Kamala Harris Proposes Medicare Cover In-Home Healthcare

Vice President Kamala Harris announced a proposal for Medicare to cover long-term care at home, tackling a major expense. 

Currently, Medicare does not cover long-term-care expenses, meaning Americans have to find other ways to pay for long-term care. And those costs can be high: A home health aide can cost up to $75,500 annually, according to the 2023 Genworth Cost of Care survey, while a semi-private room in a skilled nursing facility can cost $104,000.

Speaking with "The View" on Tuesday, Harris cited the desire to support people's "independence" and "dignity" with this proposal, saying: "People are of declining skills, to some extent, but their dignity, their pride has not declined. They want to stay in their home, they don't want to go somewhere else. Plus, for the family to send them to a residential care facility, to hire somebody, is so expensive."

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The Democratic presidential candidate, who mentioned her own experience caring for her mother who died of cancer in 2009, also suggested this proposal would help members of the "sandwich generation," who are taking care of both their parents and their own children at the same time. 

"We're finding that so many are then having to leave their job, which means leaving a source of income. Not to mention the emotional stress," she said. 

This is likely a popular proposal, given the high costs of home healthcare and ongoing calls for it to be covered by Medicare; across party and demographic lines, 94% of women surveyed by the National Council on Aging said they support Medicare and Medicaid giving better options to receive care at home rather than have to go to a nursing home. 

The Center for Medicare Advocacy told Kiplinger in a statement it "strongly supports" Harris' proposal, adding that it would "provide immeasurable help to millions of beneficiaries and their families. 

"In order to maximize access to care for people who need it, expansion of home care coverage in Medicare should be combined with enforcing the present benefit, now, for people who qualify for both skilled and aide services," the Center for Medicare Advocacy also said in its statement.

The National Council on Aging, too, applauded the proposal, calling Medicare coverage of home care "a game changer" for families. "Today, older adults either must spend themselves into poverty to qualify for Medicaid or rely on family for the care they need. Coverage would give families a choice — and the dignity they deserve," the organization said.

How would Medicare pay for in-home care?

Of course, this proposal would come with a price, and that price is estimated to be about $40 billion estimated, according to a recent analysis by the Brookings Institute.

Harris, on "The View," addressed the question of how she'd plan to pay for this plan: "Part of what I also intend to do is allow Medicare to continue to negotiate drug prices against these big pharmaceutical companies, which means we are gonna save Medicare the money because we're not going to be paying these high prices."

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) started negotiating with pharmaceutical companies over drug prices as part of the Inflation Reduction Act, which President Joe Biden signed into law in 2022. 

The prices of the first 10 drugs Medicare negotiated were announced in August, and the Congressional Budget Office estimated Medicare will save $100 billion over the next 10 years due to the negotiations. Medicare is set to begin negotiating for up to another 15 drugs in 2025. 

Additionally, the 2024 Democratic platform calls for expanded "traditional Medicare coverage to include dental, vision, and hearing services." 

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