In response to the Harris for President campaign’s announcement of a major Medicare proposal for long-term senior care, DNC National Press Secretary ⁨Emilia Rowland⁩ released the following statement:

“For our seniors and the millions of Americans who are raising kids as they care for aging relatives, Vice President Kamala Harris’ plans to lower the cost of home care, child care, and health care could not stand in starker contrast with Trump’s Project 2025 plans to rip away health care and raise the cost of prescription medications, all while eliminating Head Start and federal funding for affordable child care. Like many Americans, this struggle is deeply personal for Vice President Harris – and her new plans will lower the cost of at-home care for more than 105 million Americans who are caring for both kids and aging parents by expanding Medicare to include at-home care for the first time in our country’s history, lowering health care costs for the entire family, and lowering the cost of high-quality child care. This is the change America’s seniors, moms, dads, and caregivers deserve – and they won’t let Trump take us backwards. 

NEW: The Harris-Walz campaign’s new proposal will lower costs for seniors and the generation that cares for them by expanding Medicare to include at-home care.

Huffpost: “Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris on Tuesday will propose a major new initiative: expanding Medicare to cover the cost of long-term care at home.

“Such a plan could mean the option of staying at home, rather than in a nursing facility, for the millions of seniors and people with disabilities who need help with the daily tasks of life.

“It could also mean physical and financial relief ― and new opportunities for school or work outside the home ― for the millions of working-age Americans who today provide so much of that care on their own without much in the way of outside assistance.

“If the proposed legislation is enacted, such a program would represent a substantial boost in federal support for caregiving and, by any measure, one of the largest one-time increases in American history.”

The Hill: “Harris to announce plan for Medicare home care benefit”

“The plan for a Medicare home care benefit would cover services like an in-home aide, aiming to allow families to avoid the high cost of sending older relatives to live in senior facilities.

“The vice president, if elected, would propose having the benefit paid for by expanding Medicare drug price negotiations, increasing the discounts drug manufacturers cover for certain brand-name drugs in Medicare, and cracking down on hidden costs from Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs), which have reportedly acted to drive up prices, according to her campaign.”

Together with their plans to expand Medicare to include at-home care, the Harris-Walz ticket will increase access to quality, affordable child care and lower health care costs – relieving the burden on the “sandwich generation.” 

Kamala Harris, A New Way Forward for the Middle Class: “Vice President Harris believes that our tax code should work for working Americans. She supported the first increase in three decades to the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) for workers who aren’t raising a child in their home. The Earned Income Tax Credit is a federal tax cut that boosts the incomes of and lowers taxes for low-to-moderate income workers. Vice President Harris’s expansion tripled the maximum tax cut for these workers to more than $1,500 for 2021. … 

“Vice President Harris and Governor Walz will restore the expanded Child Tax Credit and expand it further to provide up to a $6,000 tax cut to families with newborn children. This will help parents in the first year of a child’s life—a period of critical development of a child when costs can add up for young parents who need to buy diapers, clothes, car seats, and more. They believe no child in America should live in poverty, and this reform will have a historic impact.”

Washington Post: “More than one-third of mothers who are registered to vote said they worry “a lot” about affording child care, according to a recent KFF poll … Vice President Kamala Harris has made the ‘care economy’ a cornerstone of her platform, vowing to permanently increase the child tax credit, add a one-time $6,000 credit for newborns and cap child-care costs at 7 percent of a working family’s income.” 

Harris for President: “Vice President Harris cast the deciding vote on the American Rescue Plan, which made historic investments in the care economy. As President, she will fight to lower care costs for American families, including by … ensuring hardworking families can afford high-quality child care.”

Harris for President: “Vice President Harris will make affordable health care a right, not a privilege by expanding and strengthening the Affordable Care Act and making permanent the Biden-Harris tax credit enhancements that are lowering health care premiums by an average of about $800 a year for millions of Americans. She’ll build on the Biden-Harris Administration’s successes in bringing down the cost of lifesaving prescription drugs for Medicare beneficiaries by extending the $35 cap on insulin and $2,000 cap on out-of-pocket spending for seniors to all Americans.”

Meanwhile, Trump’s Project 2025 plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act while cutting access to long-term care for seniors and rolling back the $35 cap on insulin for Medicare recipients would hit the “sandwich generation” with higher health care and child care costs for themselves, their children, and their parents.

Center for American Progress: “Overall, Medicare Part D enrollees across the nation could lose out on up to $7.4 billion in out-of-pocket savings next year. Finally, in what would amount to a huge windfall for Big Pharma, Project 2025 would bar the federal government from negotiating for lower drug prices.

“Project 2025 shifts the tax burden from the wealthy onto the middle class. Based on analysis using U.S. Census income data, the median household headed by someone over age 65 would see a tax increase of $900 per year under the plan. …

“Cutting access to long-term care: Project 2025 proposes capping Medicaid payments to states with no regard for their actual spending needs on health and long-term care. It also gives states the power to deny coverage of particular services, including long-term services and supports such as home and community-based care. According to KFF data, more than 21 million seniors and nonelderly adults with disabilities were enrolled in Medicaid in 2021; this accounted for nearly one-quarter of Medicaid recipients yet more than half of all Medicaid spending. Additionally, the proposed funding caps could force states to restrict eligibility for long-term services and supports, according to KFF. Alternatively, Medicaid funding caps could force states to outright deny coverage of particular benefits, especially costly services such as long-term care.”

Center for American Progress: “A stated goal of Project 2025 is to ‘[g]ive beneficiaries direct control of how they spend Medicare dollars.’ Yet the result of making MA the default Medicare enrollment option will be the opposite: to give for-profit corporations more control by restricting the choices of even more older Americans.

“Project 2025’s plan to make MA the default option will mean that corporations, not doctors or patients, will be able to control what care an even greater number of enrollees can and cannot receive.”

Trump: “And what we’d like to do is totally kill [the ACA], but come up — before we do that — with something that’s great.”

House Budget Committee Democrats: “59 years ago, Medicare was created to ensure seniors and Americans with disabilities can get the medical care they need. With the Inflation Reduction Act, House Democrats worked with President Biden and Vice President Harris to cap insulin prices, limit out-of-pocket costs, and negotiate lower drug prices for Americans with Medicare.

“Donald Trump’s Project 2025 would take us backward by repealing the Inflation Reduction Act and raising costs on at least 18 million seniors.”

Trump and Vance’s Project 2025 agenda would also tear away options for affordable, quality child care for families that are already stretched thin. 

• Project 2025 calls for elimination of the Head Start program, which has served nearly 40 million children and provided educational and developmental opportunities for low-income families.
  • Project 2025’s Mandate for Leadership, pg. 482: “Eliminate the Head Start program.”
    
• Project 2025 doesn’t just want to do away with Head Start. It also rejects the notion of better funding child care programs and would rather families stay at home.
  • Bloomberg: “Project 2025 Says Parents Should Stay Home With Their Kids”
    
  • “‘Instead of providing universal day care,’ Project 2025 says on page 486, ‘funding should go to parents either to offset the cost of staying home with a child or to pay for familial, in-home childcare.’”