Nursing Home Caregivers, Providers, Small Business Leaders Warn Deep Medicare Cuts Will Threaten Seniors' Care, Destabilize Staffing, Hurt Local Economies and...(lin MO said the mission of the nation's ...),Health

Date:10/28/2009

lin, MO, said the mission of the nation's front line caregivers moving forward is to ensure lawmakers crafting a final health reform bill understand the deep inter-relationship between Medicare and Medicaid funding, and that funding adequacy in both programs has a major impact on staffing operations and the quality of care provided on the front lines.

"We will continue to impress upon lawmakers that because three of every four nursing home patients' care is funded by Medicare and Medicaid combined -- and because facilities devote a full 70% of operating expenses to wages, benefits and other fixed labor costs -- adequate Medicare funding in any final reform legislation is integral to staffing stability and quality care in facilities nationwide," Cantrell said.

Tom Norton, owner of the Lee Insurance Agency, in Muscatine, IA, said a significant portion of his business entails insuring skilled nursing facilities throughout rural Iowa. "My small business, with a heavy rural presence, exemplifies how the ongoing economic viability of long term care facilities ultimately will have a direct relationship to the strength of the small business community itself."

Erb, Cantrell and Norton said they understand and appreciate the fact House and Senate leaders must seek budgetary savings to help finance health reform, but that some approaches make far less sense than others.

"We well understand how important it is to pass a comprehensive reform bill, but by any standard of fairness and common sense, nursing staff and the vulnerable patients under their care are the wrong targets for deep funding cuts," Cantrell continued. "On behalf of seniors, caregivers and small businessmen and women throughout our great nation, we respectfully ask House and Senate leaders in charge of shaping a final bill to ensure Medicare funding for nursing home care remains the priority it must and deserves to be."

SOURCE Community Cares C
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SOURCE Community Cares Coalition Copyright©2009 PR Newswire. All rights reserved

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