Another nugget I have unearthed while researching our 2012 candidate's records as governors is Mike Huckabee's so called bed tax. I normally don't like to quote more than a few paragraphs from a source, but FactCheck.org wrote a very well informed piece on this tax.
A Tax By Any Other Name ...
On Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace asked Huckabee about several taxes for which the conservative organization Club for Growth has lambasted the governor, including one on nursing home patients. Huckabee played with semantics in his response :Huckabee (Fox News Sunday, Nov. 18): Well, we didn't raise them on nursing home patients. That was a quality assurance fee that was supported by the industry.Huckabee backed and signed into law a 2001 bill requiring a “quality assurance fee,” which was a $5.25 fee per bed, per day for nursing homes designed to increase funding for the state Medicaid program. Arkansas media outlets and state legislators dubbed it the “bed tax,” and in fact, Huckabee himself has called it that on at least one occasion. In discussing a controversy over the subsequent hikes in prices charged to private-insurance patients (those who personally pay their bills), he said:Huckabee (quoted in Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, July 19) : Many of them told their patients that it was directly resulted from the bed tax. What we have shown you is that is not true; some of these increases are not the result of the bed tax.Whether the governor calls it a tax or a fee, the money charged was to be adjusted annually so that nursing homes would pay an annual fee "equal to six percent (6%) of the aggregate annual gross receipts,” according to Act 635 of 2001. The legislation also stipulated that nursing homes could not list the fee as a separate charge on billing statements to patients.
It is true, as Huckabee said, that the industry strongly supported the measure. The president of the Arkansas Health Care Association said the group was "ecstatic" that the governor signed the bill into law, according to the Democrat-Gazette. Huckabee had vetoed a bill that would have raised the funds through a tax on tobacco products.
Huckabee also told Fox News that the bed tax "increased the quality of care by increasing the staffing requirements." The tax may have led some homes to hire more employees, but a separate piece of legislation specifically increased the staffing requirements. Despite that law, a 2003 congressional report by the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform found that many of Arkansas' nursing homes didn't meet federal staffing recommendations.
9 comments:
I'm not sure I understand this. But if self paid nursing home patients were paying this fee and medicare/medicade patients were getting it covered through those programs, it is indeed unfair.
Unless somehow they could get re-imbursed through their tax returns. Then, Ark would be screwing Uncle Sam rather than the individuals who pay their own way.
As you can see, nursing facilities often face tight limits on Medicaid reimbursement. So those private-pay residents should expect a larger overall bill.
Shouldn't their Medicare pay for all this fees? It's unfair for most of us because some patients only depend on their Medicare.
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I guess the health card providers have implemented restrictions regarding elder care. This should be brought to authorities.
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Thanks for sharing this article. It sounds familiar but nonetheless, an issue like this must really be addressed immediately.
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The ethics law provides penalties for late reports, but it doesn’t not appear to have meaningful penalties for false reports, whether intentional or due to negligence.
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He frequently says he cut taxes "almost 94 times" but leaves out the 21 taxes raised during his tenure. In the end, he presided over a net tax increase.
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I don't understand how it can be of any benefit to most people considering he could not even fathom the idea of having a comprehensive family medical insurance plans enacted. I hope somebody can clarify his absurdity.
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