Nursing Homes Fear Future Cutbacks

North Haverhill Upper Valley nursing home administrators said they are wary of Gov. Maggie Hassans decision to pull back $7 million designated for New Hampshire nursing homes as part of a plan to balance the budget, because they fear the cut may herald further funding reductions in the future.

If this proposal succeeds, they said, whats to stop it from happening again in the future.

If the governor can go ahead and take this money, going against the legislature, whats to stop her or the commissioner (for the Department of Health and Human Services) down the road to say we need another $10 million? said Craig Labore, administrator of the Grafton County Nursing Home in North Haverhill.

The plan to reallocate the $7 million is part of a proposal to address a $58 million shortfall in the Health and Human Services budget.

William Hinkle, a spokesman for Hassan, said budget change is not a reduction in reimbursement rates; rather, the move would mean forgoing a planned increase in the Medicaid rate of reimbursement to the nursing homes.

While the nursing home rate increase might be worthwhile, it would be hard to justify cutting other critical health services in order to pay for a rate increase , Hinkle wrote in an email.

Hinkle said the executive branch was forced to make reductions to comply with budget cuts initiated by the legislature.

Those unspecified reductions mean that the Executive Branch has to cut funding for services that the legislature approved, Hinkle wrote. We have to make difficult but necessary choices to ensure a balanced budget.

State Sen. Jeanie Forrester, R-Meredith, chairwoman of the Senate Finance Committee, said she opposes using the nursing home reimbursement rate to help paper over the departments budget shortfall.

Its just very, very frustrating, she said. (We) made a promise to the nursing homes. They planned their budgets around it.

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Nursing Homes Fear Future Cutbacks