Legislative Bulletin: Rally for Healthcare in Response to 30-Day Amendments
The Governor submitted his 30-day amendments to the state legislature last week, suggesting more big cuts to Medicaid and long term care (LTC). These 30-day amendments compounded with the cuts already presented in the 2019-2020 Executive Budget would be damaging to LTC. Your advocacy is critical in opposing these massive cuts.
March 5th Rally for Healthcare Providers of New York State
On Feb. 15th, Governor Cuomo submitted his 30-day amendments to the 2019-20 Executive Budget. The amendments address the $2.3 billion budget gap that the Governor and State Comptroller announced earlier this month. Within the amendments, three actions were advanced that would cut Medicaid payments by an additional $550 million to close the budget shortfall. These actions include an across-the-board cut to nearly all Medicaid providers.
Although it is still unclear how the proposal would play out for Medicaid managed care plans and Medicaid providers that serve plan enrollees, the across-the-board cut, were it adopted, would reduce Medicaid payments by 0.8 percent. Nursing home providers would also be impacted by the elimination of the 1.5 percent workforce adjustment as well as the case mix cut proposed in January.
A more detailed breakdown of the 30-day amendments and the proposed state savings was published in Intelligence on Tuesday and can be found here. LeadingAge New York is calculating provider-specific impact estimates for nursing homes and will be distributing those to administrators and CFOs early next week.
LeadingAge New York is continuously working to get a better understanding of these proposed changes and cuts and will continue to provide updates. However, our grassroots advocacy must start now.
In response to the new Medicaid cuts that would impact nearly all healthcare providers, the Hospital Association of New York State (HANYS) and partner associations are organizing a rally at the Convention Center in Albany on March 5th.
When: 10 AM, Tuesday, March 5th
Where: Convention Center, on the Concourse of the Empire State Plaza (map)
Click here for parking information. We recommend arriving early for easy parking.
If you are a Medicaid provider, we strongly encourage you to visit Albany and participate in the rally. With the active participation of healthcare providers and the collaboration between associations, we can send a powerful message of opposition to the state legislature and the Governor.
Please feel free to contact Sarah Daly at sdaly@leadingageny.org with any questions regarding the rally.
Strength in Numbers - Register Now for March 5th Advocacy Day!
Our second LeadingAge New York Advocacy Day is just over a week away, and we need your help to send a strong message to the state legislature. Tuesday, March 5th, will be a day of grassroots advocacy focusing on housing, ACF/AL, aging services program, and NORC issues. With a new majority in the Senate and dozens of new legislators, we need your help to educate lawmakers during the final stretch of State budget negotiations. Advocacy days are vital in demonstrating the negative impact of proposed cuts and we need you there to tell your story.
Register today for our March 5th Advocacy Day and call your legislators’ offices to begin setting up meetings. You can click here to find your legislators. If you have never scheduled a meeting with your lawmakers before, we created a simple scheduling guide to help you get on their calendar. LeadingAge New York staff are happy to help arrange your meetings, coordinate with other members in your area, and even strategize which additional lawmakers you may want to connect with in your region. For questions or assistance setting up legislative meetings, contact Sarah Daly at sdaly@leadingageny.org.
Your legislators want to hear from you! They or their staff will always make time to meet with constituents. Once your meetings are scheduled, please email your schedule to Sarah Daly at sdaly@leadingageny.org and Jeff Diamond at jdiamond@leadingageny.org.
Traumatic Brain Injury Bill Moves to Senate Health
The Senate Health Committee will be reviewing a LeadingAge New York bill (S.992) on Wednesday that would allow individuals with traumatic brain injuries (TBI) sustained after age 21 to access certified developmental disabilities (DD) programs. Under current law, a disability must be sustained before age 21 in order to access DD services. Due to lack of TBI community resources in rural areas, this often results in individuals with TBI unnecessarily being placed in a nursing home. Oftentimes, these individuals would do well with simple DD services such as housing, education, transportation, social, personal care, outpatient rehab, etc.
The bill will be discussed by the Senate Health committee on February 27th at 11:30am. If it passes committee, it will likely move to Senate Finance. Now is the time to urge your legislators to support the TBI-DD Integration!
A New Bill to End the Mandatory CNA Training Lockout
On Friday, February 15th, the bi-partisan Nursing Home Workforce Quality Act was introduced in the House of Representatives. The legislation introduced by Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI) and Collin Peterson (D-MN) modifies the Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) training lock-out mandated by the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1987 (OBRA). It eliminates the statute’s rigid provisions and grants CMS greater flexibility in reinstating providers’ valuable CNA training programs.
Under current law, nursing homes assessed civil monetary penalties above a certain level on their annual survey automatically lose their authority to train staff to be CNAs for two years. The suspension is required even if the fines are unrelated to the quality of care given to residents or if the care deficiencies cited on the survey are unrelated to the nursing home’s CNA training program. The strict rule has become even more burdensome in recent years, as long-term care providers face an industry wide workforce shortage.
CNAs provide direct care to residents and are critical members of every nursing home’s care team. LeadingAge and the American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living applaud the leadership that Reps. Duffy and Peterson have shown on this issue, and urge their House Colleagues to join them in cosponsoring this long-awaited legislation.
LeadingAge New York Call to Action
Senate and Assembly one-house budgets are due on March 13th and there are just 5 weeks until the SFY 2019-2020 Budget is finalized. There is a lot left to be determined in this year’s budget negotiations, but one thing we know is that we need our LeadingAge membership to frequently reach out to their lawmakers, bringing attention to our key issues and initiatives. Right now, you can click any of the links below to urge your legislators to take action:
- Reject the Nursing Home Case-Mix Cap Budget Proposal
- Include an SSI Increase for ACFs in This Year's Budget
- Invest in Senior Housing Resident Assistants in This Year's Budget
- Reject the ADHC Transportation Carve-Out Budget Proposal
- Oppose Deep, Damaging Cuts to MLTC in This Year’s Budget
- Oppose the Safe Staffing for Quality Care Act
- Invest in LTPAC Workforce Recruitment, Retention, and Training
- Ensure ACF and ALP Access to Statewide Health Care Facility Transformation Funding
We also encourage you to share these links with your colleagues, asking them to share the messages that are most impacting your community. The more people bringing these issues to the attention of the legislature, the better.
For more ideas and updates on LeadingAge New York Advocacy efforts, please visit our Advocacy Page.
Ami Schnauber, aschnauber@leadingageny.org, 518-867-8854
Sarah Daly, sdaly@leadingageny.org, 518-867-8845