[Headline] US News Blows Apart Nursing Home Industry's Sympathy Pitches, While GAO Report Questions Wether More Money Leads to Better Care.

US News and World Report magazine is not a bastion of liberal propaganda, and yet, through good research and reporting, they have found the nursing home industry might be less than trust worthy. Their 9/30/02 issue Health & Medicine section, contains an amazing article by Christopher H. Schmitt entitled The New Math of Old Age: Why the nursing home industry's cries of poverty don't add up.

This extensively researched and well written article, explains why many of the industry's claims are unreal. To quote a short summary of the findings from the article itself:

US News conducted a home-by-home examination of the industry's finances. The magazine analyzed hundreds of thousands of pages of nursing home financial statements and shared the results with current and former regulators, patient advocates, congressional staffers, and others knowledgeable about the industry. The findings:

❑ The nursing home industry is profitable and growing, with operators spinning a far brighter tale for Wall Street than for Capitol Hill. Many nursing homes are earning exceptionally healthy profit margins, often 20 and 30 percent.

❑ There is no strong evidence, as the industry claims, that inadequate federal payments for care of the elderly poor are dragging down profits Likewise, there is no evidence that patients are markedly sicker today.

❑ Even as they report tough financial times in their official government filings, many nursing home operators steer big chunks of their revenues to themselves or related businesses before they calculate the bottom line.

❑ The government funding cuts the nursing home industry has described as catastrophic actually amount to about 1 percent of current revenue.

More details and fascinating explanations of the tricks of the trade reveal [text cuts off]

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