We spent trillions of dollars to protect vulnerable Americans from COVID-19. Why won’t we spend a fraction of that amount to protect them at other times?
Six weeks into the coronavirus pandemic, 4 university professors applauded the sacrifices that Americans had made—including prolonged social distancing and an economic shutdown—to protect the lives of vulnerable people during the COVID-19 health emergency.
But our pandemic response poses a puzzle, according to Richard G. Frank and David C. Grabowski of Harvard Medical School, Bianca K. Frogner of the University of Washington School of Medicine, and Jonathan Gruber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Writing on May 22 in The Hill, they ask: “Why are we willing to turn our lives upside down, resulting in a need for trillions to support the shutdown of the economy, during this moment of crisis—but we are unwilling to dedicate even a small fraction of that amount to improve the quality of life and prevent deaths among vulnerable populations at other times?”
The authors identify 3 settings where additional investments could protect American’s most vulnerable populations after the pandemic has passed.
- Nursing homes: Raising the annual pay of certified nursing assistants (CNA) by $10,000 would cost $20 billion per year, “which is less than 1% of the amount we have spent in 6 weeks to fight COVID,” the authors write. Studies suggest that nursing homes with higher-paid CNAs have more staff, lower turnover, and better quality.
- Affordable housing: We only can offer apartments to 25%-33% of people qualifying for subsidized housing. But, note the authors, we could triple the resources aimed at subsidized housing for only $2.7 billion annually.
- Adult Day: Adult day programs help family caregivers work and support their households while caring for loved ones with dementia or disabilities. Yet, these centers are “persistently underfunded and are at risk of vanishing entirely under the threat of COVID.” It would cost only $7.3 billion per year to double funding for these centers.
“The challenging working conditions in our nursing homes and the lack of community housing and adult day programs for low-income older adults have impacted the care of older adults for decades and potentially caused higher reliance on nursing homes,” the authors conclude. “We shouldn’t need a pandemic to fix these problems.”