Can the government shut down really effect my wife's job as Home Health Aide?

[diabeticman]

My wife says that if this last a certain amount of time she would see her hours cut or get laid off. She says a lot of her job is paid by government programs but I don't see how.

[Agnosticsherbet]

1. Any part of her pay that is covered by a Federal Government Program will be temporarily stopped.

My wife is a civilian employ in a Military Hospital. She will not get paid, and tomorrow we will find how they will deal with it.

[MADem]

2. A lot of mandatorily funded things will go on until we hit the "debt ceiling." At that point in

time they're gonna have to address that aspect. That's at least a week out.

[Enrique]

3. Medicare, Medicaid and VA benefits are unaffected

i think it's a good bet that those programs are the ones which most likely pay for her services.

[Princess Turandot]

4. Home Health services are often paid for by Medicaid...

even if provided by private agencies. (Medicare does reimburse for HHA services but not for long term 'maintenance care', which is where the bulk of the services are found.) Medicaid is funded in a matching program by the feds and the individual states. If the cash flow from the feds isn't there, at some point agencies would have no assurances of bills being paid and may stop providing services.

That's my guess, at least.

Edited to add: this assumes that Medicaid is affected. I thought it was but another reply above says it is not.

[diabeticman]

5. I know I notice that as well. I hope it is true.