Millions of Americans with disabilities and elderly loved ones depend on Medicaid home- and community-based services to live safely at home — not in a nursing facility, not in an institution, but at home, with family. These programs, which have earned bipartisan support for decades, make that possible by compensating family members and professional caregivers for the round-the-clock, medically complex work that keeps vulnerable people alive and cared for.

This is not errand-running. For families like Sue Root's in Colorado, it means managing ventilators, feeding tubes, and seizure monitoring. For parents like Brandi Coon in Arizona, it means providing constant care for a child with cerebral palsy and epilepsy. The work is demanding, specialized, and in many rural communities, there simply are no outside workers available with the skills to do it.

More than 11 million Americans are currently paid through government programs to care for disabled or elderly family members, according to a recent study. Yet more than 600,000 people are already on waitlists for home-care services — a shortage that would only worsen if these programs are weakened. Cutting or undermining them doesn't save money. It shifts people into nursing homes and institutions, which cost taxpayers far more.

We urge Congress to protect Medicaid home- and community-based services from cuts — and to reject any effort to mischaracterize family caregivers as fraudsters. These families are not the problem. They are the solution.

Sign this petition to tell Congress: protect the programs that keep our most vulnerable neighbors and loved ones at home.