I started following the postings of a man in Ohio who has a child with autism. Here is one of his recent posts:
On April 16th, the Secretary of Health and Human Services stood in front of the House Ways and Means Committee and testified about Medicaid home care.
Here is exactly what he said:
“The waivers allow people, family members, who are taking care of an
elderly parent, to get paid for balancing the checkbook, for picking up the groceries, for driving somebody to a doctor’s appointment.”
“Today, the biggest job in New York, 650,000 people, the biggest employment niche is home care. These are family members who are getting paid to do things that they used to do as family members for free.”
“And this is rife with fraud, because we have no way at CMS to determine if they actually performed that duty or not.”
Those are his words. Word for word. April 16, 2026.
That’s not what HCBS waivers actually fund. They fund parents who quit their jobs to manage seizure medications and feeding tubes. They fund the moms doing trach care at 3 a.m. They fund the families who haven’t slept through the night in over a decade.
Eleven million Americans are paid through these programs. Six hundred
thousand more are on waitlists. Not because they want money. Because
they literally cannot survive without it.
This isn’t an isolated comment. It’s part of a pattern. Trump signed a Medicaid cut into law last year. States are already considering reducing home-based services. And now the man running HHS is on camera calling the families who use those services frauds.
If you heard him say it and felt something break a little, you heard him right. You’re not committing fraud. You’re holding your family together while the government tries to convince the country you’re
the problem.
You’re not the problem. You never were.
Share this with someone who needs to know what just happened. 💙