Assembly Rivals Join to Push Bill on Nursing Homes

Hoping to revive legislation vetoed last year by Gov. George Deukmejian, Democratic and Republican Assembly leaders pledged Monday to cooperate toward quick passage of a bill to improve the care of elderly patients in California nursing homes.

Democratic Floor Leader Mike Roos of Los Angeles and GOP Assembly Leader Pat Nolan of Glendale said they have introduced a measure that would toughen penalties for negligence in patient care and prohibit discrimination against Medi-Cal patients.

Nolan said the bill is needed to halt “outrageous abuses” of elderly nursing home patients.

Provisions Eliminated

The measure is similar to legislation that Deukmejian vetoed last year, but it does not include several minor provisions the governor opposed, such as the establishment of a new nursing home task force and a new advisory committee that he said were unnecessary.

As a result of the changes, the Republican governor is likely to sign the nursing home legislation this time around, Deukmejian spokesman Kevin Brett said.

“We have been working with Assemblyman Roos and Assemblyman Nolan to develop a package that would be acceptable,” Brett said. “If the bill comes down in its present form, the governor is expected to act upon it favorably.”

Roos and Nolan said they hope to rush the measure through the Legislature and win Deukmejian’s signature so that the law can take effect by the end of January--only a month later than it would have become law if Deukmejian had signed last year’s legislation.

Another bill containing similar provisions has been introduced in the Senate by Sen. Henry Mello (D-Watsonville), who said he also will ask for an early hearing.

Both versions would provide for an $8-million increase in state payments to nursing homes for the balance of the 1984-85 fiscal year. The nursing home industry had argued that additional funds were necessary in order to improve patient care.

The measures also would improve the training of state nursing home inspectors and require the state to publish a quarterly list of nursing homes that meet state standards.

Nolan, who was recently elected GOP leader, said the cooperation between Republicans and Democrats on the nursing home bill demonstrates that partisan bickering in the Assembly will come to an end under his leadership.

“This will typify the way we’re going to try to do business this year,” he said. The initial nursing home legislation was prompted by a report of the state’s Little Hoover Commission a year ago that concluded conditions in many board-and-care homes were so bad it would be “unthinkable and immoral for government to allow such facilities to operate.”

Package of Bills

The Legislature subsequently approved a package of bills to increase penalties for abuse of patients, impose fines for falsifying medical records, prohibit retribution against patients and employees who file complaints and increase state payments to nursing homes.

Before the bills reached Deukmejian, however, the Legislature joined most of the bills together so that none could become law if any one of them was rejected by the Legislature or vetoed by the governor.

Deukmejian vetoed seven of the bills, thereby scuttling all of them.

“We saw it as a move to force the governor to accept the whole package,” Brett said. “Because the Legislature acted to subordinate the governor’s constitutional authority, which the governor could not permit, those important bills are not the law at the present time.”

Virtually all of the major elements in last year’s package are incorporated in the Roos-Nolan bill.