‘A Moral Failure:’ Will Georgia Nursing Homes Close Due to The Big Beautiful Bill?

Georgia Democrats Wednesday criticized federal funding cuts to nursing homes included in President Donald Trump’s budget bill the Republican-controlled Congress passed early this month.

But the head of an organization that represents Georgia nursing homes said the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” won’t affect nursing homes because the final version of the measure exempted them from the cuts.

Democrats have focused on nursing home funding since the Brown University School of Public Health released a study earlier this summer identifying 579 nursing homes across the country at risk of closing because of cuts to Medicaid, including 37 in Georgia.

“To even allow one nursing home to close is unacceptable, but 37 is a moral failure,” state Rep. Bryce Berry, D-Atlanta, said Wednesday during a news conference inside the Georgia Capitol. “This is about our elders being evicted from the place they call home … (and) seniors being separated from their caregivers. This is how people die.”

“These cuts are cruel and heartless,” added U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Stone Mountain. “These cuts will hurt not just poor people in metro areas but MAGA constituents in rural areas.”

But Chris Downing, president and CEO of the Georgia Health Care Association, said the final version of Trump’s budget bill exempts the provider tax that helps fund nursing homes from the Medicaid cuts.

“They were on the menu at the beginning, but at the end, they were not,” he said. “Nursing homes are carved out of this bill. … We’re not going to see any cuts from this legislation.”

Downing said the Brown University study was released before the provision exempting nursing homes from the cuts was inserted into the bill, so its conclusions no longer apply.

“That study was sanctioned by (U.S.) Senate Democrats … to give their senators talking points to go out and say, ‘This bill is going to harm seniors,’ ” he said.

While the legislation lets nursing homes keep the provider tax intact, broader spending reductions in the bill could affect individual nursing home residents’ eligibility for Medicaid benefits.

However, Downing said it’s way too soon to assess the potential impacts of those cuts, which won’t take effect for several years.