The final passage of this budget reconciliation package represents a profound betrayal of the millions of Americans navigating complex care for friends and family.
“This legislation weakens the healthcare foundation that enables ordinary people to provide extraordinary care in their own homes,” said Jason Resendez, President and CEO of the National Alliance for Caregiving. “By imposing harsh work requirements and slashing Medicaid coverage, Congress will make family caregiving harder for the very Americans who save our healthcare system billions of dollars through their devotion.”
The human cost is staggering. Parents caring for children with disabilities, adult children supporting aging parents, and spouses tending to partners with chronic illnesses will now face an impossible bureaucratic maze just to maintain basic healthcare coverage. These are not statistics – they are neighbors, friends, and family members whose quiet heroism keeps our communities whole.
While we appreciate the members from both parties who courageously stood their ground in support of Medicaid and the care it provides, today’s outcome falls far short of what our nation’s family caregivers deserve.
“We are deeply grateful to the family caregivers and advocates from across the nation who organized, shared their stories, and made tens of thousands of calls to elected representatives,” added Resendez. “The ground is shifting under us like never before, but we’re still standing. I am confident the drumbeat for care will only grow louder. It has to.”
Without robust public programs like Medicaid, Medicare, and the Older Americans Act, we cannot advance the goals outlined in the bipartisan National Strategy to Support Family Caregivers or make meaningful progress in addressing our nation’s deepening care crisis.
Moving forward, we remain committed to fighting the most devastating impacts of this legislation on our nation’s family caregivers. We will work tirelessly to champion the infrastructure and support systems they need to sustain care for older adults, people with disabilities, and people with serious illnesses.
