My 97-year-old mother receives great nursing home care. Everyone should have that opportunity. Yet, the lives of America’s most vulnerable seniors, including nearly 24,000 here in Minnesota, are at risk. For years, seniors in understaffed nursing homes have been forced to sit in soiled underwear, suffer painful bed sores, miss life-saving medications, and worse.

Jim Scheibel, former mayor of St. Paul.

In April, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) finalized minimum staffing standards for nursing homes to help ensure America’s most vulnerable seniors receive basic levels of care. The final safe standard ensures that nursing home residents receive a minimum level of care. These minimum staffing standards are a necessary step toward improving the quality of care in nursing facilities.

The standard hasn’t gone into effect yet and some members of Congress are trying to destroy these long-overdue protections. The U.S. House and the U.S. Senate recently introduced bad bills that would block the nursing-home staffing standards from implementation. And if that isn’t dangerous and heartless enough, if the process being used to block the standards — a Congressional Review Act — is successful, it means rules about minimum staffing standards for nursing homes can never be used again.

Minnesota is fortunate to have a number of model programs. In fact, 79% of nursing homes in Minnesota already meet or exceed the total nurse staffing requirement and 91% meet the registered-nurse requirement. I have the honor to serve as a trustee of a nursing home, where I see resident-focused care and wise supportive staff who are loved by the residents.

The reward of having sufficient staff levels leads to better care and happier staff. With the many challenges nursing homes face today, nursing homes that encourage the development of the staff, encourage their advancement, and provide a source for their emergency needs have higher staff retention and better care outcomes for residents.

Good care makes a difference. I know because my mother is a resident of a nursing home. Nothing gives my siblings and me greater joy than seeing my mother happy and well cared for.

By definition, a nursing home is intended to provide care for those who can’t care for themselves. In other care facilities such as hospitals, there are strict standards to ensure that tax dollars funding Medicare and Medicaid-covered care are being used for medical care as intended. Why should the nursing home industry, which receives $80 billion annually through Medicaid and Medicare, be any different?

As Congress considers the proposed cuts to staffing standards. I hope resident safety is prioritized over nursing home industry profits.

Minimum staffing standards help protect the basic rights of nursing home residents to live with dignity.

Congress must protect staffing standards in nursing homes. Our loved ones and their families depend on it.

Jim Scheibel, a former mayor of St. Paul, is the volunteer state president of AARP Minnesota.

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