New Study of House Health Reform Bill: Louisiana Faces $561 Million in Medicare-Funded Nursing Home Cuts Over Ten Years
BATON ROUGE, La.-(Business Wire)-August 26, 2009 - A new American Health Care Association analysis of the pending House health reform bill, combined with the impact of a recently-enacted Medicare regulation cutting Medicare-funded nursing home care by $12 billion over ten years, finds seniors in Louisiana in need of nursing and rehabilitative care will face total funding cuts of $561 million over that same time period. Nationally, the study finds seniors' Medicare cuts will total $44 billion over ten years, prompting Louisiana’s long term care community to warn that the Louisiana seniors' care needs are endangered by the House bill, as are the jobs of more than 757 caregivers in Louisiana alone.
"Louisiana seniors’ Medicare-funded nursing care will be severely impacted by the pending health reform bill in the U.S. House of Representatives. We urge lawmakers to consider how cuts of this size will affect senior care and ask that Congress revise its plan to ensure seniors are helped by reform measures – not hurt by it," said Joseph Donchess, Executive Director of Louisiana Nursing Home Association. "Arguments being made that seniors' benefits will not be reduced by the House bill ignore the fact that cuts would force providers to cut staff because labor expenses comprise 70 percent of facility costs. Cutting staff within a facility has a direct, immediate, negative impact on patients and their care."
The new analysis of the House bill's Medicare funding reductions over ten years (combined with the $12 billion ten year Medicare cuts just put into effect by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) is computed by the AHCA Reimbursement and Research Department using the Congressional Budget Office score of both HR 3200 and the recent CMS funding rule, along with Medicare Skilled Nursing Facility (SNF) utilization data.
ABOUT THE LOUISIANA NURSING HOME ASSOCIATION
Since 1957, Louisiana Nursing Home Association has strived to meet the needs of thousands of elderly and frail Louisianans through its representation of licensed nursing facilities in the state. Cooperating closely with public and private health care groups, LNHA has continued to pursue its goal of improving the quality of life for the state's thousands of nursing home and assisted living residents. For more information about the Louisiana Nursing Home Association, visit http://www.lnha.org/
All 50 State Cut Data Available at www.ahca.org.
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