{"id":598550,"date":"2023-11-22T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-11-22T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/bidens-nursing-home-staffing-rules-divide-democrats-ahead-of-2024\/"},"modified":"2023-11-22T14:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-11-22T11:00:00","slug":"bidens-nursing-home-staffing-rules-divide-democrats-ahead-of-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/bidens-nursing-home-staffing-rules-divide-democrats-ahead-of-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"#Biden\u2019s nursing home staffing rules divide Democrats ahead of 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/11\/assisted_living_081523_AP.jpeg?w=900\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>The Biden administration is walking a political tightrope with its plan to impose minimum staffing levels on nursing homes.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The White House is facing criticism from the left and the right, and the proposal is dividing Democrats, especially some front-line members facing a difficult reelection in 2024. Those lawmakers, mostly from rural areas, argue that the proposal is too strict and would force nursing homes to close.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr1_ab\"><\/aside>\n<p>\u201cIn many parts of the country, America\u2019s long-term care facilities are facing severe workforce shortage issues that are harming access to critical care for our nation\u2019s seniors,\u201d Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), one of the Senate\u2019s most vulnerable Democrats, wrote in a bipartisan letter.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWith this in mind, we are deeply concerned that now is the worst possible time for the United States to establish the nation\u2019s first federal staffing mandate for long-term care facilities.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin (W.Va.), Maggie Hassan (N.H.) and Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.), and independents Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) and Angus King (Maine) also signed the letter, along with more than 20 Republicans.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>On the House side, Rep. Greg Pence (R-Ind.) led a bipartisan letter with Democratic Reps. Jared Golden (Maine) and Chris P<a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">app<\/a>as (N.H.).\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The lawmakers said the rule would result in \u201climited access to care for seniors, mandatory increases in state Medicaid budgets, and could most consequentially lead to widespread nursing home closures.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Their arguments echo industry groups who say any federal standard is unfeasible because of a nationwide staffing shortage made worse by the pandemic.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr2_ab\"><\/aside>\n<p>They say it also amounts to an unfunded federal mandate because Medicaid reimbursement rates are too low.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Almost 95 percent of nursing homes do not meet at least one of the three proposed staffing requirements, according to the American Health Care Association, a long-term care trade group that represents 14,000 nursing homes.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The rule \u201cwill only result in negative, unintended consequences for residents, staff, and the entire health care system,\u201d the organization said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr3_ab\"><\/aside>\n<p>President Biden last year announced a slate of nursing home reforms and vowed staffing minimums would be among them. Advocates have been calling for such a requirement for more than two decades, arguing that residents are safer and have better care with more staff, but the industry has successfully resisted thus far.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The proposed rule was published Sept. 1 and attracted nearly 50,000 comments by the Nov. 6 deadline.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Nursing home experts said the massive amount of interest in the policy gives the administration very little room to maneuver.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr4_ab\"><\/aside>\n<p>\u201cI think there is somewhat of a zero-sum nature to this, as it\u2019s currently written,\u201d said David Grabowski, a professor of health policy at Harvard Medical School.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis hasn\u2019t fallen across [traditional] party lines, and both sides are sort of worried about access issues, and I think both sides are worried about nursing home quality, and I\u2019ve never thought of that as being an issue for the left or the right.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Grabowski said he would like to see more political will behind giving nursing homes more money to meet the requirements.\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr5_ab\"><\/aside>\n<p>The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) said it will invest $75 million in boosting workforce recruitment and training, but Grabowski said that likely won\u2019t be nearly enough to overcome the existing shortages.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Current law requires only that homes have \u201csufficient\u201d staffing, but it leaves nearly all interpretation to the states.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The current law also requires nursing homes to have a registered nurse (RN) on duty for eight consecutive hours per day, seven days a week, and to have a licensed nurse \u2014 either an RN or licensed practical nurse \u2014 on site 24\/7.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr6_ab\"><\/aside>\n<p>Among other provisions, the new proposal would require facilities to have an RN on staff 24 hours per day, seven days per week.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The proposal would also require nursing homes to provide at least three hours of direct care per resident per day, including at least 33 minutes from a registered nurse.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Alice Burns, an associate director of KFF\u2019s Program on Medicaid and the Uninsured, said rural areas have historically suffered from workforce shortages, so she understands why lawmakers from rural districts are concerned about the proposal.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr7_ab\"><\/aside>\n<p>Still, she said their broad opposition is \u201cpuzzling,\u201d because the proposal has a hardship exemption that would allow nursing facilities to maintain lower staffing levels if they met certain requirements.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Edward Miller, chair of the gerontology department at the University of Massachusetts Boston, said he could see the administration broadening the exemption for rural facilities.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s one thing to raise the standard to create a mandate. But if it\u2019s unrealistic for rural areas to satisfy that requirement, you think it would be in the administration\u2019s interest, particularly with an election year, to either give them more time or just \u2026 modify the standard or waive it altogether,\u201d Miller said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is plenty of opportunity for the administration to modify this to reflect the realities on the ground, particularly in low resource areas,\u201d he added.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>On the flip side, other Democrats and consumer and nursing home advocates, including unions, want the administration to strengthen the requirements. They said the rule was a positive step, but overall doesn\u2019t go far enough.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cResidents deserve the best of care from highly trained, fairly compensated, and sufficiently numbered staff. We therefore strongly urge you to quickly strengthen and finalize\u201d the proposal, wrote Reps. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) and 99 other House Democrats.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur nation\u2019s 1.2 million nursing home residents deserve high quality care that prioritizes their safety. The proposed rule takes a vital step towards ensuring residents receive this high quality care by establishing commonsense staffing minimums and improving enforcement,\u201d Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) wrote in a letter with 11 other Senate Democrats.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Casey, who is facing a Republican challenger next year, also called for more support to help nursing homes comply with the new rules.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe urge CMS to provide for strong enforcement of a final staffing standard while ensuring state survey agencies and their staffs are adequately resourced to conduct this important work,\u201d the lawmakers said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Copyright 2023 Nexstar <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/social-mediaa\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"1\" title=\"Social Media\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Media<\/a> Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMLG0nwswvr63Aw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">For forums sites go to <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/forum.buradabiliyorum.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/news\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"2\" title=\"News\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News<\/a> articles, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/news\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/policy\/healthcare\/4319816-biden-nursing-home-staffing-rules-divide-democrats-2024-election\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Biden administration is walking a political tightrope with its plan to impose minimum staffing levels on nursing homes.\u00a0\u00a0 The White House is facing criticism from the left and the right, and the proposal is dividing Democrats, especially some front-line members facing a difficult reelection in 2024. Those lawmakers, mostly from rural areas, argue that&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":598551,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thehill.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/11\/assisted_living_081523_AP.jpeg?w=1280","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[147171,138240,134343,135175,10574,134420,147172,73014,124783,135115,135516,141240,991,89017,137265,112997,141927,106184,42160,147173,134345,4965],"class_list":["post-598550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-assisted-living-facilities","tag-bob-casey","tag-campaign","tag-chris-pappas","tag-education","tag-equilibrium-sustainability","tag-greg-pence","tag-health-care","tag-international","tag-jan-schakowsky","tag-jared-golden","tag-jeanne-shaheen","tag-joe-biden","tag-joe-manchin","tag-jon-tester","tag-kyrsten-sinema","tag-lloyd-doggett","tag-maggie-hassan","tag-nursing-homes","tag-staffing-levels","tag-state-watch","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=598550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598550\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/598551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}