Harris proposes that Medicare cover long-term care at home – msn/WaPost

A new home care benefit could help many people, but the cost may make it difficult to get through Congress. The Harris campaign needs to provide more details about the plan.

Harris wants Medicare to cover home care. How will she pay for that? – WaPost editorial board

“Home health care is a cost burden on families. Harris’s plan could be a cost burden on taxpayers.”

“KFF, a nongovernmental organization that tracks health trends, reports that “in 2023, the median annual costs of care in the U.S. were $62,400 for full-time homemaker services … $68,640 for full-time home health aide care … and $288,288 for round-the-clock home health aide services.” Long-term care needs vary enormously, and any effort to “tailor” them, as the Harris proposal envisions, would likely involve trade-offs families would resist. Ms. Harris says she wants to expand the caregiver workforce (there’s a shortage now) and raise wages; both might be necessary, but both also push in the direction of higher costs.”

Harris says her administration would offset the cost of a new Medicare home care benefit by negotiating lower Medicare drug prices — which could initiate an interesting political dynamic. Supporters of an expanded home health benefit could be rallied to erode the powerful Pharma lobby’s resistance to greater government control of drug prices.

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