Nursing Homes Anxious as Republicans Ponder Deep Medicaid Cuts

As Republicans weigh a plan to enact at least $4.5 trillion in tax cuts, the House budget resolution directs the Energy and Commerce Committee to cut the federal deficit by $880 billion over 10 years. With Medicare cuts off limits, Medicaid would likely bear the brunt of the potential reductions, the Congressional Budget Office found.
 
Possible Medicaid cuts could take many forms, but all would likely have the same effect: forcing states to either raise taxes, cut other services, reduce Medicaid coverage, or trim program reimbursement rates for providers, like nursing homes.
 
“The concern, clearly, is that reductions will put pressure on the need to cut rates,” said Clif Porter, president and CEO of the American Health Care Association, which represents about 14,000 US nursing homes. The association wants a congressional requirement that Medicaid payment rates fully meet the cost of care with regular inflation updates.

Rural nursing home closures are a concern for Nate Schema, president and CEO of Good Samaritan, the nation’s largest nonprofit nursing home and senior living provider.
 
The society operates 105 nursing homes in eight states that serve about 10,000 residents. In more than a dozen of its rural facilities, about 70% of residents are Medicaid beneficiaries, Schema said. It’s about 80% in their facility in Blackduck, Minn., a town of about 800.

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