Patients Are Powerful

Patient advocates who assist nursing home residents beware: Alarmed by the cost of providing health insurance to their employees, many nursing homes and home care agencies not only do not provide health insurance to their workers, or pay wages so low that employees cannot afford the coverage that is offered, but many are lobbying for exemption from the new health care law. As one who writes health articles regarding senior health care issues, I feel obliged to consider how uninsured nursing home workers might affect the health of nursing home residents.

It is a well-known fact that uninsured individuals are less likely to seek treatment for illnesses. Hands-on nursing home attendants who are not insured may work while they are contagious, infectious, and communicable, which can be a death sentence to elderly patients whose immune systems are already comprised by age and illness. In addition, even if an nursing home worker is not contagious, his or her untreated untreated condition might still impair mental and physical dexterity when needed.

Starting in 2014, the new health care law will require employers with 50 or more full-time employees to offer affordable coverage or risk paying a penalty. For a midsize nursing home, that penalty could easily exceed $200,000 a year. Nursing home executives are urging Congress and the Obama administration to spare them from the penalties.

Patient advocates should join nursing home workers against this grievous treatment of employees that endangers everyone associated with patient care, including the patients themselves. Someone in the Nursing Home and Home Care agencies is making plenty of money on the backs of nursing home and home care employees! It is scandalous for these agencies to be lobbying for special treatment and it would be more-than-scandalous for Congress or the administration to relieve nursing homes of the obligation to provide coverage to employees!

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