WASHINGTON, D.C.—Today the House passed the Elizabeth Dole Home Care Act, bipartisan legislation backed by Rep. Greg Stanton to improve and expand home and community-based services for disabled and elderly veterans, ensuring they’re able to remain in their homes and receive the care they need.
“Caregivers like Anne allow veterans to age at home, maintain their independence and stay active in our communities. I’m proud our bill to provide veterans the flexibility to be cared for by their loved ones or providers of their choosing is one step closer to becoming law,” Stanton said.
“My husband would have to be in an institutionalized care facility if I weren’t able to provide caregiving services for him at home. I need support and access to resources to ensure I am able to continue in this labor of love,” Anne Adkinson, a former Dole Caregiver Fellow from Arizona’s Fourth District, said. “The Elizabeth Dole Home Care Act expands crucial resources for those of us caring for seriously ill, wounded, injured, and aging veterans so they can remain in their own homes, where they are most happy and comfortable, and are surrounded by those they love.”
Specifically, the Elizabeth Dole Home- and Community-Based Services for Veterans and Caregivers Act of 2023 will expand the following existing Home and Community Based Services (HCBS):
- The Veteran Directed Care Program, which provides veterans a flexible budget to hire friends, family, and neighbors to help with activities of daily living, such as bathing, or instrumental activities of daily living, such as making meals.
- The Homemaker and Home Health Aide Program, which allows VA to contract with a community partner that employs home health aides to care for veterans in their homes, providing skilled services, case management, help with daily living, or to ease caregiver burnout.
- The Home-Based Primary Care Program, which allows for a VA physician to supervise a health care team that provides care in the veteran’s home for a veteran who has difficulty traveling or is isolated.
- The Skilled Home Health Care Program, which allows for VA to contract with a community health agency to provide in-home care for veterans who have higher levels of need like wound care, speech therapy, or skilled nursing.
Additionally, the bill will:
- Expand access to home and community based services for veterans living in territories and on tribal lands
- Raise the cap on how much the VA can pay for the cost of at home nursing home care for veterans from 65 percent to 100 percent or more if deemed necessary
- Coordinates expanded VA home and community based services with other VA programs like the Comprehensive Caregivers Program and other federal programs like the Department of Health and Human Services PACE program
- Review existing service gaps in geriatric and extended care at the VA
The full text of the bill can be found here.