Support Letters

Individuals on Medi-Cal living in a nursing home may qualify for a little-known Medi-Cal deduction called the Home Upkeep Allowance (HUA). Right now, the HUA allows a person to keep an additional $209 a month of their income to pay for the maintenance and upkeep of their home while they are temporarily residing in the nursing home.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a devastating impact on residents of long-term care facilities. In addition to virus-caused sickness and death, residents have suffered severe loss from government-imposed visitation lockouts that separated residents from their families, friends, and other essential support persons. AB 2546 gives every resident of a nursing home or assisted living facility the right to in-person, onsite, and unscheduled access to a minimum of two resident-designated support persons during any public health emergency in which residents’ normal visitation rights are curtailed. 

Despite dangerous side effects, condemnation by care providers, and a decade-long national and state campaign to reduce the inappropriate use of psychotropic drugs in nursing homes, over half of California nursing home residents are being given psychotropic drugs, typically without informed consent. AB 1809 would codify and expand existing informed consent rules to ensure nursing home residents are given important information about drugs that are prescribed for them and an opportunity to consent or withhold consent.

This bill requires nursing homes to spend at least 85 percent of their revenues on the direct care of residents. This ensures the billions of dollars we pay to nursing homes as taxpayers is actually spent on the residents and not to pad the profits of already very rich owners.