Assemblyman Matt Simpson (R,C,I-Horicon) joined Assembly Minority Leader Will Barclay (R,C,I-Pulaski) and their Assembly colleagues today to call on Gov. Kathy Hochul, Health Commissioner Mary Bassett, and Greg Olsen, acting director of the New York State Office for the Aging, to immediately convene the ‘Reimagining Long-Term Care Task Force.’ The members wrote a letter calling for the task force to finally meet and create necessary plans for the future of the state’s long-term facilities.

The task force was signed into law last year Dec. 22, 2021, and it went into effect on Oct. 27, 2022; however, members have yet to meet to begin their work. The purpose of the task force was to provide recommendations and thorough studies of long-term care services to the governor and the Senate and Assembly. Without their meetings to create a pathway, members of the Minority Conference fear for long-term care facilities and the health care system that needs to better serve senior citizens. According to their letter, “hospitals are not able to discharge patients to more medically appropriate care settings, and coupled with inefficient and inadequate Medicaid funding levels, long-term care facilities are not able to make needed investment in staffing and critical care infrastructure.”

“We saw the impact COVID-19 left on nursing homes. We continue to see staffing shortages and prolonged mandates that make it difficult to meet those requirements, whether it’s from the lack of state funding or staff constraints. Nursing homes are an essential health care need and keeping them up and running properly is fundamental to healthy communities for one of our most vulnerable populations. The task force’s failure to convene is only putting a bigger burden on our health care system,” said Simpson.