Skilled nursing providers and hospitals remain concerned a proposed budget amendment would add to staffing challenges.
LeadingAge joined the American Hospital Association in objecting to a limit on the per-country cap for immigrant visas. Both predicted the amendment, proposed by Rep. Kevin Yoder (R-KS) and included in the Department of Homeland Security’s appropriations bill, would increase nurse staffing woes. Yoder’s proposal would shift visa allotment to a first-come, first-serve approach that healthcare organizations say would likely favor engineering and IT workers. Recently, the AHA noted there are more nursing openings than there are students graduating from U.S. nursing programs.
The amendment would “cripple” the industry, leaders said. Yoder lost his seat in the mid-term elections, but the fate of his proposal is unclear.
“We are urging the lame duck Congress not to include the provisions of Rep. Yoder’s amendment in any spending bill for fiscal 2019,” Leading-
Age President and CEO Katie Smith Sloan said. “There’s been no consideration of the amendment’s impact on the entry of healthcare professionals needed to work in this country. It’s bad practice to attach this major change in immigration law to a must-pass spending bill.”
From the December 2018 Issue of McKnight's Long-Term Care News
