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AG: Rule could force rural nursing homes to shut down
AUSTIN — Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the Biden Administration to stop a new Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”) final rule that could cause rural nursing homes to shut down, forcing elderly citizens out of care.
Contrary to law, the new rule purports to dictate changes to nursing home staffing requirements, forcing Texas institutions overnight to hire more than 10,000 personnel with highly specific qualifications— more personnel than are currently available in the labor market within the State and specific service areas.
Facilities in particularly challenging areas such as rural locations are at risk of shutting down due to the well-known national shortage of qualified personnel in the industry with an outsized effect on certain regions.
The lawsuit alleges that the rule clearly violates the Major Questions Doctrine that forbids government agencies, run by unelected bureaucrats, from passing regulations on significant topics that are more appropriately handled by Congress. Congress has repeatedly refused to change nursing home staffing requirements.
Further, the CMS regulation is arbitrary and capricious, violating the Administrative Procedure Act. Attorney General Paxton asked the court to vacate the rule and enjoin the Biden Administration from enforcing it.
“This power grab by Biden’s health bureaucrats could put much-needed care facilities out of business in some of the most underserved areas of our state,” said Attorney General Paxton. “We are taking the federal government to court over this rule that could worsen rural care shortages by shutting down facilities due to new hiring quotas that are impossible to fill.”
