Celebrating National Family Caregivers Month in November

In the United States, November is famously time for families. Thanksgiving gathers families from near and far to appreciate the bounties that we receive.

November is also a time when we honor the millions of family caregivers across our nation. Family caregivers offer a variety of supports to family members who have chronic illnesses, disabilities, or extra support needs related to aging.

And like a Thanksgiving meal with the extended family, family caregiving has its blessings and its challenges.

In October, AARP and the National Alliance for Caregivers published Caregiving in the US 2025, which demonstrates the experiences of over 63 million family caregivers across the states, including 4 million adults caring for children with disabilities or complex medical needs.

These caregivers provide a wide variety of supports. This can include hands-on support with activities of daily living, such as dressing, eating, and bathing. Caregivers may help coordinate health care and in-home services, provide advocacy and help manage finances.

In Colorado, over 1,032,000 of adults over 18 (22% of the population) act as family caregivers. 89% of caregivers care for an adult, with 50% of those being the caregiver’s parent.

Only 10% of Colorado family caregivers are paid, and 26% of caregivers spend over 40 hours per week providing care and almost 40% have no other help.

Family caregiving can be positive for everyone involved. But it can also put pressure on family dynamics. When family is the only option, caregivers can become burned out and the person being supported can feel like they have no choice or autonomy.

Nearly half of the family caregivers have experienced financial hardships. Though Colorado has programs that can support family caregivers, many people do not or cannot access those programs.

Here we end up between a rock and a hard place. The state of Colorado’s financial obligations have outgrown the revenue collected. Over one-third of the state budget goes toward Medicaid, and about 45% of the Medicaid budget supports long term services for people with disabilities and complex health care needs.

We need family caregivers in our long term care system. There simply are not enough professional providers nor sufficient funding to make up for the hours of care that family members provide.

And this is historically one of the ways that Colorado has managed to contain the growth of the long term care Medicaid budget. Family caregivers have provided free services for decades. Then came the increased availability and popularity of self-directed care, and during the pandemic, we expanded the services family caregivers could provide. Family caregivers started filling in the gaps with paid services. And Colorado’s Medicaid budget exploded.

Of course, there were many factors to that growth, but the cost savings from “free” family supports were reduced over the past five years.

The dilemma we face is both simple and complex: Colorado can’t afford all the services needed by its residents. Families can’t afford to bear the entire financial investment. We need options.