Kamala Harris proposed a new campaign policy Tuesday to help seniors “age in place,” a popular concept allowing older Americans to receive care at home through Medicare.
The vice president and 2024 Democratic presidential nominee, speaking on ABC talk show “The View,” said the proposal would allow families to keep their loved ones at home, rather than in nursing facilities, and avoid the associated costs of in-facility care.
The proposal would cover home health aides, among other services, and provide relief to family members who juggle their careers and caregiving responsibilities.
“It’s about dignity for that individual, it’s about independence for that individual,” Harris said. “I mean people are declining in skills to some extent, but their dignity and pride has not declined. They want to stay in their home.”
Harris emphasized that the proposal would benefit the “sandwich generation,” adults who are both raising children and caring for aging parents. This demographic also has a larger percentage of undecided voters, according to campaign data.
The issue is personal to Harris, who often talks of taking care of her mother, Shyamala, as she died of breast cancer.
The weight of unpaid caregiving has become a topic of recent presidential elections, with President Joe Biden also addressing it in his 2020 platform. More than 37 million people provide unpaid care to elders, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The proposal is targeted at swing state and undecided voters.
More than 30 percent of older women in Michigan, North Carolina and Georgia identify as family caregivers, according to an AARP battleground poll. The same poll found that the average caregiver spends at least 20 hours per week providing care for family members.
That’s because Medicare only covers home care in very limited circumstances. Many people who need home care find themselves needing to “spend down” their assets to qualify for Medicaid, which does cover long-term care, including home care.
“They have to spend down everything — basically feel like they’re going broke — in order to qualify for Medicaid assistance,” Harris said Tuesday.
A senior administration official said the benefit will be paid for by expanding Medicare’s drug price negotiation program and pharmacy benefit manager reform. But creating a new benefit in Medicare and expanding the drug price negotiation program would need congressional approval. On Tuesday, Harris argued those savings would be well-applied to such a benefit.
Biden previously proposed $400 billion in spending to expand Medicaid coverage of home and community-based services as part of his domestic policy package in 2021.
While some of the package eventually became law, spending for home and community-based services was cut because of concerns from some moderate Democrats over spending, illustrating the difficulties of finding the federal dollars to address the long-term care crisis.
Former President Donald Trump has not released a comprehensive long-term care plan, but in a response to Harris’ announcement, his campaign highlighted the 2024 GOP platform, which states Republicans will “support policies that help seniors remain in their homes,” and “shift resources back to at-home senior care, overturn disincentives that lead to care worker shortages.”
That platform also endorses tax credits for unpaid family caregivers.
“President Trump will reverse the decline and safeguard a prosperous future for our Great Seniors and all American families,” the campaign said in a news release.