White Plains Journal-News

Nursing Home Tax Gets Ringing Endorsement

Boston Herald, MA

by Jennifer Heldt Powell

Gov. Mitt Romney last week quietly approved a nursing home bed tax, after his office
took a flood of phone calls saying it was needed to give the industry more money.

The governor got 600 phone calls about the issue, a spokeswoman said.
The tax will generate $145 million from nursing homes, which will be matched by the
federal government. The total will be returned to nursing homes through higher Medicaid rates.

``We get Medicaid rates that are $20 a day below cost and that is for seven out of 10 of our patients,'' said Scott Plumb, senior vice president of the Massachusetts Extended Care Federation. On average, it costs $165 to care for a nursing home resident, but the Medicaid rate is $145, he said. The low rate has led to closures and a scarcity of beds in some areas, he said. There are 450 nursing homes in the state. In the past five years, 100 have closed. Under the user-fee program, which started last year, nursing homes pay $9.60 a day for all beds not covered by Medicare.
In general, patients who pay their own bill won't see an increase, because most homes will get more money back than they pay in, Plumb said. There are some homes with few or no Medicaid patients that will have to pay more than they will get back. Nine out of 10 will have more money, Plumb said. The next step is to determine what the bed tax will be this year and what the new rate
will be, state officials said.

``We're trying to work with the administration to get this done as simply and as quickly as possible,'' Plumb said. Nursing home industry leaders proposed the program last year as a way to generate more money without adding to the state's burden, Plumb said. ``It's revenue-neutral,'' he said.