Should Government Provide Free Home Health Care for the Elderly?

Health Wellness

As the midterm elections are drawing near, we are hearing more and more about free Medicare for all or universal healthcare for all. These are being pushed by Democrats in hopes of winning votes from a gullible public.

It’s already been reported that free Medicare for all will cost taxpayers about $32 trillion over ten years or an average of $3.2 trillion a year. As I’ve pointed out before, that is almost equal to America’s annual budget for EVERYTHING. Free Medicare for all is NOT free, but will mandate that the government at least double your taxes in order to pay for it. Additionally, these estimates of cost often fall short of reality, meaning that it could cost even more and force raising taxes more than just doubling.

Some Democrats are trying to win older voters by pushing an initiative in their state to provide free home health care.

Kaiser Health News reports:

“As Election Day draws near, a ballot initiative in Maine to provide universal home care is shining a spotlight on the inadequacies of the nation’s long-term care system.”

“The essential problem: Although most older adults want to live at home when their health starts to decline or they become frail, programs that help them do so are narrow in scope, fragmented and poorly funded.”

Medicare’s home care benefits are limited to seniors and adults with disabilities who are homebound and need skilled services intermittently. State Medicaid programs vary widely but are generally restricted to people at the lower end of the income ladder. Long-term care insurance is expensive and covers only a small slice of the older population.”

“That leaves millions of middle-class families struggling to figure out what to do when an older relative develops a serious chronic illness, such as heart failure, or suffers an acute medical crisis, such as a stroke.”

If you are a senior, this sounds great, especially since many seniors cannot afford home health care if they don’t have coverage that provides for it.

In Maine, about 20% of the population is 65 and older so that’s a lot of votes and like so many other states, that percentage is increasing yearly.

Ai-Jen Poo, co-director of Caring Across Generations, an organization working to expand long-term care services across the U.S commented:

“We’re about to have the largest older population we’ve ever had, which is going to need exponentially more care than has ever been needed before. And we’re not prepared.”

So, how do they intend to pay for free home health care for those that need it?

“Funding for the new program would come from a new 3.8 percent tax on wages and non-wage income that isn’t taxed by Social Security: a threshold of $128,400 per person in 2018. Between $180 million and $310 million would be raised annually, according to various estimates.”

Yep, they will have to increase taxes on everyone to pay for the FREE program. If you make  $50,000 a year, that trifle 3.8% adds up to $1,900 additional withholding from your paycheck or an average of $158.33 per month. Don’t know about you, but I can’t afford to lose another $158 a month, can you?

Government Programs Home Health Care Seniors

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