In a scathing September 13, 2024 letter to the CEOs of Brookdale Senior Living, National HealthCare, and Ensign Group, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D, MA), Richard Blumenthal (D, CT), and Bernie Sanders (I, VT), and Representative Jan Schakowsky (D, IL) cite new public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission revealing that the three companies paid their top executives nearly $70 million in 2023 (“a nearly 30 percent increase over their 2022 pay”) to rebut industry claims that they “cannot afford to meet new minimum staffing requirements put in place by a Biden-Harris administration policy to improve quality of care for nursing home residents.”
Describing nursing home workers’ “poor pay, lack of benefits, high workloads, inadequate training, poor management, and lack of career advancement,” the Members write:
These conditions make it impossible to provide high-quality care and create a vicious cycle in which nursing homes with higher staff turnover contribute to poor nursing home conditions, leading to even more turnover. All the while, executives get rich – regardless of whether the nursing homes they oversee provide high-quality care.
The Members continue, “It is insulting that the for-profit nursing home industry, which receives billions of taxpayer dollars annually to run its operations, appears to prefer lining the pockets of its executives and shareholders rather than creating sustainable working conditions for nurses and staff.” Suggesting that “Without a national staffing minimum in place, the for-profit nursing home industry can continue to shovel profits to its executives and shareholders at the expense of patient lives,” they call on the CEOs and their companies to “rethink” their opposition to the final staffing rule.
A proposal: Why not limit the amount that Medicare and Medicaid recognize as an allowable cost for executive compensation and tie that limit to the annual salary the U.S. pays the President, $400,000? Companies could pay their chief executives higher salaries, but the funding would have to come from a source other than Medicare and Medicaid.
September 19, 2024 – T. Edelman