Pascrell, Menendez, Sherrill Urge Restoration of Nursing Home Protections Revoked by Trump

Press Release

U.S. Reps. Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NJ-09) and Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ-11) and U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) today urged the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to restore Obama administration protections of senior citizens in long-term care facilities.

"We ask that CMS take administrative action to protect older Americans in long-term care facilities. By restoring regulations issued under President Obama regarding infection control and emergency preparedness, and subsequently issuing guidance to state survey agencies your agency would be taking a critical step in closing several gaps and inadequacies in long-term care facilities that exacerbated the impact of COVID-19 on one of our most vulnerable populations," the members write.

Over 172,000 elderly and at-risk individuals across the country in these facilities have died from COVID-19 during the pandemic. While cases in nursing facilities make up only 5 percent of all U.S. cases, 35 percent of the COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. have been in nursing homes. Already vulnerable to virus exposure, countless American seniors died from Trump regime actions that rolled back protections and instituted deregulations that made nursing homes less safe.

The Promoting Restoration of Emergency Preparedness and Advancing Response to Epidemics in Long-Term Care Act (PREPARE LTC) Act introduced by Pascrell, Sherrill, and Menendez would restore these critical regulations issued under President Obama regarding for infection control and emergency preparedness in nursing homes. It would also codify reporting requirements developed for COVID-19 and broaden them to include any infectious disease outbreak, among other measures.

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