In home caregiving

Expand Medicare to include benefits to cover costs for in home caregiving. Families with special needs children or elderly parents pay tons of money to provide in home caregiving costs that arent currently covered by Medicare.

Most families, like me, with an elderly parent would prefer to keep them at home than place them in a nursing home where they can be subjected to neglect, physical abuse or sexual abuse. I just went through this with an older brother who is in a nursing home and after a spinal operation the nursing home did not take proper care of his wound allowing it to become necrotic. That required an additional hospitalization and plastic surgery to correct.

Keeping family members at home should always be the first choice!

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I support this idea so much. It’s 100%. This is also pro-life. How many parents of disabled children must live in fear that their child might end up getting abused or neglected in some home or institution? How many parents have to stop working altogether because no childcare will take them? I’m scared to become disabled, too. This idea would give back seniors & families freedom. Right now this kind of benefit is only available to extremely low income people (IHSS, for seniors & disabled people who qualify for free Medicaid).

We also need higher staff:resident ratios and better transparency in these group homes and long term care facilities.

Mr. Trump & Kennedy, can you PLEASE support Kathleen’s “in-home caregiving” idea? Otherwise when I get old, I will have to switch to Democrat because they’re the only ones fighting for this policy.

P.S. I also proposed a policy where caregiving workers should have a right to work 8 hours less (unpaid). This way, full time workers don’t have to choose quitting altogether and living completely impoverished as a result. For more details, that idea is part of my proposal called “Paid Maternal Leave, Unpaid intermittent leave and college flexibility.”

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IHSS is available in CA and is not for extremely low income people. You can get an income waiver for Medi-Cal if you make too much, so you can still qualify as well. Parent providers can even work full time while benefitting from this program so they can take care of their special needs children. Keeping family members at home is best, but we also need better quality choices for when we are no longer here on earth and our children still need care and safety.

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I’m only aware that IHSS is only available for people who qualify for zero Share-of-Cost Medi-Cal.

There is no income waiver for seniors to get free Medi-caid, however I have heard of children on the Autism spectrum can sometimes get that income waiver from the local Regional Center, although that doesn’t seem like a simple process.

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I have a 92 mom with alzheimers and i can get her to the doctor, but it’s so difficult. I think this would be life changing to be able to get appts at home and have that covered.

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I support this 100% I was full time caregiver to three disabled relatives – a child, a parent, and a sibling. No one else in the family would care for them because staying home would impact their retirement funds. Now I am retired on minimal SS because I lost decades to caregiving. People who care for their disabled loved ones at home save the state massive amounts of money. Its time to give us the support we need, both when we are actively providing care, and afterwards so we can face our own retirement without being a burden on our families.

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We that take care of elderly parents and someday may need home care. I don’t understand how nursing homes have some coverage but nothing for cheaper care at home until death. Ridiculous that is not covered. Working people do not qualify for state aid so we r punished on home care.

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I take care of my mom in her home, and also for my dad until he passed away. One thing i have found is that medicaid does not want to pay for equipment that bariatrics need because it cost so much more. In turn, i am having to purchase the items myself and anything else that keeps her safe. This is not fair. This is my livelihood and i cant afford to purchase these items and still try to pay my own bills. Medicaid is there for this purpose. Additionally, if at some point she has to be placed in a care facility, her income isnt enough to cover the cost. It is a right to have care and i shouldn’t have to worry about what is going to happen when it gets to that point.

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Love this! Would like to include allowing spouses to provide in home care.

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Keeping our aging population in their homes should be a goal for all citizens. Although not realistic as some elders do not have younger family members to care for them. The biggest barrier that I see with home care is the potential abuse of the system. I have seen far too many cases of younger relatives living off of their elder incomes and in return not providing adequate care for them.

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Yes! This! Currently caring for my mother in law. We have zero desire to place her in a nursing home for the sake of quailty of care and quality of life. Home support needs to be easier to obtain. I have school age children at home, having the ability to access temporary sitter care so I can take my children on an outing or a weekend trip would be so valuable to our family. Something we cannot easily afford. It would be lovely to be able hire who we trust and have ability to pay them. I don’t know how to set that up. I know insurance often gives “cash allowances” for over the counter, bills, food etc.

Veterans too! Obama screwed us caregivers of veterans that served prior to desert storm. I’ve been my biological mother’s caregiver for 11years! No caregiver salary from the VA. They tell me it’s because of the law he put in place. It sucks - mainly because she wasn’t able to raise me after age 6. There’s no telling what experiments were done on her while she was institutionalized. I’m pretty sure she had shock therapy. I read somewhere that she was catatonic for a whole year. She’s 86 (a total bed patient for the last 6 years) now and her memory is not good. Not to mention it’s kinda not cool to bring up old wounds and expect her to be able to discuss it. We use her income to keep up a small life insurance policy , supplemental insurance and a rider she has way outlived , buy supplies that’s not covered by the VA and keep up preps of anything she may need or want. She and I eat 95% unprocessed foods. It’s not cheap and requires a lot of work. But, that’s why she’s still here! Sorry for the ramblings. It’s been a long journey.

This is a extremely important issue. In Oklahoma there is a shortage of rural nursing homes and reliable caregivers. During Covid I brought my Mom home to live her last year with my husband and I . Greatest thing ever. It would have been great if there was a care giver credit.

My husband had to quit his job to take care of my mother-in-law who has dementia. Medicare does not take care of anything. She worked her whole life and was turned down for Medicaid so that we could get some sort of help.

I agree that incentives to home caregiving should be a priority. The fact is, the government often spends more to provide institutional services than it would cost to provide the same services at home.

The goal of the incoming administration is smaller government and less spending, so my question would be how we can meet these goals while supporting home caregiving?

Based on my experience, it seems that family caregivers actually save the taxpayers a lot of money that would otherwise be spent on institutions, skilled nursing facilities, etc. These places are expensive. For that reason, I believe it is better for people and more cost-effective. If incentives were there, more people may be able to provide care in their own homes, which saves taxpayer money.

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