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Senate Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
Senate of Pennsylvania
Session of 2015 - 2016
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | October 21, 2015 02:22 PM |
|---|---|
| From: | Senator Daylin Leach |
| To: | All Senate members |
| Subject: | The Nursing Facility Accountability Act |
| In the near future, I will be introducing legislation to ensure that Nursing Facilities treat their workers, the nurses taking care of our loved ones, fairly. Many Nursing Facility workers are making wages that fall well below a living wage. This in turn requires them to rely on public assistance programs. Certainly no working Pennsylvanian should make so little that they need to supplement their income with state assistance programs but this should be especially true of the nurses caring for the elderly and disabled in our Commonwealth. It should be noted that Nursing Facilities derive about 70% of their revenue from Medicaid and Medicare, public funding sources. These facilities have a duty to make sure their employees do not also have to enroll in those same public assistance programs. This legislation would establish the Living Wage Certification Program to encourage facilities to provide $15 per hour base wages to all of their employees, whether directly employed or subcontracted. It would also penalize those facilities that force their employees to receive healthcare coverage through Medical Assistance or other fully and partially publicly funded programs through the payment of a Nursing Facility Employer Responsibility Penalty. This will help recover some of the costs of providing health insurance that Nursing Facilities are currently shifting to the state. If you are interested, please join me in sponsoring this important legislation. If you have questions about this legislation, please contact my Legislative Director, Jon Tew, at jtew@pasenate.com or 610-768-4200. |
Introduced as SB1057