Pennsylvania Celebrates ‘Historic’ Investment in Long-Term Care

Newly adopted state budget allocates more than $500M for long-term care and nursing facilities.

Senior care advocacy groups are celebrating Pennsylvania’s “historic” investment in senior care after Gov. Tom Wolf signed into law a state budget that allocates more than $500 million for long-term care and nursing facilities.

The move is a “new chapter in Pennsylvania’s long-term care industry,” said Wolf, who joined senior care advocacy groups and state lawmakers for a joint press conference Monday.

The spending plan allocates $250 million to long-term care, including $131 million in immediate support for nursing facilities using some of Pennsylvania’s remaining America Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding.

“It also lays out a major rate increase for nursing facilities with the requirement that 70%—seven-zero percent—of the funds to be spent directly on resident care to ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent as intended and to provide ongoing support for facilities and staff in the years to come,” Wolf said.

“This funding will help stabilize the direct-care workforce and nursing facilities in Pennsylvania,” Wolf said. “It will help ensure that our direct-care workers have the support they need to keep providing high-quality care to [long-term-care] residents.”

The budget also includes a Medicaid raise of $35 per resident per day for nursing homes.

“What an incredible day it is for long-term care in Pennsylvania,” said Zack Shamberg, president & CEO of the Pennsylvania Health Care Association.”

“I stood here a little more than two months ago, and I asked our elected leaders, ‘Who will care? If nursing homes across Pennsylvania continue to close, who will care for our most vulnerable residents?’” he said. “‘And if providers are forced to turn away vulnerable senior citizens simply because they don’t have enough staff, who will care enough here in Harrisburg to step up and do something about it?’”  

The Pennsylvania General Assembly’s state budget and spending plan “makes a historic investment for the Commonwealth’s nursing homes, personal are homes and assisted living communities,” Shamberg said. “It is truly an investment that could save senior care in this state.”

The spending plan is “a huge step in the right direction,” said Matt Yarnell, president of SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania.

It will: lift wages, creating living-wage jobs; allow for safe staffing levels; and provide for the training and education support employees need to make long-term care a career, he said at the press conference.