In 2021, New York enacted a state law requiring facilities to spend 70% of their revenue on resident care, including 40% of resident-facing care, and limiting profits to 5%. The law has not been implemented.
The nursing home industry filed two lawsuits challenging the law, asserting virtually identical legal claims, including violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments and the Supremacy Clause, federal preemption, and excessive fines, in violation of the Eighth Amendment. LeadingAge New York, the association representing 180 not-for-profit and government facilities, filed its case in state court, LeadingAge New York Inc. v. Kathy Hochul, Index No.: 903920-22 (State of New York Supreme Court, Albany Count. Two hundred fifty individually named facilities and three trade associations filed their case in federal court, Home for the Aged of the Little Sisters of the Poor v. McDonald, No. 1:21-cv-1384 (BKS/CFH) (N.D.N.Y. Jan. 9, 2024). In decisions issued two weeks apart, both courts rejected nursing homes’ claims and dismissed the complaints – the state Decision and Order on December 28, 2023, and the federal Memorandum-Decision and Order, on January 9, 2024.
The state case also challenged a separate state law that mandated nurse staffing levels of 3.5 hours per resident day in nursing facilities. The court rejected that claim as well.
Advocates for nursing home residents support mandates, such as these New York laws, that require nursing facilities to spend designated portions of their revenues on resident care (so-called direct care ratios) and to provide specified patient-to-nursing staff ratios in order to provide high quality care to residents.
February 29, 2024 – T. Edelman