Long Term Care Leaders Praise Bipartisan Effort to Reject Bush Administration’s Proposed Medicare Cuts

ALBANY, NY (03/17/2008)(readMedia)-- The New York State Health Facilities Association (NYSHFA) and the American Health Care Association (AHCA) today praised New York legislators, Senator Hilary Clinton, Representatives Michael Acuri, John Hall, Carolyn Maloney, Carolyn McCarthy, and Ed Towns for joining respective bipartisan letters, signed by 16 members of the U.S. Senate and 76 members of the U.S. House of Representatives, urging the Senate and House Budget Committees to rescind five-year, $24 billion cuts to Medicare-financed nursing home care proposed in the Bush Administration’s FY 2009 budget.

The bipartisan letters, spearheaded in the Senate by Senators Tim Johnson (D-SD) and Susan Collins (R-ME), were sent to both Senate Budget Committee Chair Kent Conrad (D-ND) and Ranking Member Judd Gregg (R-NH), and House Budget Committee Chair John Spratt (D-SC) and Ranking Member Paul Ryan (R-WI), championed by U.S. Representative Shelley Berkley (D-NV) and Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) in the House. The Senate letter states, ““We are writing to urge the Budget Committee to strongly oppose cuts to Medicare and Medicaid in the Administration’s Fiscal Year 2009 (FY 09) Budget… Approximately 80% of nursing home patients rely on either Medicare or Medicaid to pay for their long term care. Given that the fastest growing segment of our population are those 85 and older, our nation’s need for long term care is likely to increase significantly. Providing adequate reimbursement for long term care under both Medicare and Medicaid will ensure that this growing population will continue to have access to long term care.

Continues the House letter, “Despite the growing demand for long term care, the existing financing mechanisms for Medicare and Medicaid are intertwined and increasingly dysfunctional. Medicare and Medicaid funding comprise the vast majority of all skilled nursing facility (SNF) payments. The Administration’s proposed reductions to Medicare payments to SNFs are especially egregious when the drastic underfunding of Medicaid-financed SNF care is considered. For 2007, SNFs received $4.4 billion less than needed to cover the costs of providing care to Medicaid patients according to BDO Seidman. The Administration’s FY 09 budget, however, ignores this perilous situation and calls for nearly $24 billion in cuts to Medicare SNF funding over five years.”

Richard Herrick, President and CEO of NYSHFA, said, “We thank Senator Clinton and Representatives Acuri, Hall, Maloney, McCarthy, and Towns for being champions in the fight to protect New York’s nursing home residents from devastating federal Medicare cuts. In signing this important letter, they clearly understand that Medicare funding reductions of this nature will adversely impact constituents’ care needs at the local level.” Bruce Yarwood, President and CEO of the American Health Care Association (AHCA) in Washington, D.C., also praised Clinton, Acuri, Hall, Maloney, McCarthy, and Towns, and said, “Their support for this letter helps to spotlight the chronic Medicaid under funding crisis, which becomes still more problematic for patients and facilities when Medicare-funded nursing home care is cut in the manner proposed by the Bush Administration.”

The full text of both the Senate and the House letters and the list of all 92 congressional signatories are available at www.ahca.org.

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