The Free Press, Mankato, MN

Editorials

April 4, 2008

Our View: Elderly care shouldn’t be cut victim

The Free Press

It’s hard to put the elderly as a third or fourth or even second priority when it comes to getting a fair share of state funding. But if Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s budget balancing proposal goes through, it appears the elderly and their care givers will take too much of the budget pain though they’ve been suffering for several years.

There are few health care institutions more vital than nursing homes in the state and yet there is no other caregiving business that has been hammered more by costs, demographic trends and unfair state laws.

Although Pawlenty and the Republican caucus have time and again vowed to protect nursing homes and services for the elderly from budget cuts, the governor’s plan calls for halting expected funding from nursing homes and long-term care services. It does this not by outright cuts — although this is debatable — but by delaying minimal increases in funding that were to take place this year.

The governor’s plan delays a 2 percent rate increase for long-term care providers to July 1, 2009. That means starting July of this year, providers will have to change their plans, cut their budgets and services to keep their books in the same shape they would be had they received their expected funding. The delay of the increase saves the Minnesota government about $32 million.

The bill also cuts another $8 million or so by delaying a new payment formula for a year for nursing homes. With that delay, nursing facilities lose between a 1.5 percent and 2.7 percent increase they were scheduled to receive this year.

These delays in planned funding come at a particularly bad time. Food vendors have already told nursing homes in the Mankato area that the food price increases will be double digit, said Chris Thro, with Thro Company nursing homes. Nursing homes and long-term care providers have been under severe financial strain for almost five years now with state funding.

There were no funding increases in 2003 or 2004 and less than 2 percent increases in 2005, 2006 and 2007. At the same time nursing home costs have increased as they continue to move to provide one- or two-week medical care for people recovering from surgeries or other problems. The change has forced care facilities to purchase expensive medical equipment. Meanwhile, they’ve not been able to bolster the wages of employees as much as the market is demanding.

Some 50 long-term care facilities have closed since 2000. There will be more closures as 30 percent of the facilities in the state have a negative 5 percent operating margin. And that hits rural facilities hardest. At the same time, Minnesota is only one of two states in the nation that restricts nursing home rates. So, even if facilities wanted to raise their rates to compensate for lost state funding, they couldn’t do so.

The Minnesota House of Representatives has proposed a budget balancing bill that actually gives nursing homes a little more money. The Senate plan keeps some of the funding intact.

Budget balancing, of course, is mandated by the Minnesota Constitution. But there are other areas of state spending that will do less damage than cuts to nursing homes and the elderly.

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