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'Thank You, Kamala': Sanders Welcomes Harris Plan to Expand Medicare
"Congratulations to Vice President Harris for announcing a bold vision to expand Medicare to cover not only home healthcare, but also vision and hearing."
Oct 09, 2024
Independent U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont—a longtime universal healthcare advocate—on Wednesday hailed aw proposal by Democratic presidential nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris to expand Medicare to cover in-home care for seniors as well as dental and vision for the first time ever.
As Common Dreamsreported Tuesday, labor unions and consumer advocates applauded Harris' plan—unveiled on the ABC talk show "The View"—to expand Medicare coverage in order to better serve what the Democratic nominee called the "sandwich generation" of middle-aged Americans who are simultaneously providing for their children and aging parents.
Responding to the proposal, Sanders said, "Congratulations to Vice President Harris for announcing a bold vision to expand Medicare to cover not only home healthcare, but also vision and hearing."
The senator continued:
It is no secret that we have a major crisis in home healthcare. Millions of seniors would prefer, when possible, to receive care in their homes rather than be forced into nursing homes. Kamala's plan is a major step forward not only in improving the quality of life for seniors and their families, but also in saving the healthcare system large sums of money.
Further, her plan to expand Medicare to cover the cost of vision and hearing is enormously important. In the wealthiest country on Earth, millions of lower-income seniors today are unable to afford the hearing aids and eyeglasses they desperately need. That is not acceptable. Every senior in America should be able to access these basic healthcare needs.
"Thank you, Kamala," added Sanders, who has been campaigning for Harris across the country and plans to visit the Midwest this week.
Sanders' remarks echoed those of progressive healthcare advocates, with Social Security Works executive director Alex Lawson on Tuesday calling Harris' plan "life-changing for seniors, people with disabilities, and those who love them."
"Currently, seniors and people with disabilities who need care that family can't provide are too often warehoused in dehumanizing nursing homes," Lawson continued. "Often, these nursing homes are owned by private equity corporations who are exploiting patients for profit. Under the Harris plan, seniors and disabled people would have the freedom to stay in their own homes."
"This is a universal benefit," Lawson added. "Everyone on Medicare would qualify. This is a win for everyone in America—except the billionaires."
Harris' campaign and supporters contrasted the Democratic nominee's plan with the White House record of the Republican presidential candidate, former President Donald Trump, and sounded the alarm on the dangers he poses to Medicare and Social Security.
"Trump tried to cut Medicare and will cut the program as president," the Harris campaign said Tuesday.
Some critics also warned how Project 2025—the far-right initiative to expand U.S. presidential power and purge the federal civil service—poses a dire threat to seniors' public health by making private, for-profit Medicare Advantage plans the default option for all Medicare enrollees.
Harris' campaign added: "Trump spent a long career exploiting seniors, mocking disabled Americans, trying to take away seniors' hard-earned benefits, and supporting others who harm them. As president, Trump tried to destroy the Affordable Care Act and to cut Medicare and plans to do it again."
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Climate Change Is a Current Crisis for Family Caregivers
It is imperative that adaptation strategies and emergency response plans include the unique needs of the elderly.
Dec 09, 2023
In discussions about climate change, we often gravitate towards those affected by devastating wildfires, catastrophic hurricanes, and vanishing coastlines. Rarely do we zoom in on the intimate, day-to-day ways it reshapes the individual lives of everyday people. As a caregiver for my elderly parents, I've experienced firsthand how climate change impacts the aging population, a narrative told less frequently but just as critical in weighing the costs of our inaction on climate.
In the blink of an eye, many of us went from sons and daughters to climate responders for our parents. During Michigan's infamous "Snowmageddon" in 2015, for example, my father, who was relearning to walk after a health scare, constantly fell into steep snow drifts. This meant he had to wear wet pants in the freezing cold and through doctor appointments, risking hypothermia. That same winter, my mom had to mail canned foods to my great aunt, who was trapped in her Grand Rapids home without groceries because relatives and even neighbors could not safely reach her due to the massive amounts of snowfall. These life-threatening situations, no different from what other families experience, were induced by our changing climate.
Living with these challenges means perpetual fear. I'm terrified of my mother slipping on black ice and breaking her hip, of my blind father's inability to detect and avoid ice patches, especially as snow-muffled sounds interfere with outdoor navigation. When a severe ice storm led to a power outage, ensuring my parents' safety in their unheated home was a logistical nightmare, from planning how to navigate slippery sidewalks and driveways in the middle of the night, to undriveable road conditions without traffic lights, to replacing the lost food. The situation was further complicated by the fact that their landline is tied to the internet, hampering their inability to make calls in a power outage. My own cell phone lost service because the cell tower was out.
Creating a rain garden to manage increased rainfall and flooding is a daunting task for someone with a bad back or severe allergies.
But the impacts of climate change extend beyond newly increased winter extremes. For my mother, who relies on walks with friends for mental and physical wellness, unpredictable weather patterns like poor air quality or extreme heat have imprisoned her indoors more frequently. Our lives now revolve around a complex choreography of scheduling doctors' appointments between forecasted weather extremes and finding ways to mitigate newfound environmental hazards.
These climate shifts bring new responsibilities for family caregivers. Each decision, from managing the heightened frequency of snow removal services to ensuring safe, accessible outdoor spaces, is a balancing act between health, safety, and financial constraints. Creating a rain garden to manage increased rainfall and flooding is a daunting task for someone with a bad back or severe allergies.
Climate change has subtly altered our natural environment, bringing unexpected challenges. Overgrown yards in our neighborhood release rampant pollen, aggravating my father's allergies. His thin and tearing sclera makes each sneeze a cause for anxiety. New growths of poison ivy near our porch, previously unheard of, threaten his sensitive skin.
Beyond the immediate environmental hazards, there are indirect, equally unsettling effects. The nutritional value of food is changing, with implications for elderly health. Delivery of essential prescriptions, like those from the VA, gets complicated with intense rainfall, heat, cold, and snow, risking delays or damage.
Often, people ask why family caregivers don't opt for institutional care. The answer is twofold. Culturally, my upbringing emphasizes family-based care. I believe that our elders should be surrounded by love and familiarity, and that caring for them is an honor. This perspective is reinforced by broader arguments for deinstitutionalization, which champions dignity and independence for the elderly and disabled in their communities.
Not that climate challenges are exclusive to home settings. Costly facilities also face power outages, complex evacuation challenges, and disrupted staff and supply chains due to extreme weather. Such instances further unveil broader systemic issues, pointing to the need to better support caregivers in the face of climate change.
As our population ages, our laws and regulations must acknowledge and address the unique hurdles of home-based elder care. We need infrastructure adaptations and proactive policymaking that accommodate a range of familial choices and take into account the changing environmental realities.
Organizations like Area Agencies on Aging and the Veterans Administration already offer comprehensive, hands-on training programs for family caregivers. To help caregivers effectively manage extreme weather risks, their curricula should be updated to provide at least 20 hours of focused instruction on how climate change affects vulnerable populations. Topics covered should include how to create detailed emergency plans and how to proactively prepare for environmental changes.
Beyond practical skills, these programs should also address the socioemotional impacts of climate emergencies on the elderly and disabled. Events like hurricanes, wildfires, heat waves, and drought can heighten feelings of vulnerability and anxiety, adversely affecting mental health. Caregivers, who often bear the brunt of these disruptions, risk burnout without adequate support. Training should therefore include emotional first aid strategies to help them maintain a reassuring presence, discuss fears and concerns, and foster resilience and security.
Last but never least, caregiver self-care is vital. Training needs to cover how to recognize burnout signs, stress management techniques, and the importance of a supportive community. A holistic approach to care safeguards the mental and emotional well-being of both caregiver and care recipient. This stability is crucial for sustainable caregiving in the face of climate change's challenges.
Climate change is not a distant threat for family caregivers; it's a current crisis reshaping the lives of millions. The experiences of caregivers like myself highlight the overlooked nuances in our response to this global challenge. It's imperative that adaptation strategies and emergency response plans include the unique needs of the elderly. Only then can we claim to be truly addressing the breadth and depth of climate change's impact on our society.
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Disability Justice Is Key to Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals
As long as people with disabilities are excluded and denied their human rights, the promise of the global goals is doomed to fail.
Aug 23, 2023
Growing up as a girl with a disability in Pakistan, I knew that my opportunity to go to an inclusive school and progress to university was unusual. For many children with disabilities, particularly girls, intersecting stigma and discrimination means that they are regularly excluded from learning or even seen as not worth educating. Children are sometimes hidden at home or protected by their parents, either viewed as a curse from God, or some kind of special blessing. Or, more mundanely, schools simply aren’t accessible or affordable for them. These barriers are faced by children in many counties, and as a result, children with disabilities are almost twice as likely to have never attended school than other children.
Education can be just one of the first hurdles in a life of discrimination for many people with disabilities. Despite progress on disability rights in the past few decades (including the adoption of the groundbreaking U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2008) the 1.3 billion people in the world who have disabilities still face a huge range of barriers to our full participation in society. That’s 16% of the global population. From Islamabad to Iowa, we still often find ourselves excluded in education, healthcare, travel, politics, and public services. For example, only 1 in 10 people in the world have access to the assistive technology and disability services they need to live a full life, and people with disabilities are up to twice as likely to live in poverty than people without disabilities. In many places in 2023, we are simply tired of having to constantly fight for our basic human rights.
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This year, the world comes to the halfway point of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the globally adopted targets to address poverty and inequality by 2030. These visionary goals aim to transform our world for the better and have served as a guide for countries to follow to improve living conditions and protect the planet. They are ambitious, but they have proven useful in holding governments to account and focusing international advocacy efforts on development and human rights. In a world full of difficulties and divisions, the SDGs offer us a clear vision of a society we can aspire to and continually strive for.
At this midpoint in September, world leaders will gather at the U.N. SDG summit in New York on the 18 and 19 to assess progress on the goals. It is planned as a moment of action and hope, to result in a negotiated political declaration by all member states.
So how are the SDGs going? Right now, not so well. Evidence shows that progress on them has derailed. A recent U.N. report highlights that most of the goals are “moderately to severely off track” and only around 12% are on course to be achieved (according to a preliminary assessment of around 140 targets with data). For the first time in decades, we are seeing global income equality going into reverse. The pandemic has seen existing inequalities deepen, education disrupted, and huge pressure put on already weak health systems. At the same time, the world faces growing threats from conflict, increased cost of living, and the climate crisis.
Without adequately addressing the needs of people with disabilities and other marginalized groups, the original promise of the SDGs to “leave no-one behind” is in peril.
The impacts of these reversals are disproportionately felt by marginalized populations. The vast majority of which live in low- and middle-income countries, where there are already often huge challenges to development. And as the U.N. report shows, people with disabilities are one of the groups being hit hardest by the lack of progress on poverty and inequality. This is on top of the base level of difficulties we can face in getting our rights acknowledged or the services we need.
The impacts on women and girls with disabilities are also huge. Globally, more than half of people with disabilities are women, and more than 1 in 5 women have a disability. Women with disabilities can face double or triple discrimination as a result of intersecting prejudices, and so face increased levels of gender based violence, harassment, and stigma than other women. This is further exacerbated during crises and conflict. During the pandemic, for example, reports of domestic violence skyrocketed, with women with disabilities being disproportionately affected.
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Without adequately addressing the needs of people with disabilities and other marginalized groups, the original promise of the SDGs to “leave no-one behind” is in peril. This is why I have decided to take part in a new global campaign, Promise in Peril, organized by Equal World. We are calling on world leaders to ensure that the political declaration of the SDG Summit in September, and all national commitments, focus on reaching those who are being left furthest behind. With just seven years left until the 2030 deadline, this moment is a wake-up call to nations to take immediate measures that would speed up progress on global development.
At present, the implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of the SDGs do not sufficiently include people with disabilities. This means that the people who are most at risk of being left behind are the ones whose voices are being ignored in efforts to tackle inequality, poverty, and climate change. This is particularly true for women and young people with disabilities. The declaration needs to include specific references to disability and must prioritize inclusive and equitable financing of the SDGs.
People with disabilities need to be meaningfully involved in the planning and implementation of policies that affect our lives. There can be nothing about us without us. To achieve this, the inclusion of people with disabilities needs to be properly resourced and budgeted for and committed to by states at a national level. If not done, the disability community and other underrepresented groups will continue to be excluded from taking part in national SDG plans.
Our call for equity is not a polite request. It is a demand and a moral imperative.
Governments must protect and guarantee the rights of people with disabilities, using a framework that centers on and respects human rights and well-being. The delivery of the SDGs should be based on a strengthened, more inclusive, and cooperative multilateralism.
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Looking beyond the halfway point, the SDG declaration alone is important, but it is not enough. This September should be a wake-up call to the world on how much we have left to do. Commitment is only the first step and should be followed by the implementation of national legislation and policy in a way that actually realizes the SDGs. It’s vital to have national and international laws and conventions, such as the Americans with Disabilities Act in the U.S., and the U.N. disability convention, but they also need to be enacted and enforced. For example, it’s important to have a law that says, “Shops and restaurants can’t discriminate against customers with disabilities,” or “We need more people with disabilities in employment,” but no good if businesses can flout it easily without consequences. We need clear, tangible actions to be taken to ensure disability rights are respected and upheld.
One important mechanism for addressing poverty experienced by people with disabilities is universal social protection. This is especially important in times of crisis, as was seen during the pandemic when millions of people were left without support as countries locked down. But currently only 1% of people with significant disabilities in low-income countries have access to disability benefits, an incredibly low number. In line with the International Labour Organization Recommendation 202, we need governments to establish social protection floors as a fundamental element of national social security systems.
There also needs to be better efforts made to collect data on disability. Global data is currently only available for 2 out of 10 SDG indicators that require governments to report on how they are reaching people with disabilities. This contributes toward significant data gaps that exist globally and means people with disabilities are often invisible in policy making. Governments must commit to collecting disability inclusive data, with particular consideration of the intersection with gender. Decision-makers cannot continue to ignore 16% of the population.
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Before I met other members of the disability rights movement, I grew up thinking of my disability as something negative, as some defect with myself. It was only once I started collaborating with other activists, and hearing their experiences, that I realized that my disability is just diversity of human experience. Our rights are human rights.
Our call for equity is not a polite request. It is a demand and a moral imperative. People with disabilities must have an equal say in the policies and processes that affect our lives. Governments must take action to uphold disability rights and commit to reach the SDGs in a way that genuinely leaves no one behind.
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You can find out more about the Promise in Peril campaign, and sign their petition, at: https://campaigning.sightsavers.org/promise-in-peril/.
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