Home care advocates, those needing services say Build Back Better funding

Angela Phillips-Mills’ mother, who is in her late 70s, has had two serious abdominal surgeries this year, including one shortly before President Joe Biden’s inauguration and another in September. Her mother will be coming home from a rehabilitation center this week, but her insurance is going to pay only for about six to eight weeks of home care. She’ll likely need much more than that. Anything additional will have to be paid for out of pocket at about $60 an hour.

“My mom barely breaks the poverty level on her Social Security. We’re not asking for the kind of benefits that people of means take for granted. We’re just asking not to be put in a strained financial position,” said Phillips-Mills, a 58-year-old accountant who has cerebral palsy. 

Increasing home- and community-based services for older and disabled people is part of the current framework of Biden’s Build Back Better bill, which seeks to expand the nation’s social safety net.

Congress has been scrambling to try to finish hammering out an agreement on the centerpiece of Biden’s legislative agenda, but those who advocate for and work in the home care industry, as well as those in need of services, already view the proposed spending plan as a long-awaited and critical first step to reducing backlogs for care and expanding home-based services.

“The demand has for decades far exceeded what the capacity is within the system,” said Eric Buehlmann, deputy executive director for public policy at the National Disability Rights Network. “It’s not that the system can’t do it. The fact is that the investment and the movement of funds and resources has not followed the same robustness.”

People in need of home care often must qualify for home- and community-based services waivers under Medicaid, the state and federal program providing health care coverage for those with low wages. 

More than 800,000 people who are eligible for care under Medicaid have been unable to receive it because of backlogs and funding, the White House said in social media post.

“We’re going to expand services for seniors so families can get help from well-trained, well-paid professionals to help them take care of their parents at home — to cook a meal for them, to get their groceries for them, to help them get around, to help them live in their own home with the dignity they deserve to be afforded,” Biden said last month.

Biden’s original proposal of $400 billion in investments for home- and community-based services was reduced to $150 billion during negotiations.

Vicki Hoak, the executive director of the Home Care Association of America, said the organization was “disappointed” by the reduction in proposed funding, “but we also recognize that this is a very big step and it’s about consensus and reaching compromise.” 

“I just hope that people realize that we really do need to have some kind of strategy for taking care of this growing elderly population in this country. So it’s really critical,” she said.

Patti LaFleur, 35, quit her job as a teacher to help take care of her mother, Linda LaTurner, 73, who has dementia and Type 1 diabetes and requires 24/7 care. They…