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Direct care workers—like home health care workers and nursing assistants—provide essential long-term care to disabled people and older adults so they can live full, dignified lives. Medicaid is the primary funder for long-term care —it’s how people afford to get care and, thus, how many direct care workers get paid.
But the important work performed by direct care workers, who are overwhelmingly women and disproportionately women of color, has been long undervalued and underpaid. And underinvestment in Medicaid and our care systems more broadly makes it hard for these workers to make ends meet.
Today, Republican leaders in Congress are proposing cuts to Medicaid that will decimate aging and disabled people’s ability to get care they need to live and rob direct care workers of their own lifeline for health care. Because of their low wages, more than one in four women direct care workers rely on Medicaid for their own health coverage.
Our fact sheet, “Medicaid Cuts Threaten the Direct Care Workforce,” examines the hardships the strained workforce already faces and how Medicaid cuts will drive more people out of direct care jobs—and ultimately make it impossible for people to get quality care for themselves or their loved ones.