“If they choose to rely on public dollars to deliver care, they take on a greater responsibility,” says New York Assemblyman Ron Kim. “It’s not like running a hotel.”
By Susan Jaffe | KAISER HEALTH NEWS | October 25, 2021 | This story also ran on
Nursing homes receive billions of taxpayers’ dollars every year to care for chronically ill frail elders, but until now, there was no guarantee that’s how the money would be spent.
Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York are taking unprecedented steps to ensure they get what they pay for, 
after the devastating impact of covid-19 exposed problems with staffing and infection control in nursing homes. The states have set requirements for how much nursing homes 
must spend on residents’ direct care and imposed limits on what they can spend elsewhere, including administrative expenses, executive salaries and advertising and even how much they can pocket as profit. …With this strategy, advocates believe, residents won’t be shortchanged on care, and violations of federal quality standards should decrease because money will be required to be spent on residents’ needs. At least that’s the theory. [Continued on Kaiser Health News, Fortune, NBC News, Yahoo Finance, and Chicago Sun-Times]