A Bipartisan Majority of Voters Support Expanding Medicare to Include Coverage for Long-Term, In-Home Care Services
By Matthew Cortland
Today, Vice President Kamala Harris announced her support for expanding Medicare to include coverage for long-term, in-home care services for disabled Americans — a policy proposal that a new Data For Progress survey finds is strongly supported by a bipartisan majority of likely voters.
Twenty-nine percent — more than 1 in 4 — of adults in the United States have a disability. But Medicare, a federal health program that primarily serves adults 65 and older and those disabled people who rely on Social Security Disability Income (SSDI), generally does not cover long-term, in-home care services. This creates a significant gap for disabled Americans covered by Medicare who need assistance with everyday activities like bathing, dressing, grooming, eating, and managing medications.
Eligibility for Medicaid coverage of long-term, in-home care services is incredibly complex and varies from state to state. Coverage is means-tested (often requiring that applicants first exhaust all or almost all of their assets), contingent upon demonstrating specific functional limitations, and may even be subject to waiting lists (in 2023, 692,679 disabled Americans were on such waiting lists). All state Medicaid programs are, however, required by law to pay for care provided in institutional settings like nursing homes without delay. This creates a bias that pushes disabled Americans out of their own homes and into institutional settings.
An overwhelming majority of voters, including 91% of Democrats and 86% of Republicans, support expanding Medicare to cover long-term, in-home care services.
The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 allows Medicare to negotiate directly with drug companies to lower the prices of 20 drugs per year, a provision that is strongly supported by voters. When voters were asked if they support using the money saved through those negotiations to pay for expanding Medicare to include coverage for long-term, in-home care, and were presented with an argument in favor and an argument against, 85% of Democrats and 75% of Republicans support doing so.
Together, these findings demonstrate overwhelming, bipartisan support for Harris’ plan to expand Medicare to cover long-term, in-home care services.
Matthew Cortland (@mattbc) is a senior resident fellow at Data for Progress.