In a visit to Edgemoor Skilled Nursing Facility in Santee, County Supervisor Greg Cox held a media conference May 3 in support of Assembly Bill 900. If passed, the bill will exclude skilled nursing facilities like Edgemoor from future scheduled state cuts.
AB 900, introduced by California Assemblyman Luis Alejo (D-Salinas), seeks to protect skilled nursing facilities as planned cuts loom. It would reverse Medi-Cal cuts to these facilities and other health care providers. Cox insisted the bill would be devastating.
In a visit to Edgemoor Skilled Nursing Facility in Santee, County Supervisor Greg Cox held a media conference May 3 in support of Assembly Bill 900. If passed, the bill will exclude skilled nursing facilities like Edgemoor from future scheduled state cuts.
AB 900, introduced by California Assemblyman Luis Alejo (D-Salinas), seeks to protect skilled nursing facilities as planned cuts loom. It would reverse Medi-Cal cuts to these facilities and other health care providers. Cox insisted the bill would be devastating.
“If AB 900 is not approved, the hit to the County would be nearly $17 million,” said Cox. “That’s money that would have to come out of the services provided to the patients here at Edgemoor.”
Caringisourcalling.org, in support of the bill states, “Planned funding cuts to California’s nearly 100 hospital-based skilled-nursing facilities will leave many patients and their families without the critical long-term and short-term rehabilitative care they need.”
Skilled nursing facilities affected by the cuts face reduction in staff and other services provided to patients, mostly elderly, with serious and complex health conditions and injuries in need of around-the-clock care and rehabilitation services.
“Edgemoor is home to our most vulnerable residents – San Diegans who are physically, financially, socially and psychologically dependent on the full range of health programs and services offered here,” said Cox. “This is really the last resort for many patients who have nowhere else to go.”
Cox urged legislators to support the bill.
“We are here to put a human face on these Medi-Cal cuts because unless the legislature and Governor Brown take action, the health and safety of California’s most medically complex patients, frail seniors and disabled people will be at risk. We have a moral obligation to care for the most vulnerable and it’s time for Sacramento to assist local governments by restoring this critical funding,” he said.
Planned Medi-Cal cuts were approved in 2011 at the height of the great recession and the state’s budget crisis, said Cox. He insisted, however, that the State is now in better shape.
“Today, the economy is coming back to life and the state has a better handle on its budget,” he said, “So AB 900 would restore these cuts.”
Edgemoor is the only public skilled nursing facility in San Diego County and houses up to 192 patients.
