Caring for someone you love is the most human work there is, and the most invisible. A cooperative counts it, supports it, helps you get paid for it, and is owned by the people who do it. The machine handles the paperwork; a person handles the moment that matters.
We do all the digital work of standing up your own family Hearth co-op — the founding docs, the LMN, the directives, the benefits scan, the Mutual ledger. Informed agents handle the paperwork; you focus on your circle.
A different way forward — instead of an insurer that stopped insuring, an agency that keeps 40 cents of every dollar, or a payer with a conflict at the moment that matters most. About 70% of people over 65 will need long-term care; only 11% have insurance for it. The cooperative is what's left — and it works when the people who need it own it.
A founding share, a real cooperative, a real mutual aid pool. The Mutual's structure is the proposed fraternal benefit form, pending state insurance review and actuarial sign-off. The seven benefits above describe the structure when fully chartered; some benefits (DPC, LMN, time bank, governance) are available to founding members today, others (full prevention-dividend reimbursement, age-in-place credits) unlock as the Mutual reaches regulatory scale. The honest scope is on /mutual. · Is this Marxism?
Public programs already fund family caregiving. The take rate is what's broken — and a co-op fixes the take rate.
Medicaid · self-direction
In self-direction programs, family caregivers are paid for the hours they already give. Routed through the co-op, the admin take is 8–15% — not the 40–50% a staffing agency keeps.
Medicare Advantage · in-home
Many plans now cover in-home support, respite, and supplemental care. We navigate and deliver them — so the benefit becomes real hours of help instead of a line item nobody claims.
VA · veteran directed care
Veteran Directed Care and the caregiver stipend pay families to keep a veteran home and well. The co-op handles the paperwork so the stipend reaches the caregiver, on time.
Same public dollar. More of it reaches your kitchen.
No application, no waitlist, no means test. You found it — and it accrues.
Name your household — related or chosen, under one roof or scattered. Solo is welcome.
1–20 peopleThe covenant: directives current, prevention attested, proxy named, home safe, one mutual-aid pledge.
the covenantCare Hours mint to your ledger and keep arriving while standing holds. Spend, pool, or send them.
one hour, at parMarion has cared for her mother for three years. Here's the same week, on two different rails.
The work is the same. The deed is the difference.
We're founding the first 50 Hearths where the rails can be proven end to end — in a region where Medicare's payment model already rewards keeping people well at home, and where the hospital conversation is building name by name.
The same automation that hollowed out the digital economy can fund a human one — if the people who give care own the rails it runs on. That's the case the book makes, and the system this site runs on.
"We don't own the cars. We make the engine."
Read chapter oneCare isn't one moment — it runs from planning what matters to proving it happened. co-op.care connects the rooms most families cross alone. One identity carries you through every door.
A 2-minute fall-risk screen — the worry is the real front door. No signup, just what to watch tonight.
fallrisks.com →Name a proxy, set your directives, and have the conversation families keep avoiding.
caregoals.com →Decide how the last chapter goes — on your terms, before a crisis decides for you.
qualitydeath.com →Turn HSA/FSA money into care — and carry one membership identity through every door.
comfortcard.org →The people who do the caring get paid — and own a piece. The VA already pays a veteran’s caregiver up to ~$2,750/mo; this is that, for everyone.
co-op.care/ubci →Put everyone who helps — kin, neighbors, aides — on one page, in one circle.
carescircle.com →A 50-state physician network signs the directives, LMNs, and orders that need an MD.
altru.care →Every visit and signature anchored to tamper-evident proof you can actually show.
hashcare.com →Patient-care hours and W-2 pay near campus — and a path to owning the co-op you help build, long after graduation.
co-op.care/recruit-student →Five minutes. No account. No cost.