Nursing Homes

Floor Speech

NURSING HOMES -- (Senate - October 03, 2007)

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, for 10 years, I have advocated for stronger measures to ensure that America's nursing home residents receive the quality of care they deserve. Currently, over 1.7 million Americans live in nursing homes. This number will grow by leaps and bounds as the baby boomer generation ages. Therefore, there has never been a more critical time to make sure that the Federal Government does all it can to protect the most vulnerable among us from substandard care.

In late September, an article on the front page of the New York Times underscored this issue and brought to light some troubling data. The article, entitled ``At Many Homes, More Profit and Less Nursing,'' studied the quality of care at investor-owned nursing homes. The findings were alarming, to say the least.

Using numbers from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the article compared several investor-owned nursing home chains to industry-wide averages for several indicators. Here is what was found. The investor-owned homes, on average, had fewer clinical registered nurses per resident and higher numbers of serious health deficiencies. The article also reported that, in some cases, long-stay residents in these investor-owned homes suffered from higher rates of deterioration in their condition.

I would like to highlight one case in particular. Following its purchase by a large investment firm, one nursing home cut its number of clinical registered nurses in half. Budgets for nursing supplies, resident activities, and other services were also cut. Investor profits soared and resident care plummeted. Indeed, visits by regulators found fire exits that didn't work, dirty kitchens, and other health and safety violations. Fifteen residents died in 3 years due to negligent care, according to their families.

Our elderly and disabled nursing home residents our own grandparents, mothers, fathers, and other loved ones deserve better.

Is this a case of profits before care? Well, I am not sure. But I certainly intend to look into it. I intend to investigate allegations that some large investment firms are buying up nursing homes across the country and are hurting quality of care. And as a result, achieving, as the New York Times said, ``More profit and less nursing.''

And let's not forget that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services shoulder some responsibility for these problems too CMS needs to do a better job of protecting seniors in our Nation's nursing homes and I am going follow up with them to see what they have to say.

So I say to my fellow Senators, we must do what is necessary to protect America's nursing home residents. We need to closely examine this matter. I plan to take a very active role in looking at this issue and will be speaking with nursing homes, equity firms, and to CMS. We owe it to America's nursing home residents and we owe it to their families.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the article to which I referrd earlier.

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