Legislative Bulletin: Final Stretch of SFY 2021-22 Budget Negotiations

March 26, 2021

LAST CHANCE for SFY 2021-22 Budget Advocacy!

With the State Fiscal Year (SFY) 2021-2022 Final Budget due by Wednesday, April 1, lawmakers are right now finalizing what will be in the final budget bills. Without a message of necessity, bills need a full three days to “age” before they can be voted on and passed in either house. This means that budget bills will likely be finalized by this coming Monday, March 29^th.

This is your LAST CHANCE TO CALL YOUR LAWMAKERS with final budget concerns! Please call your lawmakers today, thank them for restoring proposed Medicaid cuts and urge them to include the below actions in the final budget:

Invest in the continuum of long-term care – the baby boomers are aging, and the issues presented by covid-19 will remain after the pandemic.
Include financial relief for nursing home and adult care facilities for unfunded, costly mandates such as COVID-19 testing and other covid-related costs (if you have numbers to share with legislators – please do!)
Include the Senate one-house’s 200M for nursing home staffing, allocating a portion of the funds to go to financially distressed providers.
Reject inflexible nursing home staff spending mandates. At minimum, exclude capital costs and reimbursement from the calculation of any direct care spending language, and exempt CCRCs and specialty units as these models have different cost and revenue structures.
Include language requiring the Governor to submit a statewide comprehensive five-year affordable housing capital plan as part of the annual executive budget.
Include $624 million to increase the minimum wage for home health care workers and ensure that this increase in wages will continually be supported and funded by the State, beyond SFY 2021-22.

Members can find their legislators' contact information here. In speaking with lawmakers, do your best to cite specific costs that your organization has incurred due to inflated costs of PPE, testing requirements, staffing challenges, etc. if applicable. Stress that long-term care has been underfunded for several years, and these financial strains were only made worse by the pandemic and unfunded mandates.

Thank you for your advocacy as we enter the final stretch of budget negotiations!

Update: Nursing Home and ACF Bills Moving in Legislature

Even amid the final budget negotiations, the Legislature is continuing their work on nursing home and adult care facility (ACF) legislation. Unfortunately, despite our best advocacy efforts, this week the Senate passed the nursing home immunity repeal bill A.3397 (Kim)/S.5177 (Biaggi). The bill has already passed in the Assembly which means the bills next move will be to the Governor’s desk for signature. LeadingAge NY has strongly opposed this bill which would repeal the Emergency or Disaster Treatment Protection Act, removing reasonable immunity from liability for health care providers and professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic emergency.

Additionally, a different bill - the compassionate care legislation which passed in both houses in early March – has already been delivered to the executive and governor action is due on March 29^th. LeadingAge NY has sent a letter to the Governor, encouraging him to include certain chapter amendments allowing the state to better align with federal visitation guidance along with his approval of the bill. Of course, the issue of visitation is ever evolving with new guidance released by DOH just yesterday, so we are not clear what action the Governor will take on this bill.

Another bill that moved this week was the ACF Penalties bill A.196 (Gottfried)/S.1576 (Rivera), which proposes an increase in potential penalties for ACF violations from up to $1,000 per day to $2,000 per violation per day—or $3,000 per day for a repeat violation. The bill moved out of the Assembly Codes Committee and is now on the Assembly calendar. The bill is also on the Senate calendar, meaning it could be passed by either or both houses as early as next week. We know that the Legislature is interested in doing something on nursing home and ACF penalties, so members are strongly encouraged to contact their legislators on this issue.

While we expect next week to be mostly budget focused, it is still possible that the Legislature could opt to act on the below priority bills sitting on the Assembly and Senate calendars. Members are strongly encouraged to send the below pre-written letters to their legislators TODAY! It only takes a few clicks!

After you send your letters, we encourage you to share the letter links with your colleagues and board members to expand our advocacy reach.

Updated Visitation Guidance and ADHC Reopening Plans

Late yesterday afternoon, the Department of Health issued revised nursing home and adult care facility visitation guidance, as well as long-awaited guidance for the reopening of medical model adult day health care (ADHC) programs. LeadingAge NY is pleased that the State has decided to proceed with the reopening of ADHC programs, as these programs have been closed for a full year and as a result many seniors have not been receiving the care and social stimulation that ADHC provides.

LeadingAge NY is actively working through all of these new guidance documents and will provide analysis on our Monday COVID-19 update webinar, if not sooner. Please feel free to contact our policy team with any questions in the meantime.

Register Now for LeadingAge National Virtual Lobby Day!

Every year, LeadingAge connects members with their lawmakers on Capitol Hill to advocate for policies that remove barriers to care, advocate for more affordable senior housing, develop new services, improve reimbursement, and make America a better place for older adults. This year, as aging services providers begin the process of rebuilding in a post-crisis world, it’s more critical than ever to make our voices heard.

LeadingAge’s Congressional Lobby Day is scheduled for April 21, 2021 and registration is now open! Congressional lobby days serve as great opportunities to meet with elected officials and advocate for issues that are important to aging services. Importantly, with new Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer leading the Senate and House Democrats maintaining their majority, New York is well positioned to be particularly influential on the national level. Additionally, if you are new to national advocacy, registrants will receive a confirmation email with dates and times for a lobby day training and open office hours. Learn more and register today!

Medicare Sequester Moratorium Passes the U.S. Senate

A continuation of the 2% Medicare sequester moratorium that would last through December 2021 passed the Senate today by a vote of 90-2. The House still needs to vote on the Senate’s version and will not do so until at least two weeks from now after the Congressional recess. However, the bill is written so that the moratorium does not break so it should not ultimately impact provider payments.

This Senate version did not include a waiver of the statutory pay-as-you go (PAYGO) cuts triggered by the last budget reconciliation bill. Fortunately, these cuts are not due to go into effect until the end of the year so there will be other opportunities to waive those cuts.

Thank you for advocating with us on this issue!

Provider Relief Fund Survey

Has your organization benefited from the Provider Relief Fund? LeadingAge National is collecting data to make the case to Congress about how much more relief you might need to get through the remainder of the pandemic. Please complete this survey to share your experience!

Human Rights Watch Nursing Home Report

Early yesterday morning, Human Rights Watch released a new report looking at nursing homes and COVID-19. US: Concerns of Neglect in Nursing Homes is based on interviews with 61 people, including residents, family members, nursing home staff, advocates, attorneys, and experts in the sector, as well as responses to an online survey. The NGO asked LeadingAge National to respond to a set of questions related to the report earlier this year (though they did not have access to their findings at that time). LeadingAge’s letter in response to the report illuminates the challenges the pandemic created for nursing homes, and reiterates that LeadingAge and its members are committed to resolving the short and long-term challenges that the crisis highlighted. The report is available at hrw.org.

Connect with your Lawmakers on Social Media!

Social media is an effective way to amplify our advocacy message. Its public nature also encourages lawmakers to engage and holds them accountable to listen to the issues affecting providers in their districts. At this critical point in our budget advocacy, it is a great time to engage with lawmakers on Twitter, Facebook, or even Instagram!

Please take a moment to Tweet or post on Facebook, tagging your lawmakers with the following message. Feel free to include a photo to draw added attention:

“.@Legislator The COVID pandemic has exacerbated the effects of chronic under-funding of long-term care. Providers continue to shoulder excessive, unreimbursed added costs of COVID, on top of already inadequate reimbursement. Seniors deserve more. Support LTC in one-house budgets!”

Legislator’s social media accounts can easily be found with our Find My Legislator tool.

LeadingAge & LeadingAge NY Coronavirus Resources

LeadingAge NY continues to closely follow all COVID-19 news and we are doing our best to keep members informed of updates, recommendations and guidelines from the Department of Health (DOH).

LeadingAge NY and LeadingAge National Member resources are linked below.

LeadingAge NY Coronavirus Resources

LeadingAge NY COVID-19 Weekly Update calls – Mondays at 11 a.m. Click here to join the call from your computer, android or apple device. Or you can join the call by dialing in: 877 853 5257 (Toll Free); Webinar ID: 852 964 255.

LeadingAge National Coronavirus Resources Page

LeadingAge National Pandemic Playbook

COVID-19 Group in the MyLeadingAge Member Community

Coronavirus Daily Member Update calls – Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from 3:30-4:30 p.m. Past call recordings are available here and you can register here for future calls.

Contact: Ami Schnauber; 518.867.8854; aschnauber@leadingageny.org

Sarah Daly; 518.867.8845; sdaly@leadingageny.org