The Congressional Committee proposed delaying further implementation of nursing home staffing mandates for 10 years as part of a major budget settlement bill.
The provisions of the bill, introduced Sunday night, would represent a major victory for nursing home providers.
The package also stops states from enacting more provider taxes. This is a potential setback against skilled care operators and states that benefit from strengthening the federal matching funds they produce.
However, providers fear the elimination or dramatic reduction of provider taxes, indicating that at least one level, the Sunday night proposal could represent a potential calm victory in a given circle.
“Republicans… on the contrary… are pointless government rules that undermine access to care, such as the kind of nursing home minimum staffing rules that threaten to close thousands of nursing homes,” foreshadowed Brett Guthrie (R-KY), chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce on Sunday in the Wall Street Journal.
The Association of Major Long-Term Care Providers said on Monday that it continued to study hundreds of newly released pages in the proposal, but thanked the attention given to important topics.
“We are still looking into the details of this first round of law and assessing how it will affect our long-term care sector,” he said in an email to McKnight, senior vice president of government relations at the American Medical Association. “We are grateful that Chairman Guthrie recognizes the unreality and excessive nature of staffing mandate, and is urging Congress to protect access to care and to completely abolish this reckless regulation, a settlement process that is far from perfect.
The bill will request a delay from the Department of Health and Human Services until January 1, 2035, “implementation, administration, or enforcement” of the Medicare and Medicaid programs. “Minimum Personnel Standards for Payment Transparency Reporting for Long-Term Care Facilities and Medicaid Institutions” Final Rules.
Some of the minimum staffing rules have already been in place, but the most frightening elements, including serving as registered nurses 24/7 each year and minimum coverage times for direct nurses, are not expected to come into effect until next year.
More coming
Energy and commercial proposals are one salvo of what could be a drawn-out process to coordinate the Senate and Senate priorities that fund the federal government. President Trump has assigned Republican leaders. Republican leaders control both Congresses. This is the task of finding $880 billion to extend tax cuts and other funding priorities.
As a result, they had to walk the tightrope, trying to balance the elimination or reduction of some programs.
The energy and commerce package avoids per capita caps for federal Medicaid payments to states, but puts pressure on states in other ways that could force cuts in funds and programs.
The proposal calls for a suspension, particularly on new or increased provider taxes. This is an important tool that most states use to enhance payments to nursing homes. The bill states “current tax rates, which state provider taxes that are in effect as of the date this law's enactment, prohibiting the state from establishing a new provider tax.
“Democrats will use this as an opportunity to engage in terror surveillance and misrepresent our bill as an attack on Medicaid,” Guthrie said in his column about the settlement package. “The reality is that it preserves and enhances Medicaid for children, mothers, people with disabilities and seniors whose programs are designed.”
The Congressional suspension of nursing home staffing mandate was celebrated early last month when a federal judge threw a large portion of the program.
This is a developing story. Please check for updates.
