The Build Back Better Act promises to finally remedy the disastrous way we take care of the elderly in America. The pandemic revealed the perils of warehousing seniors in understaffed and even dangerous nursing homes. Large majorities prefer to age in place or receive assistance with a disability at home, but the supportive care needed for this is outrageously expensive and scarce. Poorer people must literally drain all of their resources to get Medicaid to pay for home care, and even then they can languish on a wait list for years. Moreover, while home care work is one of the fastest-growing professions in the economy, it’s also one of the lowest-paid, averaging about $12 an hour.
Fixing home and community-based services (HCBS) involves two essential stages: increasing affordable access to services, and raising the living standards of the direct-care workforce. Making care work more remunerative doesn’t matter if not enough people can afford it, and increasing access won’t happen if the work is so low-paying that people must constantly leave the profession.
Read Full Article »