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Medicare reform rally held in Harrisburg
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Published: September 27, 2009
About 40 people attended the Save Our Seniors call to action rally at The Oaks at Town Center, a skilled nursing facility in Harrisburg.
The health-care campaign, sponsored by the American Health Care Association and UHS Pruitt, the parent company of The Oaks, is moving across Georgia, the Carolinas.
So far the group traveled to 32 locations, driven 3,200 miles, and talked to around 2,000 people, according to Matt Annis, communications director for UHS.
UHS Pruitt is concerned with the budget cuts in Medicare that is proposed in the House health care bill HR 3200.
The bill has not been passed by Congress at this time, but Annis hopes that awareness will cause a grassroots effort to vote down the bill.
"The nursing care industry is looking at 32 billion dollars in Medicare cuts," Annis said. "The cuts are proposed to help pay for the Medicare reform bill. It (the cuts) will be through regulation, and how services are provided."
Annis explained that some members of Congress feel there is some excess that the facilities could cut back on, but UHS Pruitt and AHCA believes there are not 32 billion dollars worth of cuts that could be made.
Annis said his company is in favor of health-care reform, "but it's important not to put it on the backs of Medicare."
Annis shared with the crowd that North Carolina would experience $1.3 billion in cuts, which come to $158,870 per nursing home, and $29 per patient per day who receive Medicare benefits.
UHS Pruitt believes it could mean the loss of 50,000 jobs nationally and 1,600 in North Carolina.
"Our industry can not absorb the cuts at the levels proposed by CMS and Congress," Annis said. "Services will be compromised."
He believes over time this could cause some nursing homes to close.
"These are the wrong cuts at the wrong time, directed at the wrong people," Annis said.
Three members of the North Carolina House of Representatives serving Rowan, Cabarrus and Gastonia attended the rally.
"Seniors have the most wisdom of any voting block," said Republican Jeff Barnhart of Cabarrus County. "It's OK to be angry. I want Congress to know what's fair and what's not fair."
Wil Neumann, Republican from Gaston County also addressed the crowd on HR 3200.
"They are taking over the greatest health-care system in the world. We want America the way it's supposed to be," Neumann said.
Neumann addressed the death panel issue, which he admits is not in the bill.
"But when the bill is passed, they will write the rules. When they write the rules, I'm sure there will be something. It just may not be called a 'death panel,'" Neumann said.
Annis held up HR 3200, which is over 1,000 pages, and told the crowd, "We are obligated to look at the bill, and see what's wrong with it."
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