Nursing Home Industry Targets New Hampshire's Congressional Delegation

Perhaps you’ve seen the ads.
They’ve appeared in the state’s largest paper, the Union Leader.
One recent ad shows a full-page photograph of an older woman, she’s gotta be in her 80s, and across the top runs the question “Why”.
It continues by asking “Why would politicians in Washington vote to cut Mediare for New Hampshire’s most vulnerable seniors.”
Tape: it’s absolutely not so. The Nursing home industry is misleading our seniors and trying to use scare tactics.
That’s Representative Paul Hodes, a democrat from the 2nd district, and one of the targets of the campaign in New Hampshire.
He shares that distinction with the 1st Districts Carol Shea-Porter.
She calls the campaign an outrage.
Tape: of course we’re not cutting medicare for seniors..
One of the two sponsors of the ads is the Alliance for Quality Nursing Home Care.
The organization represents 17 private for-profit corporations that provide long-term care.
According to The Alliance’s website, those 17 corporations own nearly 18 hundred facilities, with hundreds of thousands of patients.
Alan Rosenbloom, the organization’s President says this part of the ad campaign is costing (quote) in the low seven figures.
TAPE: the ads that are running in NH are similar, er identical, except for the name of the member of Congress… who voted in favor of the Champ ACT.
Rosenbloom says the ads are running in 29 districts across the country….mostly targeting first term democrats.
The Champ Act, was recently passed the US House of Representatives.
Champ stands for Children’s Health and Medicare Protection Act.
Proponents say it will insure more low income children through States Childrens Health Insurance Program and provide added benefits to medicare recipients.
But it’s coming at a price.
The bill would freeze reimbursements to nursing homes at the current rate for the next fiscal year.
Rosenbloom says that freeze is equivalent to cutting 2.7 billion dollars from nursing home services over five years.
And that, he warns, could mean serious cutbacks.
Tape: Labor costs represent 70% of nursing home operating costs and so when faced with cutbacks, frequently the type of difficult decisions have to be made that affect workers and ultimately therefore the patients who are in need of the care and services provided.
He says the Alliance supports improving health insurance coverage for children, but he says this bill robs seniors to pay that bill.
That argument is nonsense, says Judy Stein, and harmful.
TAPE: intergenerational warfare is dreadful, and that’s what’s being done here in the guise caring about the most vulnerable of old people and it’s private industry that’s pushing it.
Stein is the Executive Director of the Center for Medicare Advocacy.
The center provides education and legal advice to Medicare beneficiaries.
As far as seniors are concerned Stein gives the Champ Act a 9.5 out of 10.
TAPE: it will remove the penalties for people who enroll late in the prescription drug plan. It will roll back a 10% decrease in Physicians payments under medicare which will take effect in January if this bill doesn’t go into effect. It would remove co-pays for preventive services and adds some new preventive services for glaucoma and diabetes as well as certain cancer screenings.
What’s more, says Stein, the Champ Act repeals a provision in current law that could mean cuts in Medicare two years from now.
Still, the industry’s Alan Rosenbloom, says private nursing homes can’t afford the reimbursement freeze, because their operating margins are just too low.
TAPE: what keeps those margins above zero is essentially medicare revenue. So when medicare revenue doesn’t increase to take into account costs, the reality is that the lowest margin provider is seeing its margins driven closer and closer to zero.
But 1st District Representative Carol Shea-Porter says the freeze was recommended by the Medicare Payment Advisory Committee.
TAPE: And MEDPAC is independent, non-partisan, it was established by Congress to advise us on these issues, and they told us the profit margins were large, a quarter of them were getting more than 25% and that’s just too large and so there was room to freeze there.
The Alliance’s Ad campaign is scheduled to continue through the Labor Day weekend.
New Hampshire’s Representatives say they’ve received no more than a handful of phone calls from elderly voters worried by the ads.
But that may change when Congress gears up again after the summer recess.
The Senate and the House have to reconcile their versions of the Children’s health insurance bill.
The Senate version includes none of the Medicare reforms.
For NHPR News, I’m Mark Bevis.