With the enormity of challenges facing the incoming Obama Administration, the American Health Care Association and the National Center for Assisted Living (AHCA/NCAL) commends and supports President Obama’s pursuit of fundamental reform to the U.S. health care system. Expanding Americans’ access to high quality healthcare merits strong support – but we must do so in a way that avoids inadvertently limiting others’ access to this very care. One essential objective of reform must be to ensure every U.S. senior and disabled citizen always retains ready access to quality long-term care.
Working together to ensure the FY 2010 budget will complement, not jeopardize, the positive aspects of the recently passed American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) is an important mutual objective. Stabilizing our economy, protecting the care needs of seniors and the disabled, and creating the new front line healthcare jobs that make a difference in the lives of seniors and those with disabilities benefits every citizen.
We strongly support the Administration’s initiative to help address the shortage of nurses, and nurse training programs. We are concerned, however, about other provisions specifically the so-called “bundling” of providers’ Medicare funding. Upon closer objective examination, we believe this measure may have negative, unintended consequences on our patients, our front line care staff, and the long-term care sector itself.
Moving forward within the context of this urgent health reform debate, we must focus on how to most efficiently fund Medicare beneficiaries’ post-acute care. Much important work remains to be done. As a starting point, such reform must always preserve access to care and assure quality as well as cost-efficiency. We look forward to working constructively with the Administration and Congress to ensure quality care is always the right of every American senior today, and in the years and decades to come.
The American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living (NCAL) represent nearly 11,000 non-profit and proprietary facilities dedicated to continuous improvement in the delivery of professional and compassionate care provided daily by millions of caring employees to 1.5 million of our nation's frail, elderly and disabled citizens who live in nursing facilities, assisted living residences, subacute centers and homes for persons with mental retardation and developmental disabilities. For more information, please visit www.ahca.org or www.ncal.org.