New Report on Nursing Home Industry

The Center for Medicare Advocacy   recently released a new report,  Nursing Home Industry is Heavily Taxpayer-Subsidized.

I offer you this opening paragraph as a teaser to the 6 page report:

It is well-known that Government health care programs, Medicare and Medicaid, are the primary payers for nursing home care. The two federal programs paid facilities tens of billions of dollars for providing care to residents and were the primary payer for nearly 80% of residents.  Far less known is that, in addition to receiving these direct payments, the nursing home industry also benefits from the extensive subsidies, through income-related public benefit programs – Medicaid, food assistance, housing assistance, heating assistance, cash payments, tax credits, and more – that help support its underpaid staff. The Government subsidizes the nursing home industry by billions of dollars each year by providing needs-based public benefits and earned income tax credits to its many low-wage nursing home workers. (citations omitted in this quote).

The article discusses the facilities, the employees, salaries and public benefit programs, and issues this call to action: “Change is beginning to happen in wages for low-wage workers, but until all nursing home workers’ wages are raised to (at least) living wages and until all workers receive health benefits and paid time off, the Government will continue to subsidize nursing homes by billions of dollars by providing needs-based public benefits and earned income tax credits to the nursing home industry’s low-paid workers. …” (citations omitted in this quote).

In the interest of full disclosure, I am on the board for the Center for Medicare Advocacy.