People with disabilities or the elderly may be forced to live at a nursing home or other institution as Medicaid cuts make access to home healthcare services harder to access.
States will have to make tough choices about how to absorb or offset the reductions in Medicaid funding.
A quarter of referred patients were turned away from home health care providers because of staff shortages, an industry report says.
“We’ve never invested in the ability of families to afford the care that they need,” says Ai-jen Poo of the National Domestic Workers Alliance.
Medicaid sometimes pays family members to provide in-home care for relatives. But the programs vary from state to state.
Along with money for bridges and highways, the proposal calls for higher wages for home health aides.
