Ignoring the staffing challenges facing nursing homes since the COVID-19 pandemic began, the Biden Administration is proposing a staffing mandate rejected by the Obama Administration in 2016. This one-size-fits-all approach treats all of the over-15,000 nursing homes in the United States exactly the same, without any recognition of existing quality or local job markets. New Hampshire already has one of the nation's lowest unemployment rates and simply does not have enough available licensed staff for all health care providers, who are all competing to hire those few caregivers available.
Effectively this unfunded mandate would force New Hampshire facilities to further deny admission to residents (one county-run facility already has a wait list of over 100 prospective residents), in order to boost their staff-to-resident ratios, or use more out-of-state nurse staffing agencies (even the state itself already has to spend taxpayer millions on such agencies to meet care needs) at bankrupting cost, putting strangers by the bedside. Many facilities would close.
Astonishingly, the proposed mandate doesn't even acknowledge the existence, or valuable role, of licensed practical nurses (LPNs), though there are more LPNs in nursing homes than registered nurses!
This is just one of many, many problems with this proposed unfunded mandate. The Biden Administration estimates it would cost nursing homes $4.06 billion a year (the national accounting firm of CliftonLarsonAllen LLP pegs it at $6.8 billion annually), yet is only providing a one-time "workforce investment" of $75 million (a measly $5,000 per nursing home). Even the president's own Small Business Administration questions his proposal's math, as do leading fellow Democrats.
According to the federal Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, the all-payer margin for freestanding nursing homes fell to a negative 1.4% nationally in 2022, a dismal situation MedPAC noted is “is heavily influenced by states’ Medicaid nursing home rates." There is no room within negative margins for unfunded new costs. Plus the mandate's $8 million+ annually in new state Medicaid costs alone would have to come from New Hampshire taxpayers or be diverted from home and community-based care.
Make your voice heard, and let the Biden Administration know you oppose this new rule that would destroy long-term care in the Granite State. For a link to comment, go to https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/.
Copyright © 2018 Save New Hampshire Care - All Rights Reserved. Paid for by the New Hampshire Health Care Association.
Powered by GoDaddy