Fans of Kamala Harris’s “Medicare at Home” proposal should study up on New York’s bloated home healthcare system, which covers about 850,000 people. Its large scale and rapid growth embody a central challenge for any effort to expand Medicare into long-term care.
As released Oct. 8, Ms. Harris’s plan calls for Medicare, the national health plan for the elderly and disabled, to cover the cost of home health aides for enrollees who need ongoing help with daily tasks such as bathing, eating and going to the bathroom. Her campaign lauded the proposal as historic. Yet the expansion would effectively replace similar services now provided through Medicaid, the national health plan for the poor.
Compared with the status quo, this swap would have three major implications.
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