Trending
Maggie Waggoner
Lewisburg
Many of us work hard to care for aging parents while raising our kids. We are the "Sandwich Generation," approximately 23% of U.S. adults, according to an October 2021 Pew Research Center survey. These are adults who have a parent age 65 or older and are either raising at least one child younger than 18 or providing financial support to an adult child.
Nearly 20% of seniors require some kind of help with bathing, eating and other daily life functions. The Department of Health and Human Services estimates that 70% of adults who survive to age 65 develop severe needs before they die, and will incur $120,900 in long-term costs to get help. Families pay for over one-third of that themselves. Medicare typically doesn't cover this kind of long-term care, nor does private insurance.
Kamala Harris proposed a major new initiative: expanding Medicare to cover the cost of long-term care at home. "There are so many people in our country who are right in the middle -- they're taking care of their kids and they're taking care of their aging parents -- and it's just almost impossible to do it all," she said. Harris proposes to cover the costs of this program with savings incurred from negotiating drug prices, which will give families some much-needed assistance.
This is one of several proposals that Harris is developing to help middle-class working people. Give her your vote and let her help you and your family.