Aging in America is, predominately, a problem for the nation’s daughters and daughters-in-law, and proposed cuts to Medicaid will hurt these caregivers and the people they care for, PMC Co-Director Jason Karlawish wrote in his latest Forbes column. Eighty percent of adult child caregivers are women, and daughters are more likely to be the caregiver for an older adult with cognitive impairment than spouses, sons, or other relatives.
“This is my job, no escape,” said Elinor Fuchs in her book, Making An Exit. “For the next nine years, in monthly visits from wherever I am to Washington, and for the early hours of every day on the telephone or in correspondence, I inhabit my mother’s life.”
If a Republican proposal to cut Medicaid is passed, some retirees may be forced from nursing homes supported by the federal program. Caregivers like Fuchs will need to shoulder a greater load and may need to stop working to manage the new full-time job of caring for their parents or in-laws.
Karlawish called on the GOP not only to abandon the plan to cut Medicaid, but he also challenged Congress to do more for the nation’s caregivers by adopting the recommendations of the 2016 report “Families Caring For An Aging America.”
Read the complete column on Forbes.com.