Caring for Your Parents is Not Political

How You Pay for it and Where They Get Care is Political

MAY 10, 2026

By Kim Brant-Lucich and Alexander Nury, Authors of Survival Guide to Caring for Aging Parents.

Caring for your parents never used to be political. You and your parents may have opposing political views, but that never used to get in the way of family relationships. In 2026, though, the nation is so polarized politically that many people cannot come to terms with their family members’ differing viewpoints. Hopefully, you love your parent, regardless of their politics. As your parents have reached the final years of their lives, it seems best to set politics aside and care for them, as they cared for you throughout your childhood.

Although caring for mom or dad shouldn’t be political, how you pay for it has become very political. In 2026, federal government decisions that impact healthcare costs make it challenging for you to ignore politics. One of the first acts of the Trump administration was to eliminate government subsidies made available through the Affordable Care Act, which enabled people to purchase health insurance based on their income. By removing the subsidies, health insurance costs increased significantly for millions of Americans, many of whom thus opted out of purchasing health insurance. They prioritized the very real need to pay for food and housing over health insurance, gambling on the hope that they would not have any catastrophic healthcare needs. When people do not have health insurance, they skip routine doctor visits and wellness care. This often results in them visiting emergency rooms and urgent care facilities when an unexpected need arises. This puts undue stress on hospital emergency rooms, and, more often than not, the patient is unable to pay for the visit. There is a federal law called EMTALA (the “Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act”) that requires any Medicare-participating hospital (i.e., almost every hospital in the nation) to provide emergency medical screening and stabilization to anyone who arrives at an emergency room to be seen, regardless of the individual’s ability to pay. In short, the hospital provides charity care in the form of often costly medical services for which the hospital is not reimbursed. Although many would argue that hospitals overcharge for their services, that is a separate and more complex issue. The bottom line is that hospitals depend on reimbursement to survive. 

Meanwhile, according to a recent report by Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization, the “One Big Beautiful Bill” signed by President Trump in July 2025, will cut an estimated $911 billion in federal spending on Medicaid and CHIP (“Children’s Health Insurance Program”). The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the cuts could result in more than 400 hospitals across 44 states and Washington D.C., facing the risk of closure or, at a minimum, cutting services or laying off workers. You may be thinking to yourself, “Well, my mother/father isn’t on Medicaid, so this won’t affect us.” Unfortunately, that is a faulty and naive assumption. Even if your parent is not on Medicaid, Medicaid cuts affect everyone. To fully grasp this, it’s important to understand how hospitals and care facilities are funded. While Medicare is regulated federally, Medicaid shares regulation and management between the federal government and the state. When Medicare does not cover all the costs of a facility, Medicaid often offers supplemental reimbursement. Most hospitals accept and rely on Medicare reimbursement, and some depend on Medicaid reimbursement as well. However, Medicare typically does not cover stays in nursing homes (aka, SNFs or “skilled nursing facilities”), and these facilities rely on Medicaid reimbursement. Some patients have long-term care insurance that might cover a portion of their stay in a nursing facility, and other patients have the means to pay privately, but the majority of these facilities rely heavily on Medicaid reimbursement for their survival. Without this guaranteed income, facilities cannot operate. In other words, whether your parent is on Medicaid or not, they will be impacted if a facility near them is forced to close its doors because its primary source of funding has been eliminated, whether that funding source is Medicare, Medicaid, or private insurance. When a hospital or other medical facility shuts down, it can create a shortage of locations where your parent (and you) can receive care, emergency or otherwise. With the significant cuts to Medicaid and additional cuts to Medicare, it is no longer just rural hospitals that are at risk; hospitals in cities and states throughout the U.S. are impacted. These may even be facilities where you and your children could need to get care, not just elder care facilities.

I worked for more than 25 years in the healthcare industry, in roles that ranged from management consulting to process improvement, information technology, and software development. I have tremendous respect and admiration for the clinicians who care directly for patients, as well as for the numerous non-clinicians who help to keep the lights on. Healthcare in the United States is unarguably broken and needs an overhaul, but it cannot happen overnight. The solution should not be to defund it, which causes facilities to shut down and forces citizens into bankruptcy to pay for their family’s healthcare. Decisions to cut federal spending on healthcare and to eliminate subsidies to families in need are very political.

In summary, even though your relationship with your parent and your choice to care for them is not political, your ability to get and pay for their care in 2026 (and beyond) is significantly impacted by politics. Support for affordable healthcare and elder care should be a key consideration when deciding who you support for political office. Your parents’ lives depend on it. Your life depends on it. Your children’s lives depend on it.