Nevada health care advocates want Medicare cuts restored

A group of nursing home advocates say Las Vegans are suffering as a result of cuts in Medicare funding enacted two years ago.

The Nevada Health Care Association released letters yesterday to Democratic Senators Harry Reid and Richard Bryan asking them to support ways to restore funding.

"It's pretty black and white. You can't operate a facility where you are not going to at least cover the cost of care," said Tammy McDermott, president of the Nevada Health Care Association.

The problem stems from the federal Balanced Budget Act of 1997. It revamped Medicare but made the changes effective two years in the future - a system Nevada Health Care Association Executive Director Michael Clark likens to saying, "I'm going to go on a diet and lose 30 pounds 30 months from now."

"If you try to drop that 30 pounds in a month, you'll starve to death," he said.

And that is happening to the nation's nursing homes, said McDermott, who is also executive director of the Silver Hills Health Care Center in northwest Las Vegas.

While many of the new provisions went into effect earlier this year, it is in the last few months that nursing homes really have begun to feel them, she said.

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