As people age, the question arises of whether they can live independently at home. Much research shows that it is best, both physically and mentally, for old people to continue to live in their own homes as much as possible, rather than moving into homes they are unfamiliar with in new areas with, where they don’t know anyone, and out of touch with their social network. But as they deteriorate physically, they may need some forms of assistance with some day-to-day activities, and this can be done with aides who can come in for brief periods to take care of things. and to check in on them.

But most health care insurance does not cover this and so families have to take care of it. But if they cannot find a way to personally do so, either because they are physically unable or working or do not live close by, that results in older people being forced to move into nursing homes or other assisted living facilities.

Kamala Harris has put forward a good proposal to deal with this problem.

Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday announced a plan for Medicare to cover long-term-care services at home, a significant expansion of the program that would be aimed at helping tens of millions of Americans who are caring for aging parents.

Harris’s announcement was designed to address the growing number of elderly Americans with serious medical needs who hope to stay in their own homes, as well as the children and other relatives who tend to them with little financial help.

The problem has grown increasingly acute in recent years as the baby-boomer generation ages, studies suggest. Medicare offers coverage for at-home services only under narrow circumstances and on a short-term basis, and most private insurance plans do not cover long-term, at-home care.

That leaves many Americans placing their elderly parents in nursing homes, which can cost thousands of dollars a year, if not more.

Harris, in an appearance on ABC’s “The View,” a daytime show hosted by a panel of women, said she wanted to help the “sandwich generation” in particular — people who are caring for their children and aging parents at the same time. She said the issue resonated for her because she cared for her mother while she was dying of cancer.
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The proposal, however, would face serious challenges in becoming law, since many Republicans would probably oppose such a costly expansion of Medicare. But it could prove popular with elderly and working-class voters, and is part of a suite of proposals Harris has offered aimed at families’ economic needs, from medical debt relief to a cap on prescription drugs to a $6,000 child tax credit.

As Americans are living longer but often with challenging medical conditions, millions of Americans who must care for elderly parents have few options to help cover the sometimes exorbitant cost.

Medicare is the best health care program in the US. It is run by the government and paid for out of taxes. But it is only available for people over 65. Bernie Sanders has long championed the idea of a universal, single-payer government-run health program. But rather than creating a whole new program from scratch, with all the complications that would inevitably arise, he has proposed ‘Medicare For All’, a plan that slowly expands Medicare by adding new age cohorts steadily to it, so that the program can adjust smoothly. It would start with including infants and young children in it and lowering the age of eligibility for old people, and then slowly increasing the age of eligibility of children and lowering that of adults (say by annual ten-year increments) so that the gap of uncovered people in the middle, which mostly consists of young and middle-aged adults who are largely healthy, gets steadily smaller until eventually it disappears and everyone is covered.