Home‑care Programs as Political Cash Funnels

Large publicly funded home‑care programs that pay family members and rely on self‑reporting can concentrate cash flows into unions and local political networks, creating incentives to resist oversight and preserve enrollment rather than program integrity. When oversight rules (e.g., banning unannounced visits) and beneficiary selection rules favor insider relationships, the program becomes both fiscally leaky and politically protective of incumbents. — This reframes some welfare integrity debates as questions about how social‑service design creates recurring political rents and undermines accountability at state scale.