Kaiser Health News
Readers Slam Hospital Monopolies and Blame the Feds for Understaffed Nursing Homes
Wed, 06 Dec 2023 10:00:00 +0000
Letters to the Editor is a periodic feature. We welcome all comments and will publish a selection. We edit for length and clarity and require full names.
Why Hospital Monopolies Are a Bad Idea
I recently read the article about Ballad Health by Brett Kelman and Samantha Liss regarding the Mountain States Health Alliance and Wellmont Health System merging to create Ballad Health, upon state approval (“These Appalachia Hospitals Made Big Promises to Gain a Monopoly. They’re Failing to Deliver,” Sept. 29). Well, it was approved, and here is another reason that monopolies are a bad idea. My husband is a teacher in Tennessee, and it complicated our open enrollment selections for 2024 insurance. We have used BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee, a widely selected insurer in our state. We were sent notification that Ballad Health and BCBST were in negotiations and that there was a high probability that Ballad will soon be an out-of-network provider for those with BCBST plans. Luckily, the school district offers Cigna insurance as well, but not all providers accept that insurance (as I said, BCBST is a huge insurer in this area).
Please explain to me how it is OK for a monopoly to decide not to be in-network with any health plans. They should be required to be in-network with any insurer from this area. I find this very upsetting. I shouldn’t have to worry that if a catastrophic event were to happen that my insurance coverage would be reduced to 60%-40% from 80%-20%, all because my only option for emergency care (Ballad) chose not to negotiate with the largest insurance provider in my area. Just food for thought.
— Kimberly Ensor, Johnson City, Tennessee
On X, formerly known as Twitter, a user whose tagline is “a one-woman wrecking ball” had this to say about nursing home worker shortages:
This is DEVASTATING! If CMS is saying they cannot identify a safe nursing staff level for residents than how can surveyors hold homes accountable? It ain’t happening anyway. Biden‘s policy is WEAK. CMS is a joke. The gov’t is throwing away $. Wash & repeathttps://t.co/1FZ0YRLfdm
— Politics, Policies & Pop Culture ✍️ (@out2sea90210) August 29, 2023
— Ashley Thomas, Cleveland, Ohio
The Crisis of Understaffed Nursing Homes
I wanted to thank you for providing a platform for discussion of nursing home staffing (“Exclusive: CMS Study Sabotages Efforts to Bolster Nursing Home Staffing, Advocates Say,” Aug. 29). As a nursing student entering my final semester at SUNY Downstate, I have seen firsthand the destitute conditions of understaffed nursing homes. Staffing ratios are abysmal and, as I see it, the only solution for the well-being of nursing home residents is a responsible staff-to-resident ratio.
I wholeheartedly agreed with the sentiment of the article: The Abt Associates study was a shameful attempt to undermine the movement toward standardized staffing ratios at nursing homes. People become residents at nursing homes for many reasons, but the fact is they are there, above all, because they need specialized care, which these homes need nurses to provide — services such as ventilator care, tube feedings, medication, continuous monitoring, and frequent interventions to prevent pressure injuries, and so much more. There is something terribly wrong when nursing homes cannot provide the services that define them, especially when families and residents depend on them to do so.
I do think there were some missed opportunities in the article. For example, Jordan Rau writes that “immobile residents are not repositioned in bed, causing bedsores that can lead to infection.” While this statement is true, it is rather vague. Infections are a life-threatening risk associated with pressure injuries, but the sores themselves are grotesque and painful, a point I think should have been included to emphasize the injustice of allowing pressure injuries to develop and worsen. Health care workers should make every effort to prevent them. And nurses should understand their roles as advocates in being a voice for patients who are unable to speak for themselves.
It’s easy for the public to imagine the residents of nursing homes as homogenous and stereotypical elderly people who have been forgotten as they became burdensome, which is not only false, but actively harmful and agist. People of all ages and backgrounds live in nursing homes, and their needs are as diverse as they are themselves. The only universal commonality they have is that they live in nursing homes and need respect, dignity, care, and an adequate number of nurses and staff to protect these needs.
— Tara L. Clark, Freeport, New York
A union activist who supports a national single-payer health system also weighed in on X:
CMS is the agency that is supposed to protect patients. But CMS, instead, follows the bidding of the nursing home industry. Shame! This is the same agency that presides over handing Medicare to the for-profit industry. https://t.co/xYpKySzkwJ
— Kay Tillow (@KayTillow) August 29, 2023
— Kay Tillow, Louisville, Kentucky
Avoiding Financial Ruin for Aging Elders
As Jordan Rau and Reed Abelson identify (“Facing Financial Ruin as Costs Soar for Elder Care,” Nov. 14), too many of today’s older adults are falling through the cracks. They may struggle with daily activities and declining health but don’t necessarily need 24/7 nursing home care.
Within the patchwork of long-term care, the Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly is underutilized. PACE offers integrated care through its campus-based model, where participants can receive comprehensive, coordinated medical care and social services in a combined Medical Clinic and Day Center, while also receiving at-home support with essential tasks like dressing, bathing, and eating.
This care is free to our dually eligible participants who are never saddled with copays, out-of-pocket costs, or deductibles. PACE has saved states thousands annually per participant. Further, participants are grateful to stay at home and remain engaged with family and friends.
PACE acts as a critical safety net for low-income seniors, so they and their families aren’t forced into financial ruin. For those not Medicaid-eligible, it costs less than the nursing home alternative.
To close our system’s gaps and lower spending, programs like PACE need to become a more prominent part of the discussion. Policymakers should expand access to PACE services so more people can benefit from this successful model of senior care.
— Richard Fish, CEO of One Senior Care, Erie, Pennsylvania
JoAnne Dyer echoed the dire warning about the draining cost of long-term care in an X post:
Something scary that you’re probably not thinking about but you probably should be thinking about. Long-term care can bankrupt you. Yes, you. You with your savings account and your 401k. https://t.co/OsaztigioN
— JoAnne Dyer (@7Madronas) November 15, 2023
— JoAnne Dyer, Seattle
More Power to Suzanne Somers
Age 76 is pretty long to fight an aggressive, metastatic breast cancer without chemotherapy (“Suzanne Somers’ Legacy Tainted by Celebrity Medical Misinformation,” Oct. 18). I’d say Suzanne Somers proved her point! None of us lives forever. I got a lumpectomy in 2015 and refused tamoxifen. Chemotherapy wasn’t needed. I refuse mammograms and gynecology. I am doing well. I found Ms. Somers’ book on cancer, called “Knockout,” very informative. I didn’t buy into the supplements angle, but it empowered me in my own fight, when there were no answers, to ask questions and research. Quality of life is more important.
— Kerry McCracken, Milan, Illinois
A Las Vegas reader reacted on X to the same article published by the Los Angeles Times, one of KFF Health News’ media partners:
Ruthless Progressives and their corporate media trolls will continue to hate you long after you’re dead and buried.https://t.co/BF3y1v1gki#Progressive #hate #corporatemedia #disinformation
— Grant David Gillham 🐎🗡️🌊🛩🔫🇲🇽🏍⛳🎸 (@CaptG2) October 19, 2023
— Grant David Gillham, Las Vegas
Over-the-Counter Narcan a Big Leap for Humankind
Thank you for sharing your article highlighting barriers to accessing Narcan (“Narcan, Now Available Without a Prescription, Can Still Be Hard to Get,” Oct. 11). While some experts have questioned the significance of making Narcan available over the counter, I firmly believe this development is a major milestone in our ongoing battle against opioid-related fatalities.
One may argue that this change is merely a “tiny, tiny baby step” and not deserving of applause; however, I would contend that every positive change, no matter how small or late in the game, is a vital part of a larger solution. Making Narcan available without a prescription is a tangible acknowledgment of the urgency of the opioid crisis and a recognition of the need for swift, accessible interventions.
Narcan’s OTC status can help reduce the stigma surrounding opioid overdose and encourage open conversations about addiction and harm reduction. It sends a message that saving lives is a priority, and it encourages individuals to be prepared to act in emergencies.
Still, there are certainly challenges related to affordability of OTC Narcan. While $45 isn’t an ideal price tag, community groups, first responders, state and local governments, and harm reduction groups — many of whom may purchase Narcan in bulk — can buy Narcan for a cheaper price, $41 per two-dose carton.
It is also important to continue educating pharmacists on the use of Narcan. Only 19 states require that pharmacists complete a training course prior to dispensing naloxone in any capacity. All pharmacists, especially those located in areas with high rates of opioid deaths, need to be firmly equipped with the necessary information on administering Narcan to be a trusted source among the public. Provider education is a key steppingstone to improving access.
Narcan’s OTC availability represents a positive shift in our approach to combating opioid overdoses, and it is a step that deserves acknowledgment and support. Let us not underestimate the impact of this change and continue working toward a future where every person has access to the tools they need to prevent opioid-related fatalities.
— Sana Imam, master’s student at George Washington University, Washington, D.C.
The HIV Prevention Trials Network chimed in on X:
As an over-the-counter product, Narcan ideally would appear on store shelves in the same way as ibuprofen and cough medication. https://t.co/fkzCZfwgFL
— HPTN (@HIVptn) October 11, 2023
A ‘Hit Piece’ on Rival Hospital Systems
I recently read your article of a couple of years ago comparing for-profit versus nonprofit medical schools (“Montana Med School Clash Revives For-Profit Vs. Nonprofit Flap,” June 7, 2021). I am an anesthesiologist with 24 years of experience, and almost every health care institution or hospital has become for-profit. In fact, most anesthesiology groups are managed by corporations like NorthStar Anesthesia, U.S. Anesthesia Partners, etc. Hospitals have merged into gigantic multibillion-dollar corporations like Ascension, Universal Health Services, HCA Healthcare, and CHI Health.
So why is it so bad to have a for-profit medical school, exactly? Almost every aspect of modern health care has become for-profit, and those nonprofit institutions have colluded with larger systems to shut down smaller hospitals. So this clearly is a “hit piece” on the for-profit educational system by their competitor, Touro College and University System.
I am one of the few doctors truly trained in a nonprofit — called the U.S. Army, where I did my residency in anesthesiology at Brooke Army Medical Center. This is quite an uninformed and unreasonable article, especially given the state of the corporate health care industry that is pervasive in our country. When I left the military for private practice, I could not believe what was being passed for elective surgery outside the military.
So let’s not get the pot and kettle confused here. Calling out a for-profit medical school in an era dominated by large multibillion-dollar health care corporations is certainly the pot calling the kettle black. And the rural Montana area is just as much of a deserving area for any medical school — for-profit or nonprofit — as the rural state of West Virginia, where I practice.
— Lance R. Hoover, Morgantown, West Virginia
Medicare Cuts Harm Seniors’ Access to Physical Therapy Care
It’s disheartening to hear stories of physical therapists who are increasingly struggling to afford their training and cost of living while facing lower pay (“Back Pain? Bum Knee? Be Prepared to Wait for a Physical Therapist,” Nov. 28). No one should have to give up their dream of being a physical therapist because they worry the pay is unsustainable — especially at a time when many patients already have limited access to therapy care.
Unfortunately, that’s the reality for many — especially since the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services recently finalized yet another year of steep payment cuts to physical, occupational, and speech therapy in its recently released Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Final Rule for CY 2024.
CMS’ final rule includes a troubling pay cut of at least 3.4% to therapy providers in 2024. But in some geographic regions, that cut could be as high as over 4% because of the highly technical formula CMS uses to determine reimbursement. Not only will this cut weaken the pipeline of new physical therapists entering the field, but it will also put significant financial strain on physical therapists currently practicing, hurting retention, and potentially leading to practice closings, which all negatively impact patient access to physical therapy.
Physical therapy care is a critically important non-pharmacological treatment option for our nation’s aging population. It helps patients manage pain, improve mobility, and protect their independence, while avoiding reliance on powerful painkillers and preventing potentially deadly falls. It even saves CMS money: On average, Medicare spending for beneficiaries who receive physical therapy as the first treatment option is 75% lower than the total average spending for Medicare patients who undergo surgery first.
Though it’s disappointing that CMS did not listen to the patient and provider communities when finalizing yet more cuts, there’s still time for Congress to act. I urge our lawmakers on Capitol Hill to work together and swiftly reverse the serious cuts in the new rule to help stabilize our nation’s health care system and expand access to physical therapy care for patients.
— Nikesh Patel, executive director of the Alliance for Physical Therapy Quality and Innovation (APTQI), Washington, D.C.
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Title: Readers Slam Hospital Monopolies and Blame the Feds for Understaffed Nursing Homes
Sourced From: kffhealthnews.org/news/article/letters-to-editor-hospital-monopoly-cms-nursing-home-staffing/
Published Date: Wed, 06 Dec 2023 10:00:00 +0000
Kaiser Health News
How To Find the Right Medical Rehab Services
Rehabilitation therapy can be a godsend after hospitalization for a stroke, a fall, an accident, a joint replacement, a severe burn, or a spinal cord injury, among other conditions. Physical, occupational, and speech therapy are offered in a variety of settings, including at hospitals, nursing homes, clinics, and at home. It’s crucial to identify a high-quality, safe option with professionals experienced in treating your condition.
What kinds of rehab therapy might I need?
Physical therapy helps patients improve their strength, stability, and movement and reduce pain, usually through targeted exercises. Some physical therapists specialize in neurological, cardiovascular, or orthopedic issues. There are also geriatric and pediatric specialists. Occupational therapy focuses on specific activities (referred to as “occupations”), often ones that require fine motor skills, like brushing teeth, cutting food with a knife, and getting dressed. Speech and language therapy help people communicate. Some patients may need respiratory therapy if they have trouble breathing or need to be weaned from a ventilator.
Will insurance cover rehab?
Medicare, health insurers, workers’ compensation, and Medicaid plans in some states cover rehab therapy, but plans may refuse to pay for certain settings and may limit the amount of therapy you receive. Some insurers may require preauthorization, and some may terminate coverage if you’re not improving. Private insurers often place annual limits on outpatient therapy. Traditional Medicare is generally the least restrictive, while private Medicare Advantage plans may monitor progress closely and limit where patients can obtain therapy.
Should I seek inpatient rehabilitation?
Patients who still need nursing or a doctor’s care but can tolerate three hours of therapy five days a week may qualify for admission to a specialized rehab hospital or to a unit within a general hospital. Patients usually need at least two of the main types of rehab therapy: physical, occupational, or speech. Stays average around 12 days.
How do I choose?
Look for a place that is skilled in treating people with your diagnosis; many inpatient hospitals list specialties on their websites. People with complex or severe medical conditions may want a rehab hospital connected to an academic medical center at the vanguard of new treatments, even if it’s a plane ride away.
“You’ll see youngish patients with these life-changing, fairly catastrophic injuries,” like spinal cord damage, travel to another state for treatment, said Cheri Blauwet, chief medical officer of Spaulding Rehabilitation in Boston, one of 15 hospitals the federal government has praised for cutting-edge work.
But there are advantages in selecting a hospital close to family and friends who can help after you are discharged. Therapists can help train at-home caregivers.
How do I find rehab hospitals?
The discharge planner or caseworker at the acute care hospital should provide options. You can search for inpatient rehabilitation facilities by location or name through Medicare’s Care Compare website. There you can see how many patients the rehab hospital has treated with your condition — the more the better. You can search by specialty through the American Medical Rehabilitation Providers Association, a trade group that lists its members.
Find out what specialized technologies a hospital has, like driving simulators — a car or truck that enable a patient to practice getting in and out of a vehicle — or a kitchen table with utensils to practice making a meal.
How can I be confident a rehab hospital is reliable?
It’s not easy: Medicare doesn’t analyze staffing levels or post on its website results of safety inspections as it does for nursing homes. You can ask your state public health agency or the hospital to provide inspection reports for the last three years. Such reports can be technical, but you should get the gist. If the report says an “immediate jeopardy” was called, that means inspectors identified safety problems that put patients in danger.
The rate of patients readmitted to a general hospital for a potentially preventable reason is a key safety measure. Overall, for-profit rehabs have higher readmission rates than nonprofits do, but there are some with lower readmission rates and some with higher ones. You may not have a nearby choice: There are fewer than 400 rehab hospitals, and most general hospitals don’t have a rehab unit.
You can find a hospital’s readmission rates under Care Compare’s quality section. Rates lower than the national average are better.
Another measure of quality is how often patients are functional enough to go home after finishing rehab rather than to a nursing home, hospital, or health care institution. That measure is called “discharge to community” and is listed under Care Compare’s quality section. Rates higher than the national average are better.
Look for reviews of the hospital on Yelp and other sites. Ask if the patient will see the same therapist most days or a rotating cast of characters. Ask if the therapists have board certifications earned after intensive training to treat a patient’s particular condition.
Visit if possible, and don’t look only at the rooms in the hospital where therapy exercises take place. Injuries often occur in the 21 hours when a patient is not in therapy, but in his or her room or another part of the building. Infections, falls, bedsores, and medication errors are risks. If possible, observe whether nurses promptly respond to call lights, seem overloaded with too many patients, or are apathetically playing on their phones. Ask current patients and their family members if they are satisfied with the care.
What if I can’t handle three hours of therapy a day?
A nursing home that provides rehab might be appropriate for patients who don’t need the supervision of a doctor but aren’t ready to go home. The facilities generally provide round-the-clock nursing care. The amount of rehab varies based on the patient. There are more than 14,500 skilled nursing facilities in the United States, 12 times as many as hospitals offering rehab, so a nursing home may be the only option near you.
You can look for them through Medicare’s Care Compare website. (Read our previous guide to finding a good, well-staffed home to know how to assess the overall staffing.)
What if patients are too frail even for a nursing home?
They might need a long-term care hospital. Those specialize in patients who are in comas, on ventilators, and have acute medical conditions that require the presence of a physician. Patients stay at least four weeks, and some are there for months. Care Compare helps you search. There are fewer than 350 such hospitals.
I’m strong enough to go home. How do I receive therapy?
Many rehab hospitals offer outpatient therapy. You also can go to a clinic, or a therapist can come to you. You can hire a home health agency or find a therapist who takes your insurance and makes house calls. Your doctor or hospital may give you referrals. On Care Compare, home health agencies list whether they offer physical, occupational, or speech therapy. You can search for board-certified therapists on the American Physical Therapy Association’s website.
While undergoing rehab, patients sometimes move from hospital to nursing facility to home, often at the insistence of their insurers. Alice Bell, a senior specialist at the APTA, said patients should try to limit the number of transitions, for their own safety.
“Every time a patient moves from one setting to another,” she said, “they’re in a higher risk zone.”
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.
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KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.
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This article first appeared on KFF Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
The post How To Find the Right Medical Rehab Services appeared first on kffhealthnews.org
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Centrist
This article from KFF Health News provides a comprehensive, fact-based guide to rehabilitation therapy options and how to navigate insurance, care settings, and provider quality. It avoids ideological framing and presents information in a neutral, practical tone aimed at helping consumers make informed medical decisions. While it touches on Medicare and private insurance policies, it does so without political commentary or value judgments, and no partisan viewpoints or advocacy positions are evident. The focus remains on patient care, safety, and informed choice, supporting a nonpartisan, service-oriented approach to health reporting.
Kaiser Health News
States Brace for Reversal of Obamacare Coverage Gains Under Trump’s Budget Bill
Shorter enrollment periods. More paperwork. Higher premiums. The sweeping tax and spending bill pushed by President Donald Trump includes provisions that would not only reshape people’s experience with the Affordable Care Act but, according to some policy analysts, also sharply undermine the gains in health insurance coverage associated with it.
The moves affect consumers and have particular resonance for the 19 states (plus Washington, D.C.) that run their own ACA exchanges.
Many of those states fear that the additional red tape — especially requirements that would end automatic reenrollment — would have an outsize impact on their policyholders. That’s because a greater percentage of people in those states use those rollovers versus shopping around each year, which is more commonly done by people in states that use the federal healthcare.gov marketplace.
“The federal marketplace always had a message of, ‘Come back in and shop,’ while the state-based markets, on average, have a message of, ‘Hey, here’s what you’re going to have next year, here’s what it will cost; if you like it, you don’t have to do anything,’” said Ellen Montz, who oversaw the federal ACA marketplace under the Biden administration as deputy administrator and director at the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight. She is now a managing director with the Manatt Health consulting group.
Millions — perhaps up to half of enrollees in some states — may lose or drop coverage as a result of that and other changes in the legislation combined with a new rule from the Trump administration and the likely expiration at year’s end of enhanced premium subsidies put in place during the covid-19 pandemic. Without an extension of those subsidies, which have been an important driver of Obamacare enrollment in recent years, premiums are expected to rise 75% on average next year. That’s starting to happen already, based on some early state rate requests for next year, which are hitting double digits.
“We estimate a minimum 30% enrollment loss, and, in the worst-case scenario, a 50% loss,” said Devon Trolley, executive director of Pennie, the ACA marketplace in Pennsylvania, which had 496,661 enrollees this year, a record.
Drops of that magnitude nationally, coupled with the expected loss of Medicaid coverage for millions more people under the legislation Trump calls the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” could undo inroads made in the nation’s uninsured rate, which dropped by about half from the time most of the ACA’s provisions went into effect in 2014, when it hovered around 14% to 15% of the population, to just over 8%, according to the most recent data.
Premiums would rise along with the uninsured rate, because older or sicker policyholders are more likely to try to jump enrollment hurdles, while those who rarely use coverage — and are thus less expensive — would not.
After a dramatic all-night session, House Republicans passed the bill, meeting the president’s July 4 deadline. Trump is expected to sign the measure on Independence Day. It would increase the federal deficit by trillions of dollars and cut spending on a variety of programs, including Medicaid and nutrition assistance, to partly offset the cost of extending tax cuts put in place during the first Trump administration.
The administration and its supporters say the GOP-backed changes to the ACA are needed to combat fraud. Democrats and ACA supporters see this effort as the latest in a long history of Republican efforts to weaken or repeal Obamacare. Among other things, the legislation would end several changes put in place by the Biden administration that were credited with making it easier to sign up, such as lengthening the annual open enrollment period and launching a special program for very low-income people that essentially allows them to sign up year-round.
In addition, automatic reenrollment, used by more than 10 million people for 2025 ACA coverage, would end in the 2028 sign-up season. Instead, consumers would have to update their information, starting in August each year, before the close of open enrollment, which would end Dec. 15, a month earlier than currently.
That’s a key change to combat rising enrollment fraud, said Brian Blase, president of the conservative Paragon Health Institute, because it gets at what he calls the Biden era’s “lax verification requirements.”
He blames automatic reenrollment, coupled with the availability of zero-premium plans for people with lower incomes that qualify them for large subsidies, for a sharp uptick in complaints from insurers, consumers, and brokers about fraudulent enrollments in 2023 and 2024. Those complaints centered on consumers’ being enrolled in an ACA plan, or switched from one to another, without authorization, often by commission-seeking brokers.
In testimony to Congress on June 25, Blase wrote that “this simple step will close a massive loophole and significantly reduce improper enrollment and spending.”
States that run their own marketplaces, however, saw few, if any, such problems, which were confined mainly to the 31 states using the federal healthcare.gov.
The state-run marketplaces credit their additional security measures and tighter control over broker access than healthcare.gov for the relative lack of problems.
“If you look at California and the other states that have expanded their Medicaid programs, you don’t see that kind of fraud problem,” said Jessica Altman, executive director of Covered California, the state’s Obamacare marketplace. “I don’t have a single case of a consumer calling Covered California saying, ‘I was enrolled without consent.’”
Such rollovers are common with other forms of health insurance, such as job-based coverage.
“By requiring everyone to come back in and provide additional information, and the fact that they can’t get a tax credit until they take this step, it is essentially making marketplace coverage the most difficult coverage to enroll in,” said Trolley at Pennie, 65% of whose policyholders were automatically reenrolled this year, according to KFF data. KFF is a health information nonprofit that includes KFF Health News.
Federal data shows about 22% of federal sign-ups in 2024 were automatic-reenrollments, versus 58% in state-based plans. Besides Pennsylvania, the states that saw such sign-ups for more than 60% of enrollees include California, New York, Georgia, New Jersey, and Virginia, according to KFF.
States do check income and other eligibility information for all enrollees — including those being automatically renewed, those signing up for the first time, and those enrolling outside the normal open enrollment period because they’ve experienced a loss of coverage or other life event or meet the rules for the low-income enrollment period.
“We have access to many data sources on the back end that we ping, to make sure nothing has changed. Most people sail through and are able to stay covered without taking any proactive step,” Altman said.
If flagged for mismatched data, applicants are asked for additional information. Under current law, “we have 90 days for them to have a tax credit while they submit paperwork,” Altman said.
That would change under the tax and spending plan before Congress, ending presumptive eligibility while a person submits the information.
A white paper written for Capital Policy Analytics, a Washington-based consultancy that specializes in economic analysis, concluded there appears to be little upside to the changes.
While “tighter verification can curb improper enrollments,” the additional paperwork, along with the expiration of higher premiums from the enhanced tax subsidies, “would push four to six million eligible people out of Marketplace plans, trading limited fraud savings for a surge in uninsurance,” wrote free market economists Ike Brannon and Anthony LoSasso.
“Insurers would be left with a smaller, sicker risk pool and heightened pricing uncertainty, making further premium increases and selective market exits [by insurers] likely,” they wrote.
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.
USE OUR CONTENT
This story can be republished for free (details).
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.
Subscribe to KFF Health News’ free Morning Briefing.
This article first appeared on KFF Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
The post States Brace for Reversal of Obamacare Coverage Gains Under Trump’s Budget Bill appeared first on kffhealthnews.org
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Center-Left
This content presents a critique of Republican-led changes to the Affordable Care Act, emphasizing potential negative impacts such as increased premiums, reduced enrollment, and the erosion of coverage gains made under the ACA. It highlights the perspective of policy analysts and state officials who express concern over these measures, while also presenting conservative viewpoints, particularly those focusing on fraud reduction. Overall, the tone and framing lean toward protecting the ACA and its expansions, which traditionally aligns with Center-Left media analysis.
Kaiser Health News
Dual Threats From Trump and GOP Imperil Nursing Homes and Their Foreign-Born Workers
In a top-rated nursing home in Alexandria, Virginia, the Rev. Donald Goodness is cared for by nurses and aides from various parts of Africa. One of them, Jackline Conteh, a naturalized citizen and nurse assistant from Sierra Leone, bathes and helps dress him most days and vigilantly intercepts any meal headed his way that contains gluten, as Goodness has celiac disease.
“We are full of people who come from other countries,” Goodness, 92, said about Goodwin House Alexandria’s staff. Without them, the retired Episcopal priest said, “I would be, and my building would be, desolate.”
The long-term health care industry is facing a double whammy from President Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigrants and the GOP’s proposals to reduce Medicaid spending. The industry is highly dependent on foreign workers: More than 800,000 immigrants and naturalized citizens comprise 28% of direct care employees at home care agencies, nursing homes, assisted living facilities, and other long-term care companies.
But in January, the Trump administration rescinded former President Joe Biden’s 2021 policy that protected health care facilities from Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids. The administration’s broad immigration crackdown threatens to drastically reduce the number of current and future workers for the industry. “People may be here on a green card, and they are afraid ICE is going to show up,” said Katie Smith Sloan, president of LeadingAge, an association of nonprofits that care for older adults.
Existing staffing shortages and quality-of-care problems would be compounded by other policies pushed by Trump and the Republican-led Congress, according to nursing home officials, resident advocates, and academic experts. Federal spending cuts under negotiation may strip nursing homes of some of their largest revenue sources by limiting ways states leverage Medicaid money and making it harder for new nursing home residents to retroactively qualify for Medicaid. Care for 6 in 10 residents is paid for by Medicaid, the state-federal health program for poor or disabled Americans.
“We are facing the collision of two policies here that could further erode staffing in nursing homes and present health outcome challenges,” said Eric Roberts, an associate professor of internal medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
The industry hasn’t recovered from covid-19, which killed more than 200,000 long-term care facility residents and workers and led to massive staff attrition and turnover. Nursing homes have struggled to replace licensed nurses, who can find better-paying jobs at hospitals and doctors’ offices, as well as nursing assistants, who can earn more working at big-box stores or fast-food joints. Quality issues that preceded the pandemic have expanded: The percentage of nursing homes that federal health inspectors cited for putting residents in jeopardy of immediate harm or death has risen alarmingly from 17% in 2015 to 28% in 2024.
In addition to seeking to reduce Medicaid spending, congressional Republicans have proposed shelving the biggest nursing home reform in decades: a Biden-era rule mandating minimum staffing levels that would require most of the nation’s nearly 15,000 nursing homes to hire more workers.
The long-term care industry expects demand for direct care workers to burgeon with an influx of aging baby boomers needing professional care. The Census Bureau has projected the number of people 65 and older would grow from 63 million this year to 82 million in 2050.
In an email, Vianca Rodriguez Feliciano, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, said the agency “is committed to supporting a strong, stable long-term care workforce” and “continues to work with states and providers to ensure quality care for older adults and individuals with disabilities.” In a separate email, Tricia McLaughlin, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, said foreigners wanting to work as caregivers “need to do that by coming here the legal way” but did not address the effect on the long-term care workforce of deportations of classes of authorized immigrants.
Goodwin Living, a faith-based nonprofit, runs three retirement communities in northern Virginia for people who live independently, need a little assistance each day, have memory issues, or require the availability of around-the-clock nurses. It also operates a retirement community in Washington, D.C. Medicare rates Goodwin House Alexandria as one of the best-staffed nursing homes in the country. Forty percent of the organization’s 1,450 employees are foreign-born and are either seeking citizenship or are already naturalized, according to Lindsay Hutter, a Goodwin spokesperson.
“As an employer, we see they stay on with us, they have longer tenure, they are more committed to the organization,” said Rob Liebreich, Goodwin’s president and CEO.
Jackline Conteh spent much of her youth shuttling between Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Ghana to avoid wars and tribal conflicts. Her mother was killed by a stray bullet in her home country of Liberia, Conteh said. “She was sitting outside,” Conteh, 56, recalled in an interview.
Conteh was working as a nurse in a hospital in Sierra Leone in 2009 when she learned of a lottery for visas to come to the United States. She won, though she couldn’t afford to bring her husband and two children along at the time. After she got a nursing assistant certification, Goodwin hired her in 2012.
Conteh said taking care of elders is embedded in the culture of African families. When she was 9, she helped feed and dress her grandmother, a job that rotated among her and her sisters. She washed her father when he was dying of prostate cancer. Her husband joined her in the United States in 2017; she cares for him because he has heart failure.
“Nearly every one of us from Africa, we know how to care for older adults,” she said.
Her daughter is now in the United States, while her son is still in Africa. Conteh said she sends money to him, her mother-in-law, and one of her sisters.
In the nursing home where Goodness and 89 other residents live, Conteh helps with daily tasks like dressing and eating, checks residents’ skin for signs of swelling or sores, and tries to help them avoid falling or getting disoriented. Of 102 employees in the building, broken up into eight residential wings called “small houses” and a wing for memory care, at least 72 were born abroad, Hutter said.
Donald Goodness grew up in Rochester, New York, and spent 25 years as rector of The Church of the Ascension in New York City, retiring in 1997. He and his late wife moved to Alexandria to be closer to their daughter, and in 2011 they moved into independent living at the Goodwin House. In 2023 he moved into one of the skilled nursing small houses, where Conteh started caring for him.
“I have a bad leg and I can’t stand on it very much, or I’d fall over,” he said. “She’s in there at 7:30 in the morning, and she helps me bathe.” Goodness said Conteh is exacting about cleanliness and will tell the housekeepers if his room is not kept properly.
Conteh said Goodness was withdrawn when he first arrived. “He don’t want to come out, he want to eat in his room,” she said. “He don’t want to be with the other people in the dining room, so I start making friends with him.”
She showed him a photo of Sierra Leone on her phone and told him of the weather there. He told her about his work at the church and how his wife did laundry for the choir. The breakthrough, she said, came one day when he agreed to lunch with her in the dining room. Long out of his shell, Goodness now sits on the community’s resident council and enjoys distributing the mail to other residents on his floor.
“The people that work in my building become so important to us,” Goodness said.
While Trump’s 2024 election campaign focused on foreigners here without authorization, his administration has broadened to target those legally here, including refugees who fled countries beset by wars or natural disasters. This month, the Department of Homeland Security revoked the work permits for migrants and refugees from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela who arrived under a Biden-era program.
“I’ve just spent my morning firing good, honest people because the federal government told us that we had to,” Rachel Blumberg, president of the Toby & Leon Cooperman Sinai Residences of Boca Raton, a Florida retirement community, said in a video posted on LinkedIn. “I am so sick of people saying that we are deporting people because they are criminals. Let me tell you, they are not all criminals.”
At Goodwin House, Conteh is fearful for her fellow immigrants. Foreign workers at Goodwin rarely talk about their backgrounds. “They’re scared,” she said. “Nobody trusts anybody.” Her neighbors in her apartment complex fled the U.S. in December and returned to Sierra Leone after Trump won the election, leaving their children with relatives.
“If all these people leave the United States, they go back to Africa or to their various countries, what will become of our residents?” Conteh asked. “What will become of our old people that we’re taking care of?”
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.
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This article first appeared on KFF Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
The post Dual Threats From Trump and GOP Imperil Nursing Homes and Their Foreign-Born Workers appeared first on kffhealthnews.org
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Center-Left
This content primarily highlights concerns about the impact of restrictive immigration policies and Medicaid spending cuts proposed by the Trump administration and Republican lawmakers on the long-term care industry. It emphasizes the importance of immigrant workers in healthcare, the challenges that staffing shortages pose to patient care, and the potential negative effects of GOP policy proposals. The tone is critical of these policies while sympathetic toward immigrant workers and advocates for maintaining or increasing government support for healthcare funding. The framing aligns with a center-left perspective, focusing on social welfare, immigrant rights, and concern about the consequences of conservative economic and immigration policies without descending into partisan rhetoric.
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