Seniors fight governor’s care cutbacks

By Susanna Ray

Herald Writer

OLYMPIA — A geriatric battle brewed in Olympia on Valentine’s Day.

Hundreds of seniors and nursing home workers delivered handmade valentines to legislators Thursday and sported heart stickers. But they carried a plaintive message: "Have a heart. Stop the cuts to long-term care now."

They bundled blankets over their wheelchairs and rallied for about an hour in the cold against Gov. Gary Locke’s proposal to cut about $70 million in government funding for nursing homes.

But, adding a twist to their fight, home care workers showed up to send the message that nursing homes don’t deserve the money — they do.

Consider it a sign of how lean these budget times are. The state is facing a $1.25 billion budget hole, which is only expected to get worse when the updated forecast comes out next week. Cuts in social services are part of Locke’s plan for plugging that hole.

"Governor Locke should be known for basically putting grandma out on the street," said Louise Kuyper, social service director for Forest View Transitional Health Center in Everett. "Where are these people supposed to live? Are they going to go live with Governor Locke?"

Forest View is a 70-bed nursing home with 83 employees that provides bathing, dressing, feeding and health care for patients. Administrator Gary Spreine said his home and others are losing money on Medicaid patients. The state reimburses Forest View $142.74 a day for each of its 42 Medicaid patients, whereas the actual costs for those patients are $158 per day, Spreine said.

The home will have to close if the discrepancy gets any worse, he said.

Still, the average reimbursement rate in Washington is 22 percent higher than that in Oregon and well above the national rate, according to Ed Penhale with the governor’s office.

"Nursing homes say this will drive them out of business, and that may happen in some cases, but in others consolidation may be the answer," Penhale said.

But if homes in Everett close, Spreine said, patients could be forced to move to homes far away from the support of family members and friends.

Forest View resident Florence Schmidt, 88, grew up in Mukilteo and doesn’t want to leave the area. But she’s on Medicaid and has no family left to move in with, so she said she is at the mercy of legislators. Schmidt moved to the Everett home three years ago when she ran out of Medicare funding to pay for her care in a Lynnwood home.

"I had to move once," she said quietly from her wheelchair at Thursday’s rally. "I don’t want to move again."

Schmidt’s quote for the governor and lawmakers, many of whom are senior citizens: "Do unto others as you want them to do unto you."

"The governor in his proposal has had to make some painful choices," Penhale said. "We’re sympathetic to the situation."

But when state Rep. Jeanne Edwards, D-Bothell, spoke recently to a group of about 200 nursing home managers and owners, she said two-thirds of them stood up when she asked how many would have to close their centers within two years if the governor’s proposed cuts go through. As a member of the House Health Care Committee, she began advocating on their behalf and found a sympathetic ear in Seattle Rep. Helen Sommers, the Democrats’ budget writer.

The funding will still be cut, Sommers said, but "it will be significantly less" than what the governor has proposed.

But Adam Glickman, spokesman for the Service Employees International Union, passed out packets to reporters at Thursday’s rally charging that nursing homes don’t need the money they are asking for and that it should go instead to home care workers. Workers also testified to that effect at the House Health Care Committee meeting.

The union has played up a recent survey by the Department of Social and Health Services showing that some nursing homes didn’t use money the Legislature gave them last year for raises for their lowest-paid workers, as they were directed.

Since 1995, the state’s nursing home population has dropped by about 17 percent, whereas the number of seniors getting at-home care has soared by 63 percent, according to state figures.