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Frontline Caregiver Coalition to Bush
Administration: Stopping pending $770
Million Medicare Cut most important 2008
Health Policy Issue
Negative
Impact on Local Seniors to receive extensive
publicity, discussion if Medicare Cut
approved this week
WASHINGTON, July 29
/PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Coalition to
Protect Senior Care today stated stopping
the Bush Administration from going forward
with a new Medicare regulation, which will
cut $770 million in U.S. seniors' Medicare
Part A nursing home benefits, is the
national organization's top legislative
priority for 2008, and said the negative
impact on local seniors' care will be a
central point of discussion at the state
level if the misguided Medicare regulation
goes into effect.
"When it comes to this
pending Medicare regulation, the stakes for
seniors' care has never been higher, and we
consider stopping this major threat our top
legislative priority for 2008," stated Lisa
Cantrell, a co-founder of the National
Association of Health Care Assistants, and a
national spokesperson for the Coalition to
Protect Senior Care.
"The Medicare regulation in
question hurts seniors' care and wastes
taxpayer dollars, and we intend to further
discuss -- in extensive, thorough fashion --
how this illogical change in Medicare policy
turns back the clock on documented
improvements in beneficiaries' care."
Cantrell added that while the
cost of providing quality care continues to
rise -- especially in regard to recruiting,
training and retaining the key staff that
make a difference in care quality and
patient outcomes -- the federal government
must not further undermine facility capacity
and patient care itself with unwise,
counterproductive policy decisions.
"From our perspective as
front line caregivers, the Administration's
plan to move forward with the Medicare
funding cuts will put at risk a facility's
ability to sustain caregiver wage and
benefit packages that are already on the
margin of being uncompetitive with other
service-oriented professions," Cantrell
continued. "Still further, the regulatory
directive and the resulting Medicare funding
cuts will prove enormously detrimental to
the Administration's own quality improvement
initiatives.
"We appreciate and are
grateful that so many U.S. Senate and House
members of both parties are standing up to
protect their most vulnerable constituents,
and fighting for the federal funding
necessary to help preserve and promote
quality nursing home care."
The Coalition to Protect
Senior Care consists of the American
Association for Long Term Care Nursing (AALTCN);
the American College of Health Care
Administrators (ACHCA); the American
Association of Nurse Assessment Coordinators
(AANAC); the National Rural Health
Association (NRHA); the American Association
of Nurse Executives (AANEX); the American
Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA); the
American Physical Therapy Association (APTA);
the American Society of Health Care
Administration Executives (ASHCAE); the
American Health Care Association (AHCA); the
American Health Quality Association (AHQA);
the National Association for the Support of
Long Term Care (NASL); the National
Association of Health Care Assistants (NAHCA);
the Alliance for Quality Nursing Home Care;
the Coalition of Women in Long Term Care
(COWL); and the Senior Clinician Group.
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