A Newly Unveiled Plan to Invest $400B into Home Base Care! Monumental!!

The Biden Administration recently unveiled an ambitious $2 trillion Infrastructure plan that would include $400 billion directed into home- and community-based services (HCBS). “The HCBS expansion under Medicaid can support well-paying caregiving jobs that include benefits and the ability to collectively bargain, building state infrastructure to improve the quality of services and to support workers,” the proposal states. “This will improve wages and quality of life for essential home health workers and yield significant economic benefits for low-income communities and communities of color.”

As long-term care institutions were hardly hit with the COVID-19 pandemic, “there's a much greater understanding now that it is not a good thing to be stuck in long-term care institutions" and that community-based care is an "essential alternative, which the vast majority of people would prefer," according to Ari Ne'eman, senior research associate at Harvard Law School's Project on Disability.

Home and community-based services help people who need significant assistance live at home as opposed to nursing homes. Home care services workers, such as caregivers and nurse assistants would benefit from the $400 billion proposal making the market more affordable. 

As for now, the plan still have to pass the Senate. Aside from the popular support, the plan will face strong opposition in Washington and should be voted in the next couple of weeks.