What Real People Get About Kamala Harris' Big New Idea That The Political Set Can't Grasp

The reaction she's gotten shows just how big a need Harris is trying to address.

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Kamala Harris this week proposed to have Medicare cover in-home care for seniors and people with disabilities, in what would amount to a major expansion of the beloved federal health insurance program.

And while it doesn’t appear to have registered as such in the political conversation (more on that in a minute), her plan made an impression on a lot of everyday Americans who heard about it.

Mike Jennings is one of them.

Jennings is a web developer in northeast Kansas. About ten years ago, he, his sister and his mother became the primary caregivers for his grandmother, who was then in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. She wanted to live at home, and the rest of the family wanted that too, Jennings told me in a phone interview. But they couldn’t afford to hire in-home help, so they took on the responsibility of caring for her themselves ― trading shifts, juggling work and other responsibilities.