(C) Common Dreams
This story was originally published by Common Dreams and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
A Bipartisan Majority of Voters Support Expanding Medicare to Include Coverage for Long-Term, In-Home Care Services [1]
['Lew Blank']
Date: 2024-10-02
By Matthew Cortland
Today, Vice President Kamala Harris announced her support for expanding Medicare to include coverage for long-term, in-home care services for disabled Americans — a policy proposal that a new Data For Progress survey finds is strongly supported by a bipartisan majority of likely voters.
Twenty-nine percent — more than 1 in 4 — of adults in the United States have a disability. But Medicare, a federal health program that primarily serves adults 65 and older and those disabled people who rely on Social Security Disability Income (SSDI), generally does not cover long-term, in-home care services. This creates a significant gap for disabled Americans covered by Medicare who need assistance with everyday activities like bathing, dressing, grooming, eating, and managing medications.
Eligibility for Medicaid coverage of long-term, in-home care services is incredibly complex and varies from state to state. Coverage is means-tested (often requiring that applicants first exhaust all or almost all of their assets), contingent upon demonstrating specific functional limitations, and may even be subject to waiting lists (in 2023, 692,679 disabled Americans were on such waiting lists). All state Medicaid programs are, however, required by law to pay for care provided in institutional settings like nursing homes without delay. This creates a bias that pushes disabled Americans out of their own homes and into institutional settings.
An overwhelming majority of voters, including 91% of Democrats and 86% of Republicans, support expanding Medicare to cover long-term, in-home care services.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/2024/10/2/a-bipartisan-majority-of-voters-support-expanding-medicare-to-include-coverage-for-long-term-in-home-care-services
Published and (C) by Common Dreams
Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 3.0..
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/commondreams/
