Pelosi Indicates Interest In More HCBS Funding Than House Proposed

Inside Health Policy / By Maya Goldman 
  
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) indicated at a Service Employees International Union rally Thursday (Sept. 23) that she’d like to see more funding for Medicaid home- and community-based services in the final reconciliation bill than the $190 billion pushed by a House committee, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) committed to increasing federal funding for HCBS to a level that will incentivize states to improve offerings.
 
President Joe Biden’s original Build Back Better agenda calls for a $400 billion investment in Medicaid home care, which advocates have said would be the largest-ever infusion of cash in HCBS.
 
The House Energy & Commerce Committee passed a provision last week that would invest $190 billion in HCBS. Advocates were glad to see HCBS included in the committee’s bill but said that level of funding won’t be enough to make Medicaid home care services widely available and to improve the quality of home care jobs.
 
“We don't think $190 billion will quite get [us] there. So we want to make sure the number’s as close to $400 billion as we can possibly get,” April Verrett, president of SEIU Local 2015 and chair of the union’s National Home Care Council, said prior to Thursday’s rally.

Schumer committed at the rally to making sure the reconciliation bill increases federal funding for home- and community-based services.

Schumer said he wants to expand the availability of HCBS to eliminate waitlists and improve labor standards for direct care workers.
 
“We want to increase federal funding for these services to a level that will encourage widespread universal uptake by the states,” Schumer said. “As Majority Leader, I am committed to making sure our reconciliation bill delivers these goals together."

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