This letter came via e-mail to the Jordan Independent. It won't be published in the newspaper, but it is worthy of discussion.
What do you think?
To the editor:
Minnesota has the second longest life expectancy in the United States and one of the nation's highest proportions of persons age 85 and over. These facts indicate a high quality of life we proudly tout, but also signal a much larger challenge in meeting the long-term care needs of our population.
We have a serious funding problem in long-term care. Our nursing homes, at-home care and other long-tem care facilities need fair and sustainable funding to provide for the needs of the elderly, vulnerable and frail. Unfortunately, long-term care facilities were gravely neglected during the 2007 legislative session.
With a $34 billion state budget and $2.2 billion surplus, Minnesota had the financial resources to invest in the elderly, frail and vulnerable citizens who require long-term care, and the people who take care of them. But the Democrat-controlled legislature didn't, giving nursing home workers a tiny 1.87% increase for the year. Now they are using misleading facts and obligatory "working groups" to make up for their failure to get the job done.
The $10.3 billion health and human services bill authored by the Democrats featured a 22 percent increase in spending. According to nonpartisan House staff, the $22 million designated for nursing facility rate increases in 2008-2009 amounts to 5 percent of the new spending.
Republicans believe we can do better for our nursing homes.
The priorities of our aging population and their families who are concerned for their care are not the priorities of the Democrats. Rather than provide sufficient and fair funding to nursing homes, the Democrats chose to expand welfare. Welfare recipients and the Minnesota Legislature received a bonus while the elderly and vulnerable were left behind.
The Democrats have added another layer of bureaucracy to this problem by establishing a working group to talk about long-term care funding.
Our long-term care facilities need action, not another meeting telling them what they already know: they need sufficient and fair funding to provide quality, compassionate care to generations of Minnesotans.
It's time to stop the excuses and get the job done. We need to make long-term care a top priority next session and fund it with real, sustainable dollars that are fair to all facilities throughout the state. The Democrats chose to give big raises to themselves and welfare.
Republicans would have put that money to more important priorities including care for the elderly, vulnerable and frail.
State Rep. Marty Seifert
Minnesota House Republican leader