Senator Susan Collins Praised for Leading Successful Effort to Derail $4.3 Million Maine Med...( Action Preserves Beneficiary Acce...),Health

Action Preserves Beneficiary Access to High Quality Nursing Home Care; Helps Preserve, Strengthen Intra-Facility Staffing Efforts

JOPLIN, Mo., Aug. 7 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Citing the substantial benefit in protecting the nation's critical frontline-caregiver infrastructure, the Coalition to Protect Senior Care (CPSC) today thanked Senator Susan Collins for helping to lead a successful, bipartisan effort in Congress to stop the Bush Administration from moving forward with a new regulation that would have cut Medicare-funded nursing home care by $4 billion over the next five years, and $770 million for FY 2009. The Administration announced last week that the regulation would not go into effect, and the success of Sen. Collins in helping to prevent the Medicare regulation from going into effect ensures Maine seniors will be protected from cuts of $4.3 million next year.

"With all of the seemingly endless public criticism of Washington, it is essential to point out that Senator Collins just played a successful, pivotal role in helping roll back potentially disastrous $4.3 million Medicare cuts for Maine's seniors," stated Lori Porter, a co-founder and CEO of the National Association of Health Care Assistants, and a founding member of the CPSC, based in Joplin, MO. "From the perspective of front line caregivers who help make the key difference in patient outcomes, Sen. Collins deserves enormous thanks for stopping the Medicare changes that were about to go into effect."

Specifically, Sen. Collins joined a key letter to Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Mike Leavitt warning the Bush Administration's proposed Medicare regulation would "jeopardize the significant quality improvements made by the skilled nursing facility (SNF) community in recent years as well as the ability of nursing homes to continue caring for high acuity patients. Because nursing homes rely on Medicare to make up for chronic underfunding by the Medicaid program -
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