Cathy Cress

Expert in Aging Life and Geriatric Care Management

Build Back Better Bill Could be Transformative- BUT -Running out of Time

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Time About Out To Pass Build Back Better Bill

Biden’s Build Back Better Bill is dying. Decades of divestment have cost American families in time, opportunity, and money, with the greatest impacts landing on communities of color, seniors, the disabled, women, and LGBTQ+ people. Building a stronger, more equitable future requires investing in good jobs, quality care, education, and housing.  Senator Manchin and Sinema are blocking Biden’s Bill.

The Build Back Better Bill includes significant investments in our children, families, elderly and disabled 

Seniors will get New Medicare Hearing Benefit

Biden’s ill includes lowered drug prices, Medicare Part D Benefit Redesign according to Kaiser Foundation. But the bill also includes new  Medicare benefits  for seniors in:

  1. ACA Marketplace Subsidies
  2. Lowering Prescription Drug Prices and Spending
  3. Medicaid Coverage Gap
  4. Medicaid Home and Community Based Services and the Direct Care Workforce

Expanded Home & Community Based Care Included

Biden’s Build Back Better Bill , offers so much in caring for families, kids the elderly. In addition to expanding Child Tax Credit payments and ensuring the lowest income families receive the full benefit, would invest in-home- and community-based care services for the aging and people with disabilities; provide pre-k for 3 and 4 year-olds; invest in housing, child care, and nutrition programs; create good jobs, and so much more

Biden’s Bill would provide four weeks of paid medical leave, so the United States can join the rest of the industrialized world in giving its people the dignity of paid time off for a family or health emergency. So, if an aging parent or child is sick or there is a newborn, family can care for them and get paid.

 

 

Write or Call Your Congressman Fast Before Mansion and Sinema Destroy Biden’s Bill

Sign and send a letter to your Democratic senators: Care is infrastructure. The Build Back Better Act must include substantial investments in our families and communities.

 

Here are some quick tips when writing a personal letter or what to say on a call :

  • Keep your letter short or call and to the point;

  • Remind them that you are a constituent;

  • Share your personal story about your career as a care manager,  a social worker a nurse, a geriatric professional and your  client’s needing care, client’s  caring for a loved one, or the plight of a care worker
  • Emphasize that the majority of Americans support investing in human infrastructure, include: expanding Child Tax Credit payments, and ensuring the lowest income families receive the full benefit, investing in-home- and community-based care services for the aging and people with disabilities; providing pre-k for 3 and 4 year-olds; investing in housing, child care, and nutrition programs; creating good jobs; and more;
  • Encourage them to keep pushing to ensure investments in the care economy remain in the Build Back Better Act.
  • PLEASE DO THIS NOW ESPECIALLY FOR SENIORS IF YOU WORK WITH THEM

Why There So few Caregivers to Recruit in Health Care ??????

Where did the Caregiver all over the Nation Go?

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit and 13.7 million workers in roles comparable to direct care lost

their jobs in early 2020, they did not turn to direct care jobs, a recent study found. 

Of the 9.1 million who have now found a new job, “an immeasurably small number of workers” entered the direct care workforce, despite high demand for staff, a study by consulting firm PHI and the Health Workforce Research Center on Long-Term Care at the University of California San Francisco found.

Women, the main caregiver are leaving the workforce in record numbers, and it’s not just a result of the pandemic. 

The pandemic was the catalyst for millions of women leaving their jobs, but not the root cause. Since 2009, the number of women in the workforce has been decreasing because we haven’t made investments in child care and paid leave. Now the gap between men and women in the workforce is widening, while in most other countries the gap is shrinking. That’s leaving our whole economy vulnerable.  

Right now, women’s workforce participation is at 55.9%. The last time it was that low was 1987) 

Workforce for Women Caregivers and all Working women with Children Became Nightmare in Pandemic

The pandemic opened many eyes to the realities of child care in America when schools went virtual and many day-care centers closed. Covid-19 forced millions of working parents, especially women, to leave the workforce to care for their children. Following up on a campaign pledge to “make high-quality child care affordable,” President Joe Biden has asked Congress for hundreds of billions of dollars for early childhood care and education.

 

 

If You Are a Woman or Work In Aging Call Your Congressman

Care Infrastructure may be dead if folks in health care and older constituents do not contact their congressman and tell them to support this bill. They control the votes for the bill and you have to let them know you will only vote for them if they do. Common Cause has this easy way to find and contact your congressman  If you believe in Medicare and senior’s right  to not have their teeth rot, not hear their grandkids or be unable to read a book- please do it now

 

 

 

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