Questions Surround Congressional Commitment to Caregivers

Alzheimer's Association
Wednesday, 20 October 1999

Alzheimer's Association Challenges House Leaders to Support Families

The great promise of federal help for long term family caregivers is slipping away and that's "profoundly disturbing" to millions of families, Congress was told today.

In a letter sent to the House Leadership, Steve McConnell, vice president of the Alzheimer's Association, expressed disappointment in recent House actions that set back help for family caregivers.

According to McConnell, the Family Caregiver Support Program is being held hostage in a partisan dispute over other vitally important programs in the Older Americans Act. He added that the caregiver tax credit was sacrificed in favor of subsidies for long term care insurance that do nothing to help today's caregivers.

"The mood of family caregivers today contrasts sharply with earlier this year," McConnell said, when they were encouraged by "enthusiastic bipartisan support for the President's proposals for a $1,000 caregiver tax credit and a $125 million national family caregiver support program."

"The personal exemption the House adopted in lieu of the caregiver tax credit will be available to a very narrow group of caregivers — not, for example, to a spouse caring for a person with Alzheimer's disease. And for the lowest income taxpayers who can qualify, it will be worth less than half of what the tax credit would have given them."

"Family caregivers are and will continue to be the backbone of our nation's long term care system, especially for loved ones who have Alzheimer's disease," McConnell said, and the best way to mark National Family Caregivers Month in November would be to pass the caregiver support program now.

For more information, or to contact Alzheimer's Association, see their website at: www.alz.org