Legislative Bulletin: It's Time to Mobilize! LeadingAge NY Shares New Grassroots Advocacy Tools
February 14, 2025
ACTION ALERT: Digital Budget Advocacy Letters Now Available!
As the dust settles from our Feb. 4th advocacy day effort and this week’s health budget hearing, it is important to remember that legislators are hearing from constituents in all corners of the state about countless State budget requests. With this in mind, it is critical that we keep the funding needs of long-term care and aging services providers top-of-mind. LeadingAge New York has crafted the below service-line specific digital advocacy letters to help us keep the pressure on legislators for the remainder of 2025-26 budget discussions.
Please use the links below to send messages to your legislators and the governor TODAY!
Each letter takes only a minute or two to send. Simply enter your information to automatically send an email to the Governor and your State Senator and Assembly Member! There will be more grassroots resources to come, but for now, please help us flood the email inboxes of your state legislators!
- Nursing Home Budget Letters – More letter versions & flyers available by Wed. 2/19
- Resident Assistant in Affordable Senior Housing Budget Letter
- Adult Care Facilities/Assisted Living Budget Letter
- Home & Community-Based Services Budget Letter
- Managed Long-Term Care Budget Letter
- Adult Day Health Care Budget Letter
After you send your letters, we strongly encourage members to share these links with colleagues, board members and volunteers. This is a simple and easy way to strengthen our unified message to the Legislature at this critical time.
In addition, LeadingAge New York’s Advocacy Day website will remain active over the coming weeks. We encourage members to continue to share our Budget Issue Briefs with legislative offices, and, if you haven’t already watched the recording of our Advocacy Day Prep Call, the messaging and focus of our advocacy that we reviewed on the call remain relevant.
Thank you for your budget advocacy and for staying engaged with us throughout this process!
Legislators Return to Districts for February Recess
The Legislature concluded their work for the week on Wed., Feb. 12th, and returned to their districts for the February Recess. As is reflected on the 2025 Legislative Session Calendar, they will return to Albany to resume legislative work on Feb. 24th.
While bill movement will be quiet next week, the Legislature is likely to continue some level of budget work over the break – hearing from stakeholders in the district, reflecting on top budget priorities and analyzing the Executive’s 30-day amendments, should they be released by Feb. 20th.
The February Recess poses an opportunity for LeadingAge NY members to connect with your legislators in the district. If you have not already shared our budget issue briefs with your legislators, now may be a good time call the district office to schedule a meeting, or ask to simply stop in and share physical copies of our materials and concerns. You could highlight the budget requests in the material that are most meaningful to you.
If nothing else, we hope you will take advantage of all our digital grassroots advocacy resources over the next week, as NOW is a critical time to capture the attention of State Senators and Assembly Members.
LeadingAge NY CEO Testifies at State Health Budget Hearing
On Tuesday afternoon, LeadingAge NY CEO Sebrina Barrett testified at the Joint Legislative Budget Hearing on Health, calling for increased investment in long-term care and aging services. She reminded the legislators that the Governor’s declared “fight for families” must include our grandparents, our parents, and their caregivers. Pointing to NY's outdated Medicaid rates and years of flat funding for long-term care, Barrett urged legislators to raise Medicaid rates significantly to cover the cost of care. She noted that the widening gap between Medicaid rates and costs is exacerbating staffing shortages and financial distress among providers.
Barrett highlighted the accelerating closures of nursing homes and other long-term care providers, in the context of a growing population of older adults and the rising demand for long-term care services. As indicated in her testimony, since 2014, 32 nursing homes have closed their doors and over 3,500 beds have been lost due to funding shortfalls. Similarly, since 2010, over 100 adult care facilities (ACFs) have closed. She further highlighted that home care agencies are also closing and limiting admissions.
Critically, Barrett used her 3-minute testimony to highlight some of LeadingAge NY’s budget priorities, including:
- Invest in closing the gap between nursing home Medicaid rates and costs; preserve access to quality care with a 20 percent rate increase.
- Restore the 15 percent cut to capital funding for nursing homes.
- Authorize certified medication aides in nursing homes.
- Restore the Enhancing the Quality of Adult Living (EQUAL) program and Enriched Housing Subsidy cuts in ACF funding and increase Assisted Living Program (ALP) rates and capacity.
- Invest in home care and hospice funding to support access and workforce.
- Fund a Resident Assistant program in affordable senior housing.
These proposals are highlighted in greater detail in LeadingAge NY’s written budget testimony, available here.
Legislators attending the hearing expressed a great deal of interest in long-term care issues, including nursing home funding and the transition of the Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program (CDPAP) to a single fiscal intermediary. Assemblymember Jensen raised several questions about recent cuts to nursing home capital reimbursement, Senators Ashby and Stec brought up the size of the nursing home Medicaid gap and asked state agencies how they planned to address it, Senators Brouk and Gonzalez raised significant concerns about hospital overflow and health care capacity issues, Assemblymember Solages asked about Vital Access Provider Assurance Program (VAPAP) funding, and there were several more. LeadingAge NY is following up with legislative committee members who participated in today’s hearing to thank them and ensure that they are aware of our most high-priority budget requests.
Members can watch a recording of the entire health budget hearing here. A consolidated clip of LeadingAge New York’s testimony & questions is available here.
Assembly Passes ALP Medical Evaluation Bill
This week, a bill that LeadingAge New York strongly supports, A.2027 (Paulin)/S.3361 (Rivera), was passed by the Assembly! The bill would authorize physician assistants (PAs) and nurse practitioners (NPs) to conduct and sign assisted living program (ALP) medical evaluations. While we are thrilled to see the bill advance so quickly in the Assembly, it has not yet advanced out of the Senate Health committee. We encourage members to contact your legislators in support of this bill, as the more noise we make in support, the more likely it is to advance out of Senate Health.
Click here to email your state legislators in support of streamlining medical evaluations in ALPs!
Continue to Urge Congress to Protect Medicaid in 2025!
Congress is preparing to pass a budget resolution to move forward on tax and spending priorities. Using the budget reconciliation process, Congressional committees of jurisdiction will be instructed to reduce spending on mandatory programs, reauthorize expiring tax cuts, and authorize other spending priorities. Budget reconciliation allows Congress to pass legislation without 60 votes in the Senate, and Medicaid, because of its significant budget and concerns from incoming Congressional leadership about the program’s scope and cost, will be a target for spending cuts in the coming months. Further, New York in particular could be significantly impacted by the changes that are under consideration.
As you know all too well, the Medicaid program is critical to older adults and the providers who serve them. Cuts or changes that impede access to the program must not be part of the budget resolution. Members are strongly encouraged to speak with Congressional offices about the potential consequences of cuts or changes to Medicaid at the Federal level.
LeadingAge New York and National are partnering in organizing some meetings with key targets, but all members are encouraged to engage in phone calls and meetings with Congressional offices! LeadingAge has created two sets of talking points for members and state partners to use in talking to Members of Congress about the potential cuts to Medicaid in the reconciliation process. One set of talking points outlines the types of proposals being considered and provides general talking points on why they are harmful. The second set focuses more on aging services providers as well as the impacts on states.
Digital advocacy options are also available to members, with several different letters that members can send to their members of Congress today, with just a few clicks. Click here to write to your members of Congress TODAY, urging them not to include Medicaid cuts or harmful changes as part of budget reconciliation or other legislation.
Contact: Sarah Daly; 518.867.8845; sdaly@leadingageny.org