Seniors and Workers for Quality has been lobbying hard this session to prevent the repeal of Minnesota’s rate equalization law, which prevents nursing homes from charging more to private-pay residents of nursing homes than the Medical Assistance reimbursement rate for the same services. We encourage you to contact your Senator and Representative and urge them to maintain the rate equalization law.
For more information, please look at our fact sheet. Rate Equalization Fact Sheet (PDF)
Al visits his wife daily in the nursing facility and the staff at the nursing facility need him almost as much as he and Alice need them.
Please read their story here.
Seniors and Workers for Quality Coalition
www.seniorsandworkers.org
CALL TO ACTION!
On Monday, March 30th, a member of the House of Representatives asked if nursing homes were really hurting because he had not heard from any of his constituents asking him to protect Long-Term Care!
Please take 5 minutes to call and/or email your legislator immediately to remind them that nursing facilities and older adult services are crucial to our communities and that the residents and workers have suffered enough!
Find your legislator here:
http://www.gis.leg.mn/mapserver/districts/
Please ask your legislator to protect Long-Term Care!
Talking Points:
• Reducing funding to Long-Term Care means cutting staffing in facilities that are already short staffed. Losing these jobs does not help the Minnesota economy.
• 40 percent of direct-care workers rely on public benefits, such as Medical Assistance or food support, reflecting the enormous subsidies required to compensate for low wages and insufficient benefits.
(http://www.directcareclearinghouse.org/download/PHI%20FactSheetNo2.pdf)
• Minnesota is expected to have almost 800,000 elderly by 2015 and 1,00,000 elderly by 2025 (www.demography.state.mn.us). Short term planning in Long-Term Care leaves Minnesota even less prepared for the baby boomers when they begin to require services.
SF 475 (Marty), the Long-Term Care COLA bill was heard on Monday, March 16th in the Senate Health, Housing & Family Security committee. Two Seniors & Workers for Quality coalition members testified: Synarvia Buckanon (AFSCME Local 636 president & Direct Care Worker, Good Samaritan Society University Specialty Care Center, Minneapolis) and Lynne Zimmerman (Adult Day Services Director, Common Sense Services for Seniors, South St. Paul). Both speakers did a wonderful job articulating the need for a long-term care COLA despite the state’s fiscal woes.
Agnes in district 7B doesn’t have much left at the end of the month and lives paycheck to paycheck. However, she loves her job and the people she cares for. Read her story here.
Across the States was designed by AARP to help inform policy discussions about Long-Term Care aross the U.S. This series brings together the most up to date material from a wide range of sources that reviews state and national data on the Long-Term Care industry. Minnesota specific information may be found on pages 174-179. Click here to read Across the States: Profiles of Long-Term Care and Assisted Living.
Please click here for the newest Profile in Care.
Erma in District 65 shares her story in this week’s Profiles in Care. Click here to read her story and all the stories shared by workers and others touched closely by the Long-Term Care crisis in Minnesota.
H.F.818, the Vulnerable Adult bill was heard and passed in the House Public Safety and Oversight Committee on March 5, and will go next to the Labor and Consumer Protection Committee of the Commerce Committee. S.F. 758, its companion, will have its first hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, March 10.
There will be a hearing on long-term care bills, which will include the Long-Term Care Provider Rate Increase bill SF 475, on March 16th in the Senate Health, Housing & Family Security Committee at 12:30 p.m.