National Care Corps Act

Floor Speech

Ms. MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM of New Mexico. Madam Speaker, I rise during National Family Caregivers Month to recognize the millions of family caregivers who do incredible work every day and to talk about the future of caregiving in this country.

Right now, the vast majority of care services in the United States are provided by family caregivers. They do this out of love for their loved ones, to restore and maintain respect and dignity, and because the vast majority of disabled adults and seniors rely on Medicare as their primary insurance, and Medicare does not pay for long-term care services, and they are barely ineligible for Medicaid, which might.

Forty-nine million Americans provide more than 520 billion in care to seniors and adults with disabilities every year. They manage a range of really difficult responsibilities because they have a friend or a loved one who is older or who has a disability and is in need of extra help.

I know how tough it is to be a family caregiver because I am one. My mother, who lives with me in New Mexico, relies on me to oversee her care and also provide financial support. These are difficult arrangements for a number of reasons. Having a parent rely on a child when they have spent their life being the caregiver can be a tough transition to make.

But family caregivers navigate that relationship while taking the time to call insurance companies and hospitals to ensure their loved one is getting proper care and while often having to use their own resources to cover many of the costs associated with that care.

They do it out of love, and they do it because they know that their mother or their husband or their friend wants to remain as independent as possible, and they know that they want to live out their lives with dignity. I think they have earned that right.

But these family caregivers cannot do it alone. They need someone to take their sister to her appointment and when they get busy with a day at work or to make sure that their dad takes his medication while they attend a parent-teacher conference.

Already in this country, we have got more than 4 million men and women who have chosen direct care as a career and provide these kind of services on a paid basis, but if you look at the sheer demographics, that is not nearly enough.

As the baby boom generation continues to age, demand for services will increase. The gap between the number of family caregivers and direct care workers and the number of people who need services will continue to grow.

In 2010, there were seven potential caregivers for every person over the age of 80. By 2030, that ratio is projected to drop by almost half, to 4.1.

In the direct care workforce, demand is projected to grow, so that the U.S. will need to add at least 1 million more direct care workers over the next 10 years.

So we face real challenges in growing a workforce that will help meet the needs of our population. At the same time, our economy continues to slowly recover from the Great Recession.

Young people looking to enter the workforce, along with workers who are willing to retrain, want to find jobs in a field that is growing and can provide them with some job security.

So I see two challenges that I think can be solved with one coordinated national effort called Care Corps. My bill, H.R. 5288, creates a national Care Corps that will place volunteers and communities to work with seniors and individuals with disabilities who need a little extra support to live independently.

In return for their services, volunteers will receive health insurance and other benefits, along with a postservice educational award. This award can be used to pay for up to 2 years of attendance at an institution of higher education or to pay back educational loans.

But I want to end with what I think will be the program's legacy if we are able to get this done. Care Corps provides an opportunity for intergenerational relationships, for seniors and our young people to learn from each other, and for us as a country to gain a better sense of our history to the people that lived it.

Anyone who has ever been a caregiver will tell you not just that it was challenging, but that it was incredibly rewarding.

So I want to thank our family caregivers who are already filling a serious void in this country, and I want to urge my colleagues to support them by supporting the National Care Corps Act.

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