As the nation’s population ages, the need for more care workers and safer, more affordable care options is urgent.
By 2050, the number of individuals in need of long-term care services will likely double from 13 million in 2000 to over 27 million people.
To address the growing demand, President Biden has earmarked $400 billion of his $2 trillion jobs plan to expand access to quality, affordable home or community-based care for aging and disabled Americans.
“Even before Covid-19, our country was in the midst of a caregiving crisis,” notes a Biden administration fact sheet on the plan. “These investments will help hundreds of thousands of Americans finally obtain the long-term services and support they need, while creating new jobs and offering caregiving workers a long-overdue raise, stronger benefits, and an opportunity to organize or join a union and collectively bargain.”
Specifically, President Biden’s plan would expand access to long-term, home-based care services under Medicaid, in addition to providing a $5,000 tax credit for family caregivers.
This will allow millions of people who need care to stay in their homes and avoid unnecessary placements in nursing homes — over 70 percent of which are for-profit and owned by private investors.
New analysis from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that between 2004 and 2016, private equity ownership of nursing homes increased the mortality rate of residents by 10 percent compared to those living in homes with other ownership structures, suggesting that more than 20,000 people died as a consequence of living in nursing homes run by private equity firms during this period.
The Covid-19 pandemic exacerbated the risks of the for-profit model for vulnerable nursing home residents and employees.
A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that throughout the pandemic, for-profit nursing homes had lower supplies of personal protective equipment for their workers when compared to other types of nursing homes.
In New Jersey, the state with the highest nursing home death rates during the pandemic, for-profit nursing homes had infection rates 24.5 percent higher than the statewide nursing home average and death rates more than 10.2 percent higher.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
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There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
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With love, rage, and solidarity,
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