Super Committee Urged to Preserve, Protect and Defend Quality Nursing Home Care for Nation's Seniors

Alliance for Quality Nursing Home Care to Advance Proposals to Maximize Medicare Spending Efficiencies

WASHINGTON, Aug. 11, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In congratulating the newly appointed members of the Congressional Super Committee charged with reigning in federal spending, the Alliance for Quality Nursing Home Care urged members to ensure preserving, protecting and defending quality nursing home care and local caregiver jobs rank as a top priority in the face of monumental Medicare and Medicaid challenges.

"This distinguished bipartisan group of lawmakers is charged with a budgetary balancing act of historic proportion, and we respectfully ask that they ensure the most vulnerable seniors in their state, and the jobs of their dedicated caregivers, receive the funding priority warranted," stated Alan G. Rosenbloom, President of the Alliance. "The nursing home sector intends to put forward several substantive policy initiatives designed to maximize efficiency in Medicare spending, and we look forward to working with the Super Committee to discuss and implement them."

Rosenbloom noted that the Super Committee Members – Senators John Kyl (R-AZ), Pat Toomey (R-PA), Rob Portman (R-OH), Patty Murray (D-WA), John Kerry (D-MA), Max Baucus (D-MT) and Reps. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), Dave Camp (R-MI), Fred Upton (R-MI), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Jim Clyburn (D-SC) and Xavier Becerra (D-CA) – are familiar with the challenging state budgetary conditions placing an enormous squeeze on their own state's seniors and caregiver jobs base.

"Without exception, each of the Super Committee Members have an awareness of the challenge faced by their home state nursing facilities in dealing with the cumulative Medicare-Medicaid funding squeeze, and we will continue to discuss how and why strong funding of each program is integral to preservation of quality care and local jobs," Rosenbloom continued.

The Alliance leader said the nursing facility sector has contributed heavily to advancing health care reform and deficit reduction, and that plummeting state Medicaid funding, $14.6 billion in Medicare cuts contained in the Affordable Care Act (ACA), rising patient acuity, shrinking length of stay, escalating costs, and having the lowest operating margin of all provider groups contributes to the SNF sector's instability in the face of growing demand for care and services.

SOURCE Alliance for Quality Nursing Home Care