How Will Health Care Mandate Affect Nursing Home Care?
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - President Obama's mandate of making sure that all Americans have access to affordable healthcare is actually rocking the nursing home industry where health care workers have traditionally been paid lower wages and not offered health insurance.
A local expert comments on what could happen to the quality of care as the President's mandate becomes effective in 2014.
"It is outrageous and shocking to people that the people we depend upon to give care themselves do not have insurance," said Dr. Jacqueline Zinn, Professor of Risk, Insurance, and Healthcare Management at Temple University's Fox School of Business.
Zinn says the job itself is physically demanding as back injuries are common in this line of work. What does she believe will happen to the nursing home industry as a result of the mandate effective 2014?
"We may see that exacerbation of two-tiered system of nursing home care where some people are taken care of in facilities that have good continuous care because they are able to provide those benefits and others being taken care of in facilities that may be marginal."
Zinn says because of this, beds in coveted facilities will become even more difficult to come by.
Reported by Michelle Durham, KYW Newsradio
