NAC Raises Alarm Over Deep Medicaid Cuts that Threatens the Nation’s Care Infrastructure
The National Alliance for Caregiving (NAC) strongly condemns the Senate’s passage of a budget reconciliation package that imposes devastating cuts to Medicaid while dramatically increasing the burden on America’s already strained family caregivers.
With stricter work requirements and broader coverage reductions than the previous House version, this bill inflicts serious and lasting harm on millions of family caregivers – including 4.3 million who rely on Medicaid for their healthcare coverage. These Americans provide essential care to family and friends with chronic conditions, disabilities, and serious illnesses.
Across the country, caregivers face impossible choices. Vanessa Herrera in Arroyo Seco, New Mexico, administers life-saving medication to her 6-year-old son with a rare bleeding disorder – treatment only possible through Medicaid. Anita in Georgia retired early to care for her mother, who is blind, has dementia, and battles multiple cancers. Medicaid makes their care work possible. Now that future looks uncertain.
Under the Senate plan, family caregivers will face punitive work requirements, new eligibility barriers, and burdensome administrative red tape to maintain coverage for themselves and their care partners.
While the Senate bill includes limited exemptions for some family caregivers, these provisions are woefully inadequate and abandon millions who need protection most. Family caregivers of older adults and people with serious illnesses remain completely exposed to losing coverage, despite providing round-the-clock care that keeps families together and saves the healthcare system billions of dollars.
“This bill dismantles the care infrastructure that millions of family caregivers depend on to survive,” said Jason Resendez, president and CEO of the National Alliance for Caregiving. “It slams family caregivers with punishing bureaucratic barriers while they’re already drowning in responsibilities, all in a country that refuses to recognize their critical work. Instead of supporting these essential Americans, policymakers are abandoning them when they need help most.”
The legislation shifts massive Medicaid costs to states ill-equipped to absorb them, jeopardizing critical services like home- and community-based care, respite programs, and transportation assistance. For family caregivers, these supposedly “optional” services are lifelines that make care at home possible.
The Senate’s proposal compounds these problems by restricting provider taxes – a longstanding mechanism states use to sustain hospital payments and balance Medicaid budgets. These cuts will cascade through safety-net systems, threatening home-based care availability and weakening the providers who help caregivers keep loved ones out of institutional settings. Rural communities face particular peril, with hospitals at risk of closure due to funding shortfalls.
Political support for caregiving has historically transcended party lines. From the RAISE Family Caregiving Act to the National Strategy to Support Family Caregivers, Congress has recognized the central role caregivers play in our healthcare system. Family caregivers make America strong – yet this vote weakens families’ ability to care for their relatives at home, forcing them toward costly institutional care.
Alongside our partners, we urge Congress to oppose these devastating Medicaid cuts. Gutting Medicaid doesn’t reduce costs – it redistributes them to the shoulders of unpaid caregivers and struggling families. America’s family caregivers deserve better.
