The Trump administration rescinded a Biden administration rule that would have required nursing homes to double their staff effectively and would have cost taxpayers billions of dollars.
The Department of Health and Human Services announced on Tuesday that it repealed President Joe Biden’s 2024 rule, which would have required nursing homes accepting Medicare and Medicaid funding to provide residents with 3.48 hours of nursing care daily.
Proponents of the rule contend that increasing the number of nursing hours is essential for the safety of patients in long-term care facilities, but critics said the new requirements would have dramatically raised the costs of care.
Implementation of the rule was paused by federal courts in 2024, but the American Health Care Association estimated last year that implementing the rule would have cost nursing homes an additional $6.5 billion in annual operating costs.
Only 6% of nursing homes met all of the Biden-mandated standards at the time of the rule’s finalization last year, and the AHCA estimated that the industry would have needed more than 102,000 additional full-time nursing staff to fill the gap.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said during a Cabinet meeting with President Donald Trump on Tuesday afternoon that rescinding the rule was paramount to saving nursing homes in rural communities and Native American territories, which struggle with healthcare workforce retention.
“Today we announced the retraction, the revocation of the nursing home rule, which was overburdening rural areas across this country and Indian reservations with regulations that were going to destroy the nursing home industry in those communities,” Kennedy said.
HHS said in its press release on the repeal that Native American tribal communities expressed that they “may not have been adequately consulted about the repealed nursing staffing requirements in the original rulemaking process.”
Kennedy, overseeing the Indian Health Services agency within HHS, has said he is committed to improving the health of Native Americans, whose health outcomes are generally worse than those of other ethnic groups.
Deputy HHS Secretary Jim O’Neill wrote in a Newsweek opinion piece on Tuesday that the rule epitomized “the dangers of overregulation” in that even “the most well-meaning and competent officials in Washington lack intimate knowledge of the locally variable minutiae.”
“This rule imposed rigid, one-size-fits-all requirements on every facility in the country without regard for the local labor supply, patient population, available resources, or the need for such requirements to protect patient safety,” O’Neill wrote.
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Eliminating the rule will also save billions for taxpayers through decreased federal spending through Medicaid, which covers the majority of long-term care facility costs.
Rescinding the rule has been a longtime goal of the GOP, and directions for HHS to revoke the rule were included in the partisan budget reconciliation act passed by Congress this summer. The Congressional Budget Office estimated in its evaluation of the GOP bill that rescinding the rule would save taxpayers approximately $23 billion through 2034.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said in a statement after the announcement that repealing the rule “is another reminder of the devastation caused by the Republican healthcare agenda.”
He said the rule change is going to lead to seniors and people with disabilities losing access to care or getting hurt in understaffed facilities.
“Thanks to Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress, seniors are going to be less safe in nursing homes,” said Wyden. “Taking nurses out of nursing homes and reducing the number of workers that need to be on site caring for our moms, dads, and grandparents is going to cause countless tragedies.”
