Kamala Harris wants Medicare to help cover in-home eldercare. Here’s how she plans to pay for it

Vice President Kamala Harris is proposing to expand Medicare benefits for home care services for elders. Her campaign says the proposal will be funded by savings generated from Harris’ plans for lowering government spending on prescription drug prices.

Harris campaign officials told the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday that the proposal would help cover long-term, in-home services such as home health aides who help with everyday tasks such as bathing and getting dressed.

Harris is set to make a pitch for her plan Tuesday morning during an appearance on ABC’s “The View,” as she tries to reach the growing number of middle-aged voters who are struggling to both raise children and care for their parents.

The Kamala Harris campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Quartz.

Medicare already covers some home health services such as nurses and physical therapists — if beneficiaries meet certain criteria, including being homebound. However, the government program does not currently offer support for 24-hour, long-term home care.

The median cost for a home health aid was $75,500 in 2023, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing a survey from the financial services company Genworth (GNW).

The campaign told the outlet that the new Medicare benefit would be partly paid by some of Harris’ other healthcare plans.

In August, Harris announced a slate of economic proposals that she would prioritize during her first 100 days in office if she were to win the presidential election. The proposals included a number of healthcare policies aiming at lowering prescription drug costs and alleviating medical debt, according to a factsheet shared by her campaign.

Some of Harris’ proposals build upon policies passed by the Biden-Harris Administration in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in 2022 — including a cap on out-of-pocket costs for prescription drugs and Medicare drug price negotiations.

Harris proposed to speed up Medicare negotiations over prescription drugs — a program first introduced with the IRA. The proposal came just a day after the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced the lowered prices of the first 10 prescription drugs that underwent Medicare negotiations.

The IRA gave the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) the power to negotiate the price for brand-name drugs that make up most of Medicare’s prescription drug spending.

The first negotiations resulted in price discounts ranging from 38% to 79%. The new prices are set to go into effect in 2026 and are expected to save people who have Medicare prescription coverage $1.5 billion in out-of-pocket costs. The health department also said that if the negotiated prices were in effect last year, Medicare would have saved $6 billion in spending.

CMS is set to select 15 more drugs for price negotiations by February 2025.