By Brendan Pierson
(Reuters) – Texas’ top Republican prosecutor sued the Biden administration on Wednesday to block a new federal rule requiring minimum staffing levels in nursing homes, arguing it would put rural nursing homes out of business.
Attorney General Ken Paxton said in the lawsuit that the administration had failed to explain why these regulations were necessary, nor had it “taken into account the massive nationwide nursing shortage that will make compliance with these regulations virtually impossible for many long-term care facilities.”
The rule, announced in April by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, would require nursing homes to have a registered nurse on duty 24 hours a day and limit the total number of nurses to three and a half hours per resident per day. Previously, federal law required nursing homes to have a registered nurse on duty for eight consecutive hours per day.
It applies to nursing homes participating in the federally funded Medicare and Medicaid health insurance programs, which make up the vast majority of nursing homes nationwide. The rule will be phased in over several years, and rural hospitals will have to be fully compliant in five years.
Paxton claimed in his lawsuit that HHS exceeded its authority when it issued the rule, saying it addressed “important issues” that should be decided by Congress, not a federal agency. He also said the rule was “arbitrary and capricious.”
HHS declined to comment on the lawsuit.
President Joe Biden’s administration first proposed the rules last September. Biden, a Democrat, had promised to crack down on nursing homes that compromise patient safety in response to abuse and neglect that became apparent during the COVID-19 pandemic.
At least one multi-state nursing home operator, LaVie Care Centers, has blamed staffing policies for its bankruptcy filing.
(Reporting by Brendan Pierson in New York)
