September 6, 2023 Washington, DC – LeadingAge, the association of nonprofit, mission-driven providers of aging services, including nursing homes, responds to the White House’s Sept. 1 opinion piece on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ proposed rule on staffing mandates: President Biden: Nursing homes are putting residents at risk. We’re ending the abuse today.

In her op-ed, published today, our President and CEO Katie Smith Sloan emphasizes:

• The Biden Administration’s public rhetoric casting all nursing homes as villains is not accurate
• The Administration itself recognizes that not all nursing homes are alike, and points out nonprofit providers’ differences on critical issues, including staffing
• LeadingAge shares the Administration’s commitment to ensuring quality care.
• That commitment is why our members go to work every day.
• The Biden Administration must in its public statements and actions further underscore the distinction between high performing providers and those who are not doing the right thing by “taking taxpayer dollars, while cutting corners on staffing so they can make big payouts to executives and shareholders”

She implores the Administration to:

• Lift us up. Support us. Work with us.
  • We cannot bear the burden of the just-released proposed staffing mandates alone. The costs, estimated to reach into the billions, will be crushing.
  • Help us fill our pipeline of caregiving professionals by urging Congress to reform immigration pathways. Raise reimbursement rates and inspire states to do the same, so we can afford the care we exist to deliver.
• It’s time for the administration to recognize it must be part of the solution.

Read the full piece here: “What Biden gets wrong about nursing homes: President is trying to lump us all together,” Sept. 6, 2023