Nursing Home COLA

After an intense lobbying effort from advocates and from legislators like myself and Rep. Patti Fritz, Majority Leader Tony Sertich advised us of the following:

“We wanted you to be aware that after receiving significant feedback from the caucus, an amendment was added by Rep. Huntley to the Health and Human Services portion of the budget-balancing bill in Finance Committee. The amendment added an additional 2% Cost of Living Adjustment to nursing home reimbursement rates for the second year of the biennial budget. This funding does not affect other long-term care facilities. These resources are in addition to the rebasing provisions contained in last year’s budget. The Governor’s budget proposal eliminated the rebasing provisions from the budget, however the House proposal does not. The additional resources directed to the COLA increase were created from refinancing a portion of the TANF funds.”