Building a National Strategy to Support Family Caregivers

Family caregivers are the glue holding together the delivery and financing of long term services and supports (LTSS) in the U.S. They play a critical role in ensuring that people needing LTSS can remain in their homes—as most strongly prefer. Remaining at home and delaying or avoiding hospital or nursing home placement saves money for families, private sector payers such as long term care (LTC) insurers and health plans, and for public payers such as Medicaid. Indeed, it is estimated that replacing family caregiving with paid services would cost roughly $470 billion each year. More recently, the COVID-19 pandemic has created renewed urgency and momentum to address caregiving issues, both highlighting and exacerbating the considerable challenges of family caregiving.