have to answer if she were elected and able to pursue the proposal.

But whatever its very real pros and cons, the Harris plan represents one of the first serious, high-profile efforts to address a need that's likely to touch most families eventually, one way or another. That alone makes it worthy of more attention than it's gotten so far.

This could seriously be the issue this election turns on if/when it gets the spotlight it deserves. Millions of Americans on a daily basis are dealing with care issues regarding their grandparents, parents, siblings, children or friends who require more care than they're capable of providing for themselves. And it really doesn't matter how rich or poor one might be or whether you're Republican, Democrat, or none of the above; the stresses and pressures of finding a workable life balance when caring for someone else is incredibly hard for most people.

Extending Medicare services into this realm will unjokingly be a lifesaver for untold millions of caregivers and families all across America. Especially with all the aging Boomers, this policy should resonate with every generation following them. As much as it's a blessing to care for one's parents or grandparents, not everyone has the personal bandwidth to navigate the twists and turns of their own lives and take on the responsibility for a parent(s) no longer able to adequately take care of themselves on a daily basis.

#1 | Posted by tonyroma at 2024-10-11 11:41 PM