Outrage on the editorial page of the Globe this morning:
Legislators’ failure to approve tougher penalties for nursing home violations is inexcusable.
It seems that the House-Senate conference committee that negotiated the state budget for this fiscal year did not include a Senate provision to increase the fines that state regulators can impose on nursing homes for health and safety violations. An excellent series of Globe reports detailed the scandalously poor care that some nursing homes are providing to patients and disclosed that the maximum fine that can currently be imposed for health and safety violations is a laughable $50.
In response to these reports, the Senate adopted a budget amendment by Senator Mark Montigny of New Bedford to increase the maximum fine to $10,000. But, as the editorial board laments today, the provision was not included in the final budget agreed to by the House and Senate. This was a particularly egregious omission in the editorial board’s view, even though, as it noted, “every year, plenty of worthy proposals don’t make it to the final version of the budget.”
Really? Plenty of worthy budget proposals — every year? For a decidedly contrary view on this point, you can check out the Boston Globe’s editorial page of only four days ago. “Budget weeds sprout at the State House,” the board fumed on July 7, calling out the Senate in particular for including too many outside sections in its budget. Outside sections, as the board described them, are “basically, separate pieces of legislation that are crammed into the budget as a way of bypassing the usual legislative process.” Without any consideration of the substance of any of these sections, the editorial board concluded that the number of outside sections in the Senate budget exceeded the number in the House budget, and therefore the Senate failed to show the necessary “self-discipline.” One of the outside sections in the Senate budget was, of course, the increase in maximum fines for health and safety violations at nursing homes, the omission of which from the final budget was deemed “inexcusable” in today’s editorial.
If I were in the Senate I might well feel whipsawed by these contradictory mandates. Maybe the editorial board can help out by providing some additional guidance about another Senate budget outside section that was not included in this year’s final budget. This section would have made dental care available to more low-income people by allowing dental hygienists who complete an additional period of education to provide basic dental services in community settings like schools and nursing homes.
A few months ago, the editorial board enthusiastically endorsed this idea. But now, who knows? Maybe the editorial board is of the view that the Senate ought to have shown the self-discipline to just say no to what was probably another fishy attempt at evading legislative review.
But in this case, that’s not what it was. The dental hygienist bill was filed months ago by Senator Harriette Chandler. The Joint Committee on Public Health (where House members outnumber Senate members by 11 to 6) held a hearing on it in September, reported it favorably in December, and sent it to the Joint Committee on Health Care Financing (where House members outnumber Senate members by 13 to 7). The bill remained there until the Committee quietly euthanized it last month. Although as part of its criticism of the Senate the editorial board contends that “the House has moved to accommodate the Senate on releasing more bills from joint committees in a timely way,” apparently that’s a rule with some exceptions.
Just a couple weeks ago, the editorial board included the dental hygienist proposal on its short list of bills that the Legislature must pass before the end of its session. So, we’re eager to hear what the board thinks of the Legislature for omitting it from this year’s budget. An inexcusable failure to act, or a self-disciplined rejection of a shady effort to short-circuit the legislative process?
Either way, it seems likely that outrage is involved.
Two bills that the Legislature failed to pass have a great deal in common. The nursing home violation and dental hygienic practitioner bills would have given much needed relief, one in the form of improved nursing home care and the other in available and affordable dental care to Massachusetts citizens who need both. Also, neither bill would have cost taxpayers anything so the usual “we can’t afford it” can’t be used as an excuse. Why were these two bills that would have provided so much benefit to so many killed? An answer please.
but the only answer that has emerged so far (see the first link in the post) is that a nursing home trade group succeeded in keeping the increase in fines from getting to the Governor’s desk.
Figuring out why the Legislature (the House in this case) has failed to act on measures that, as you say, would have provided a great public benefit at no public cost usually involves determining “whose ox would be gored” if the measure were to become law. The answers often involve private interests rather than public ones.