News Article

President Biden's Proposed 2025 Budget

March 20, 2024

On March 11, 2024, President Biden revealed his proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2025. While short on details, the budget laid out various proposals that would affect both nursing home care and Home and Community Based Services (HCBS).  President Biden continues his previous efforts to improve and expand HCBS, while requiring increased quality measure reporting. Like previous budgets, President Biden proposes increasing scrutiny on nursing home ownership, particularly private equity, increasing per-instance civil monetary penalties, and holding facilities accountable for “noncompliant closure and substandard care.”  Consumer Voice strongly supports these proposals and is eager to work with the Biden Administration on their implementation.

Consumer Voice is concerned, however, about a new proposal that would “reduce survey frequency for high-performing (LTC) facilities.” An idea long supported by the nursing home industry, Consumer Voice has opposed the reduction of survey frequency for nursing homes, regardless of their past performance. Nursing homes must undergo a re-certification survey at least every fifteen months.  Reducing that frequency would place many nursing home residents at risk of harm.

This proposal is particularly troubling in light of last year’s Senate Aging report, “Uninspected and Neglected,” documenting the failures of the current nursing home survey and inspection system. Years of flat funding for nursing home surveys and enforcement have resulted in significant delays and unreliable survey results. However, the solution is not to reduce the amount of oversight and protection for nursing home residents. Instead, the administration should explore other alternatives, including using data to focus surveys, supporting efforts by state agencies to hire and train more survey staff, and making clear to Congress that flat funding for nursing home surveys is not acceptable.

Read President Biden’s complete proposed budget. The proposals discussed above occur on page 146.