Iowa nursing home residents get the Bird

Imagine you’re looking for a care facility to house a loved one. Many of us don’t have to imagine because we’ve been there.

You ask questions. The nursing home you’re visiting says it will assess the needs of your loved one and provide, at least, 3.48 hours of direct care daily. There also will be a registered nurse available to the facility 24 hours per-day.

Having a nurse available is a comfort. Of course, you probably want your family member to receive as much care as possible, but nearly four hours daily seems reasonable.

These standards are included in new federal nursing home staffing requirements. And what you think is reasonable, 20 mostly red states and groups that represent nursing home operators see as an existential cataclysm that must be stopped. Iowa is among the lead plaintiffs suing the federal government to stop the standards from taking effect.

It turns out earth is threatened by an extinction-level volcanic eruption, a meteorite crashing into the planet and higher minimum staffing rules for nursing homes, not necessarily in that order.

If you’re having a hard time reading this, Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird will turn up the gaslight.

“Our seniors spend a lifetime investing in our communities,” Bird said in a statement. “Now, we need to invest in them by ensuring they have access to the care they need. I am suing to stop the Biden-Harris attack on senior care that will force nursing homes out of business, increase costs for families, and remove access to senior care altogether."

Halting a set of rules requiring more care is all about helping seniors. Got it.

I understand this will cost operators billions of dollars nationwide as the rules are implemented over the next two or three years. There is a waiver for rural facilities facing a labor shortage. Even so, Iowa and the other states insist it will put some facilities out of business.

But you must wonder why they’re in this business if they can’t provide adequate staffing.

"If you're going to represent yourself to be a nursing home, you should have a nurse available to care for my loved one that I'm about to put in your facility," U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra told USA Today. "We insist that the care that you're going to provide must be quality."

But in Iowa, where Republicans rule the Golden Dome of Wisdom, now redder than a bedsore, the nursing home industry is rarely, if ever, questioned. Even though this is a state, according to the Iowa Capital Dispatch’s Clark Kauffman, with the sixth-worst record for staffing-level violations. It’s a factor in tragic incidents that have made headlines.

So, what did our Legislature do? Next to nothing. Republicans even refused to convene a Government Oversight Committee meeting to discuss problems.

Republicans’ answer to staffing woes during the legislative session was to propose a cap on wages paid by facilities to temporary nurses hired to fill gaps. We could see Republicans’ lips move as they explained the bill, but the voice we heard was the nursing home industry. The bill didn’t pass.

Could we do something about the low pay for facility employees? Nah.

Substantial reforms died. The House wouldn’t even take up a bill allowing families to install cameras in residents’ rooms to monitor care.

On a totally unrelated note, Iowa House Speaker Pat Grassley received $55,000 in campaign contributions from Iowa Health PAC between January 2023 and July of this year. The PAC is the political arm of the Iowa Health Care Association, which represents nursing homes and other long-term care providers.

And these are just the latest industry gifts dropped into Grassley’s stocking. He’s been a good boy all year. The PAC is a robust annual contributor to state lawmakers and Gov. Kim Reynolds.

It’s a wonder Republicans get away with this stuff in a state where one in five Iowans is 65 or older. And these Iowans vote.

But it’s no surprise to see Bird at the top of the lawsuit.

She’s gone to bat for trucking companies opposed to a California law which would push them to use electric vehicles by 2036. The law also includes higher fuel efficiency standards.

She assailed water quality rules, opening scores of wetlands across the nation for development. The Supreme Court, of course, struck down the rules.

Bird filed a brief defending an Arkansas law that targets teaching stuff “that would indoctrinate students with ideologies.” Critical Race Theory again makes the list.

Backers insist the law doesn’t make it illegal to discuss topics but bans schools from making kids affirm it is true.

Bird warned national drug retailers about sending abortion drugs through the mail, after she spent more than a year denying state payment for emergency contraception for rape victims. After an “audit” she allowed reimbursements to continue.

When Bird wasn’t providing legal services to trucking firms, polluters and Arkansas indoctrination fantasies, she made time to attend Donald Trump’s trial on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. She sat behind dear leader and derided New York prosecutors.

Clearly, she’s earned her 39% approval rating from the latest Iowa Poll.

Now she’s suing to stop new nursing home staffing requirements which could improve the health and save the lives of Iowans. How low can she go?

But Bird insists it’s all about making sure seniors ”have access to the care they need.” Even if it’s substandard, apparently. It’s all Biden-Harris’ fault. The only surprise is she didn’t also blame undocumented immigrants.

Hey, are the lights getting dimmer in here?

(319) 298-8262; todd.dorman@thegazette.com