In what may be the worst proposed legislation in my 5 legislative sessions, House Bill 1130 proposed by the Appropriations Committee at the request of the Office of Management and Budget would create a tax on nursing home beds filled by non-Medicaid covered residents as a way of filling the gap left by reduced federal funding.
This bill is even worse than the 2013 effort by House Republicans to create a Water Extraction Tax out of thin air.
At least that tax was on businesses making profit, this tax is on people sleeping in nursing homes. And the only way out of the tax is to die, or spend all your money and get covered by Medicaid.
This is basically ObamaCare for old people paid by other older people that might have some money saved to give their kids or grandkids as an inheritance.
House Bill 1130, if passed in its current form and approved by the Federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, would require nursing facilities to pay the state’s Tax Commissioner an “assessment” for their “non-medicare bed days” every quarter. If nursing homes do not comply, they’ll get hit with a “penalty” of five percent of the assessment due plus one percent interest. The money would go into a new account in the Treasurer’s office and only be used for long-term care in the future.
In other words, people who are in a nursing home and pay out-of-pocket will likely be “assessed” an amount to pay for the care of others in nursing homes on Medicaid. You heard that right, the state is proposing to raise money from senior citizens to pay for services.
This is a bill that must be stopped in its tracks.
Legislators have been told for the last 5 sessions that federal money would start to dry up. They spent the oil surplus money and have very little to show for it, now to sold the problem of relying on federal dollars too long they are going to force senior citizens with money to go broke and leave nothing to their family or pay a tax?
This is sponsored by Republicans that rail against the Estate Death Tax and rail against ObamaCare - but then use the same redistribution of wealth approach Obama would tax.
This bill is on the top of the Watchdog list in 2017 that needs to be defeated.
Contact your legislators today to tell them to say NO to HB 1130 unless it is completely changes. Not little changes, completely changed.
Then sign our petition so that we can take it to the committee and show legislators that the public will not allow this sort of approach.
