Adults with Disabilities, From Our Blog, HCBS Services Provider, Resources By

We are pleased to announce that based on a recent segment of the Rachel Maddow Show (March 31st, 2021), it was discovered that President Joe Biden’s Infrastructure Plan includes a whopping $400 billion to expand (HCBS) home community-based care services under Medicaid. According to Maddow, there is a significant delay in getting these services to elderly and disabled Americans. She goes on to say: “Right now in this country, we have a gigantic backlog for those kinds of services. The wait list is 850,000 people long, which means right now, elderly and disabled Americans face waits as long as five years to get the services they need. This would not only expand that access, it would increase pay and improve working conditions for the people who work in this incredibly critical, critical, but under-funded and often out of sight, big portion of the American economy.” 

President Biden’s plan:

(This comes directly from the Official White House Briefing Room)

  • Expand access to long-term care services under Medicaid. President Biden believes more people should have the opportunity to receive care at home, in a supportive community, or from a loved one. President Biden’s plan will expand access to home and community-based services (HCBS) and extend the longstanding Money Follows the Person program that supports innovations in the delivery of long-term care.
  • Put in place an infrastructure to create good middle-class jobs with a free and fair choice to join a union. The HCBS expansion under Medicaid can support well-paying caregiving jobs that include benefits and the ability to collectively bargain, building state infrastructure to improve the quality of services and to support workers. This will improve wages and quality of life for essential home health workers and yield significant economic benefits for low-income communities and communities of color.

Additional Resources

To learn more about this $400B HCBS expansion, we recommend the following articles:

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