‘It Is The Backbone Of Our Long-Term Care System’: Steven Horsford Slams Potential Medicare Cuts

yesterday

During a House Ways and Means Committee hearing prior to the congressional recess, Rep. Steven Horsford (D-NV) discussed the consequences of proposed Medicaid cuts.

Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:

https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript

Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com

Transcript

00:00Mr. Horsfield, you are recognized. Thank you, Chairman Buchanan and to the ranking member.

00:06Medicaid, as we're discussing today, is the primary payer for long-term care here in the United States, covering about 61

00:13percent of total spending. It's the backbone of our long-term care system,

00:18supporting millions of seniors and individuals with disabilities, as well as the dedicated professionals

00:25who care for them.

00:27But let me be clear. Despite some mistruths circulating from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle,

00:33the impacts of the 2025

00:36Budget Reconciliation Plan, I call it the Screw America Bill,

00:40are indisputable.

00:43House Republicans are proposing to slash

00:47$880 billion

00:50from Medicaid and

00:52eliminate critical tax credits that help working families afford their health care, all

00:58while delivering a four-and-a-half trillion dollar tax credit

01:02cut to billionaires, to big corporations, and to tech tycoons.

01:08The consequences of these proposed cuts are not hypothetical.

01:12They are catastrophic.

01:14Any cuts to Medicaid will only intensify the existing

01:19challenges in the long-term care sector.

01:22Direct care jobs will become even harder to fill, further straining the system.

01:26Providers will be forced to reduce workers' hours and, in some cases, shut down entirely,

01:33destabilizing the long-term care workforce and

01:36undermining health care quality.

01:39Workers themselves will be at risk of losing their own Medicaid coverage and other essential supports,

01:46further plunging them into financial

01:50instability.

01:51Now, my constituents are very concerned. Just this past weekend,

01:56I held a town hall to give an update on what's happening here on

02:01Capitol Hill and to listen directly to my constituents. The first question from that town hall,

02:08what is being done to protect workers in nursing homes from Medicaid cuts?

02:13That is not an abstract policy debate.

02:16It is real. Real workers, real families, and real lives that are on the line.

02:23Mr. Carlson, my question is simple. If

02:26$880 billion in Medicaid cuts become a reality, what do you anticipate will happen to the long-term care workforce?

02:37If cuts were made of that magnitude,

02:41then

02:43long-term care providers couldn't operate the way they can now. You can imagine closures that it,

02:51because of the prevalence of

02:53Medicaid to fund long-term service and supports,

02:57drastic cuts to Medicaid would

03:00first, the consequences fall on the state, which is unable to make payments that are necessary to maintain the system,

03:07and then the consequences fall on the providers, because they no longer have the funding to provide

03:15necessary services on an individual basis, on an institutional level. A lot of

03:21nursing facilities and also home community-based services providers rely extensively on

03:28Medicaid. 50% of the reimbursement,

03:31two-thirds, depending on the, or above, if you're talking about some home community-based service providers,

03:36they just couldn't operate any longer. So knowing that reality,

03:40what should lawmakers be doing right now to protect these workers and to stabilize the critical workforce that's needed in health care?

03:48Yeah, well, on behalf of Justice in Aging, that the urgent issues in access to post-acute care at the topic of today's

03:58hearing is

04:00protecting the Medicaid program, in rejecting these cuts, in recognizing the importance of Medicaid, and

04:07maintaining the current funding and structure of the program. And this is

04:12the fact that even before this House Republican reconciliation

04:18proposal was made, families were long

04:22voicing concerns about the quality of care in nursing homes, especially the lack of adequate staffing to meet

04:29residents' needs. In fact, in 2024, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services took action and set minimum

04:36staffing standards to ensure that every facility has a nurse on-site.

04:42Research from the University of Pennsylvania

04:44shows that the rule improves care quality, reduces abuse, and saves an estimated

04:5113,000 lives

04:53annually. But now, Republicans have indicated their desire to roll back these critical protections, once again,

05:01to fund tax breaks for big corporations and the wealthy. So how is

05:08rolling back protections and standards going to improve quality, Mr. Carson?

05:15Again, the position of Justice in Aging is that it's counterproductive.

05:19I'll note that this has been a problem for

05:22decades, that the standard of the federal government has just been sufficient staffing, which hasn't been enough to establish a

05:30decent quality of care. And you can talk to individual nursing facility residents and hear stories

05:36all day long about just not enough staff and how that leads to bad outcomes and a bad quality of care.

05:44Just point out, the standard

05:46there's a phase-in period. It hasn't even come into effect yet.

05:50And so what we would advocate, of course, is that they let these standards be implemented. They're important. There are

05:57accommodations to

05:59allow for changes under certain circumstances, and they should be maintained.

06:05Thank you. I yield back.

‘It Is The Backbone Of Our Long-Term Care System’: Steven Horsford Slams Potential Medicare Cuts

Category

Transcript

Recommended