|
The U.S. House and Senate are considering abipartisan bill that opponents say would seriously undermine the government''sability to protect nursing home residents from dangerous care. The Medicare Education and RegulatoryFairness Act--S. 452 in the Senate and H.R. 868 in the House--would allownursing homes to delay correcting serious violations, even if residents had been severely harmed or were in immediatedanger. "Some members [of Congress] who are usuallyadvocates for nursing home residents have endorsed this bill," says JanetWells, Public Policy Director for the National Citizens'' Coalition for NursingHome Reform (NCCNHR). "We believe they and other members who are beingasked to support it may not understand its impact on nursing homeresidents." If the bill were enacted, any Medicare-certifiednursing home that was dissatisfied with inspectors'' findings could appeal thembefore there was a penalty or a requirement to correct the problem. During theappeals process, the government would be powerless to require the facility tocorrect the problems, even if the surveyors believed the violations jeopardizedresidents'' health or safety. Moreover, under the bill the government: - could not stop the nursing home from admitting new residents until it could care for them safely;
- could not proceed to close a facility with a history of serious violations;
- could not put a particularly bad nursing home under new management or appoint a monitor to oversee residents'' care; and
- could not impose an immediate fine on a facility that had had substandard performance on survey after survey.
In addition, nursing homes could challenge afederal nursing home regulation in court, even if they had never been cited forviolating it. This, warns the NCCNHR, would open the floodgates to lawsuits by theindustry to overturn quality of care and quality of life standards that weredeveloped "through an open, democratic public review and commentprocess." The NCCNHR is urging those concerned aboutquality of care in nursing homes to send a letter (not an e-mail) to theirrepresentatives and senators asking them to oppose the Medicare Education andRegulatory Fairness Act (S. S. 452 in the Senate and H.R. 868 in the House). For more information on the NCCNHR, visit theirWeb site at http://nccnhr.org  Â
|
