Question: Ever wonder what happened at 9:00 a.m. on July 20, 2011?

The answer: the 20-day government shutdown ended when Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton signed into law a dozen budget bills passed in a 13-hour special legislative session which began on July 19 at 3:00 p.m. These bills provided funding for state government operations for the next two years in the amount of $35.4 billion. The Legislature passed the bills as agreed to by Governor Dayton, without amendment.

The Legislature and Governor Dayton sent mixed messages in the details of their health and human services (HHS) budget agreement. On the one hand, the agreement does not cut nursing facility (NF) rates in this biennium, with the exception of the reductions to specific rate add-ons (leave days, planned closure rate adjustment (PCRA), automatic property rate increase); and provides for a small increase to the lowest-rate nursing homes (approximately 70 of the lowest-rate facilities). On the other hand, it also repeals rebasing — a critical payment reform measure adopted in 2007 that in practical terms forgoes $133 million in promised payments to nursing homes starting in 2013.

The budget also includes significant cuts to cost-saving home- and community-based services, while creating a new layer of government bureaucracy by including language for mandatory transitional consultation, requiring all housing with services (HWS) establishments to “inform all prospective residents of the availability of long-term care consultation and the need to receive and verify the consultation prior to signing a lease or contract.” It is noteworthy that the most significant and concerning elements of the HHS budget — mandatory transitional counseling for all seniors and the repeal of rebasing — were never discussed publicly during the “regular” legislative session.

For more in-depth discussion and analysis of the complete resolution of the 2011 session, we have once again prepared a Legislative Update book. This information is available on the Association website for members only. We will also make a hard copy of this book available through our online store.

Toby Pearson
952.851.2480
tpearson@careproviders.org

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