News Digest: President Biden Claims Nursing Homes are putting residents at risk
With the long anticipated announcement of first-of-their-kind minimum staffing rules, the volume is turned up to 10 across the industry. Knowing the strong pushback and intense lobbying to come, President Biden took to the the media to promote the newly announced proposal. And his opinion piece did not sit unanswered for very long.
President Biden: Nursing homes are putting residents at risk. We're ending the abuse today.
It’s one of the most gut-wrenching moments American families face: when a loved one can no longer be cared for at home and needs to move into a nursing home. You lie awake at night wondering: Will they receive the care and support they need? How can you be sure they’ll be safe? Are you doing the right thing?
Unfortunately, too many Americans across the country know firsthand how hard it can be to find a nursing home that provides that peace of mind. A woman in Texas, who has changed nursing facilities three times in four years over concerns about care, wrote to me, “We keep looking for someplace that will fulfill the promises they make when you’re admitted.” A daughter in New York, whose mother is in a facility, wrote, “It keeps me up at night, when there’s half of what’s needed” to keep a parent safe.
Despitenursing homes receiving nearly $100 billion annuallyfrom American taxpayers, too many facilities are understaffed, which can result in severe illness and even death for residents.
Biden, President Joe. “President Biden: Nursing Homes Are Putting Residents at Risk. We’re Ending the Abuse Today.” USA TODAY, 4 Sept. 2023, www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2023/09/01/biden-nursing-homes-staffing-safety-regulations/70731273007
What Biden gets wrong about nursing homes: President is trying to lump us all together
To break through to the American public,the Biden administration is using forceful and unapologetic language. They want constituents and voters to know that they are working to fix the broken federal system.
We get it. The public needs someone to condemn, someone to push back against. In the narrative the administration is selling, nursing homes have been uniformly cast in the role of villain.
It’s an emotionally compelling tactic to address a complex situation. The trouble is, it’s not accurate.
Nonprofit and mission-driven nursing homes, including members of the association I lead, are not the grifters and blame-shifters that the public is being led to believe they are. We share the administration’s goal of ensuring America’s older adults and families can receive high quality nursing home care – it’s why nonprofit providers go to work every day.
Sloan, Katie Smith. “What Biden Gets Wrong About Nursing Homes: President Is Trying to Lump Us All Together.” USA TODAY, 6 Sept. 2023, www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2023/09/06/biden-nursing-home-staffing-requirements-cost-crushing/70765045007.
Biden’s Regulatory Death Star
Despite federal data showing that the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to massive job losses for nursing and residential care facilities – with the workforce 218,200 workers smaller last month than pre-pandemic – the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) under the Biden Administration has proposed an unfunded staffing mandate for nursing homes.
This came after publicity over the agency’s own study finding no “clear evidence basis for setting a minimum staffing level” and acknowledging that “nursing homes are currently very challenged in hiring and retaining direct care workers, because of workforce shortages and competition from higher-paying agency positions.”
In 2016, CMS, under the Obama Administration, acknowledged in a 184-page rule that mandating staff ratios would have the effect of “stifling innovation, and would not result in the improved quality and person-centered care that we seek in facilities.” It warned, presciently, with respect to a suggested 24/7 registered nurse requirement, that “geographic disparity in supply could make such a mandate particularly challenging in some rural and underserved areas.” It stated it did “not agree that a ‘one size fits all’ approach is best.”
Yet, seven years later, the Biden Administration is embracing that approach and also requiring 24/7 RN staffing despite the well-documented shortage of RNs that has greatly worsened since 2016 due to retirements and the pandemic.
Williams, Brendan. “Biden’s Regulatory Death Star.” McKnight’s Long-Term Care News, 11 Sept. 2023, www.mcknights.com/blogs/guest-columns/bidens-regulatory-death-star.
Biden unloads on nursing home operators
While nursing home operators scurried to read proposed new demands regarding a first-ever nursing home staffing mandate Friday, they were also left with another powerful blow to absorb: A full-on attack by President Joe Biden, who aggressively detailed the rationale for the new rule in a guest column in USA Today.
Some long-term care leaders quickly equated the president’s message with an attempt to manipulate the perception of actual conditions.
The controversial staffing proposal calls for 3.0 hours of nursing care per patient per day and also would require round-the-clock registered nurse coverage in a facility every day of the year.
Berklan, James M. “Biden Unloads on Nursing Home Operators.” McKnight’s Long-Term Care News, 5 Sept. 2023, www.mcknights.com/news/biden-unloads-on-nursing-home-operators.
LeadingAge’s Sloan defends nonprofits after Biden attack on nursing homes
Days after President Biden issued a broadside against the nursing home sector for sacrificing “the safety of its residents just to add some dollars to its bottom line,” the nation’s top advocate for nonprofit providers is pushing back with some tough words of her own.
In a guest column published Wednesday in USA Today, which also carried the Biden attack, LeadingAge President and CEO Katie Smith Sloan (pictured) called on the president to temper his tone so as not to destroy the trust her members have worked hard to build.
Marselas, Kimberly. “LeadingAge’s Sloan Defends Nonprofits After Biden Attack on Nursing Homes.” McKnight’s Long-Term Care News, 7 Sept. 2023, www.mcknights.com/news/leadingage-ceo-defends-nonprofits-after-biden-attack-on-nursing-homes.
