Medicaid Provides Critical Health Care Coverage to Family Caregivers

by

Brendan Flinn

More than four million family caregivers in the United States report receiving Medicaid coverage for their own health care needs, according to the AARP and the National Alliance for

Caregiving’s Caregiving in the United States 2020 survey. This report analyzes data in that survey for insights into family caregivers who receive Medicaid coverage as their own health

insurance and who fulfill their caregiver role on an unpaid basis.

Profile of family caregivers with Medicaid coverage

Close to 1 in 10 (9 percent) family caregivers receive Medicaid coverage for their own health insurance. Of those 4.3 million people:

adults ages 50 to 64; the rest are adults under age 50 who often take care of a parent or grandparent.Most are women, and more than half care for older women relatives.More than half have a

high school diploma or less (55 percent) and live with a household income of less than $30,000 per year (55 percent).More than one third (35 percent) provide care for someone who lives in a

rural area; 15 percent live in a rural area themselves.

Read the full report for more about who the family caregivers with Medicaid coverage are.

Medicaid-enrolled family caregivers spend significant time caregiving

providing 20 hours or more of care per week and 38 percent devote an amount of time equivalent to a full-time job (40 hours per week) or more of care.About one in three family caregivers

with Medicaid coverage are employed and balance the dual roles of work and caregiving.

Medicaid-covered family caregivers provide essential care

Family caregivers perform important and often difficult hands-on tasks to support those for whom they care. These include activities of daily living (ADLs), which are basic, fundamental

tasks such as eating, bathing, and dressing, and instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs), which are tasks that facilitate independent living such as housework and preparing meals. It

is often the difference in whether their care recipients can get out of bed and go about their day.

Read more about the specific types of support family caregivers with Medicaid provide.

Medicaid-covered family caregivers often provide care alone

Most Medicaid-covered family caregivers (59 percent) report that nobody else provided unpaid care for the person for whom they care in the past year. They also frequently report that their

care recipient did not receive any paid help (73 percent) in the past year.

Family caregivers with Medicaid often say they felt they had a choice whether to be a caregiver (55 percent) and that they found purpose in their caregiving role (66 percent). Despite often

being the sole family caregiver, they did not report a higher rate of feeling alone as a result of their caregiving responsibilities.

Family caregivers with Medicaid coverage contribute tangible economic value

The estimated economic value of all unpaid care from family caregivers was approximately $600 billion in 2021 alone. This figure exceeds that of all out-of-pocket health care spending ($433

billion) and spending on long-term and post-acute care from all sources ($531 billion). 

The loss of Medicaid coverage for these family caregivers would have implications not only for them, but for their care recipients and for the Medicare and Medicaid programs.

See the report for a discussion of how Medicaid coverage for family caregivers helps contain costs.

The security and stability that Medicaid coverage provides underpins the ability of family caregivers who have it to continue fulfilling their caregiving role. With the security of their own

health insurance coverage, they can devote what often equates to full-time equivalent-level amounts of unpaid family caregiving. This allows the people for whom they care to remain in their

homes and communities and likely at less expense to Medicare and Medicaid than they would require in the absence of their family caregiver.

Flinn, Brendan. Medicaid Provides Critical Health Care Coverage to Family Caregivers. Washington, DC: AARP Public Policy Institute, May 20, 2025. https://doi.org/10.26419/ppi.00371.001

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