Two long-term care coalitions are protesting the cuts in Medicare funding proposed by the Bush administration for fiscal year 2009. Both groups warn that the cuts would hurt long-term care recipients and the direct-care workers they rely on.

“From the standpoint of our oldest, most vulnerable seniors and the direct care workers who serve them, the Bush Administration has put forward a budget proposal that is dangerous to every aspect of front line care giving,” says Lisa Cantrell, a co-founder of the National Association of Health Care Assistants and a national spokesperson for the Coalition to Protect Senior Care (CPSC) in a CPSC news release.

“With as much as 70% of nursing home operating costs driven by labor costs, inadequate overall funding may force nursing homes to make difficult decisions that could affect the hundreds of thousands of direct care workers in nursing homes,” echoes Alan G. Rosenbloom, the president of the Alliance for Quality Nursing Home Care, in an Alliance news release.