Medicare currently pays for 100 days but only after a three-day stay in a hospital. Medicaid pays for unlimited care in nursing homes as an entitlement but provides home-care reimbursement only to a limited number of people after they are on a waiting list. There is a relatively simple remedy: Amend Medicaid to provide the same entitlement for home and community-based services as are provided for nursing homes. This will help family caregivers a lot.
What should the Biden administration prioritize?
- Nicholas Kristof, Opinion columnist, writes that “Biden’s proposal to establish a national pre-K and child care system would be a huge step forward for children and for working parents alike.”
- The Editorial Board argues the president should address a tax system where “most wage earners pay their fair share while many business owners engage in blatant fraud at public expense.”
- Veronica Escobar, a Democrat who represents El Paso, writes that “the real crisis is not at the border but outside it, and that until we address that crisis, this flow of vulnerable people seeking help at our doorstep will not end.”
- Gail Collins, Opinion columnist, has a few questions about gun violence: “One is, what about the gun control bills? The other is, what’s with the filibuster? Is that all the Republicans know how to do?”
Stephen F. Gold
Philadelphia
The writer is a retired disability lawyer.
To the Editor:
I was really moved by Kate Washington’s essay and so sad for America. You probably get fed up with people writing letters saying how good their system is elsewhere. Well, here’s another one!
I’m from Australia, and while things are a long way from perfect, here is our experience after my husband’s catastrophic spinal injury nearly two years ago. My husband had seven months in a hospital, including intensive care and rehab (free); three months of intensive physical therapy at home (free); 12 months of follow-up with the spinal outreach team (free); the option for continuing home care and physical therapy (free).
I am his caretaker, and it can still be hard at times, but I feel that I can rely on community and health support when needed. I am eligible for carer’s leave and an annual carer’s allowance of $3,000 anytime I need it. All for 1.5 percent of my income a year via my taxes while I’m working, and free after that.
Diane Brown
Sydney, Australia
To the Editor:
I survived a 10-year caregiver role for my Alzheimer’s-stricken spouse. Death saved him eight years ago.
We unpaid caregivers hold our shrinking world together, shunned by friends who decline to sit at a dinner table with a dementia patient. Families live far away, arrive occasionally for the luxury of a social visit unaware of the trials of the stressed, sleep-deprived, frantic caregiver, her world flittering apart.
We write alimony checks to an ex-wife, are consumed by financial fear, enroll our loved one in clinical trials, travel for a specialist’s opinion, walk away from our careers, weep for the daily loss of a spouse, seek a therapist who helps us scale the hurdles.
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