FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, Thursday, November 29, 2007
CONTACT: Yoni Cohen, Stark (202) 225-3202

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Representative Pete Stark (D-CA), Chairman of the Ways and Means Health Subcommittee, today responded to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ release of a list of 54 chronically under-performing nursing homes.

“Every nursing home should provide patients with high quality care, but that is unfortunately not the case,” said Stark. “Today, the Bush Administration released a list of 54 of the worst-of-the-worst. These are nursing homes that consistently fail to meet patient care and safety standards. While I commend CMS for making this information public, I don’t understand why the agency chose to limit its release to a subset of the 128 facilities it had determined to be the worst-performing.”

“Patients and their families deserve to know if they are in a substandard nursing home – especially if CMS is going to allow these facilities to continue to provide care to Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries," continued Stark. "The nursing homes identified have been under-performing for months and should either have been forced to shape up or shipped out of Medicare altogether.”

“Unfortunately, nursing homes are making it increasingly difficult for patients to hold them accountable their failures. Nursing home owners are going to great lengths to obscure their ownership, shield their assets, and limit their liability. This disturbing trend provides additional impetus for Congress to do what hasn’t been done in two decades: enact legislation to protect nursing home patients. If nursing homes won’t guarantee quality, Congress will,” concluded Stark.