As legislators think about how to make long-term care more accessible for a wave of future residents in the coming years, the nursing home sector along with other post-acute care settings could be a bipartisan rallying point.

This is especially true as the baby boomer generation drives demand for long-term care, and the country continues to face workforce challenges. Tweaking entitlements or tax policy could be the tipping force toward more access, an Axios report found.

Two bills introduced by Congress in the last week, the WISH Act and Credit for Caring Act, are examples of legislation that puts the long-term care issue on the front burner. And it’s timely considering the rising demographics of older adults. The recognition of these factors makes it ripe for bipartisan collaboration after a divisive budget reconciliation process.

However, the legislation currently under consideration is likely to have only a marginal impact on nursing homes, given that its focus is on home and community-based services (HCBS). That said, even with improved HCBS there will be plenty of older adults needing nursing home services, due to significant activities of daily living needs, Fred Bentley, managing director for ATI Advisory’s Post-Acute, Long-Term Care and Senior Living Practice, told Skilled Nursing News earlier.

WISH, introduced by Reps. Tom Suozzi and John Moolenaar, creates a long-term care fund under Social Security. Lower-income people needing help with at least two activities of daily living would receive a monthly benefit of $4,000 for six hours of daily care, Axios noted.

“There’s a big storm coming in our country,” Suozzi said. “Very few people have long-term care insurance, and people end up going into nursing homes. And not only can the nursing homes not handle this volume of people, but the Medicaid system will go bust.”

While mainly dealing with home and community-based services, such attention on long-term care isn’t new, with President Trump and Kamala Harris last year voicing policy proposals on the campaign trail.

Harris’ Medicare at Home benefit would have covered in-home services for seniors with modest incomes, and Trump’s long-term care policies would shift resources back to at-home senior care, overturning disincentives leading to care worker shortages, and supporting unpaid caregivers through tax credits and reduced red tape.

Credit for Caring sounds similar to these policies, and was introduced by Reps. Linda Sánchez and Mike Carey, along with Sens. Shelley Moore Capito and Michael Benet in the same week to create a tax credit of up to $5,000 for family caregivers. Such tax credits haven’t come up in budget reconciliation talks, Axios said.

As of yet, no funding offsets for either bill have been identified. An earlier version of the WISH Act would have tapped into payroll taxes, Axios reported. Suozzi said the bills focus on potential savings to Medicaid.

Medicaid accounts for one-fifth of the U.S. health care spending and covers more than a quarter of Americans, Axios found.