THE HILL: The caregivers you’ve never heard of are in crisis
This opinion piece outlines a worsening crisis within the U.S. home and community-based care workforce, which currently enables an estimated 94% of Americans with intellectual and developmental disabilities to live with dignity outside of institutions. Authors Barbara Merrill, Kendra Davenport, and Diane Wilush argue that recent, overly broad federal and state efforts to target Medicaid waste and fraud are inadvertently threatening funding for these optional care services. This funding strain compounds an existing care deficit where 88% of community providers face severe staffing shortages and over 550,000 individuals remain on service waitlists. Ultimately, the authors warn that cutting these community-based supports is economically counterproductive, as shifting individuals to institutional care is far more expensive and strips the broader economy of the substantial economic output generated by investments in localized caregiving.
