Brendan Williams

Was any federal program ever more misnamed than the “Nursing Home Quality Incentive Program”? Rather than reward nursing home quality, it has effectively rewarded states that have out-of-control COVID-19...

In the federal government’s fight against COVID-19, nursing homes have effectively been left for dead. Despite a death count that began with the February outbreak in a Kirkland, Washington, nursing...

According to Paraprofessional Health Institute data, there were 581,000 nursing assistants working in nursing homes in 2018. Their median wage was just $13.38 an hour. Ninety-two percent were women,...

Caught in the throes of a pandemic lethal to those they serve, nursing homes have been largely abandoned by policymakers. The $4.9 billion in federal relief provided in May was very welcome. However,...

Hospitals have always enjoyed “most favored nation” status in healthcare, and that’s even more true during the COVID-19 pandemic. But apparently you can’t have heroes without villains. While lauding...

Why should it take the COVID-19 outbreak for policymakers to pay attention to nursing homes? Last year in the state of Washington, when Medicaid underfunding forced the closure of Keiro Northwest — a...

An oft-repeated canard that bedevils advocates for facility-based care is the assertion, by an organization that peddles Medicare insurance products, that “90% of people don’t want to be in a nursing...

Seema Verma, administrator for The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, is at it again with a proposed rule that purports “to eliminate state financing gimmicks that cost the federal government...

Former House Speaker Paul Ryan once admitted he had been “dreaming” of cutting Medicaid since his college kegger days. But one person’s dream can be another’s nightmare. That’s now the case for...

We are on an unsustainable trajectory for long-term care if even a progressive state like Washington is faltering.