Public Policy BRIEF
stAte-LeveL suPPoRt
Standing Up for Assisted Living
By MAriBeth BersAni
Assisted living
has many
legislative
champions
throughout the
country. Here
are three who
recently have
helped champion
seniors’ rights.
Assisted living has seen its share of challenges in the most recent legislative season, with a stagnant economy stalling new lawmaking,
and an unprecedented onslaught from the nursing
home industry.
In spite of such hurdles, a number of champions have distinguished themselves within state
government. Here are a few who worked with
vigor and enthusiasm in support of assisted living to bring comfort, dignity, and choice to the
lives of seniors.
south carolina Lt. gov. André Bauer
In his role as director of the state’s Office on Aging, Lt. Gov. André Bauer enthusiastically supported a bill that would allow assisted living residents to age in place.
Current state law requires residents to move
into skilled nursing once they reach a certain level
of acuity. SC-ALFA is advocating for the rights of
residents who wish to stay in their homes while
in hospice care. However, by mid-session the bill
was going nowhere.
“We thought it would be dead and that they
would remove it totally from this past session,”
says SC-ALFA Executive Director Lara Williams.
But at press time, legislators still were discussing
the measure.
Williams credits Bauer with the bill’s survival.
“He was so passionate about it and so supportive
of it,” she says. Bauer, raised by a single mother
and by his grandmother, seemed particularly motivated by his grandmother’s recent passing. “He
wants what all of us want and what all our families want, which is a real choice,” Williams adds.
Kentucky Rep. susan Westrom
Rep. Susan Westrom fought hard against the
nursing home lobby this past legislative season.
She came away victorious—and enraged.
“Somebody needed to take them on,” Westrom
says. “Every time we try to improve the lives of se-
niors, they are fighting it as if there aren’t enough
older people to go around.”
The focus of Westrom’s campaign was 10-year-
old sorely limiting legislation that prohibited as-
sisted living staff from administering medications to residents who cannot self-medicate. She
proposed a measure that would correct the situation, giving seniors and staff more choice in the
appropriateness of care levels.
A member of the House Standing Committee on Health and Welfare, Westrom says she
met stiff resistance from a nursing home lobby,
scrambling to hang onto market share in the face
of assisted living’s rising popularity.
“They were completely opposed to it,” she
says, “because it was stepping on their turf.”
three state lawmakers in
particular have fought hard
battles recently to protect
seniors’ rights and care
choices.
Westrom played hardball, too, calling out the
nursing home lobby’s blatantly fiduciary motivations. “I said, ‘If a man has Parkinson’s and he can’t
get a pill to his mouth, and yet he can get on that
assisted living bus to go to Walmart, you want him
because he can pay,’ ” she explains. “I told them that
will be my testimony everywhere I go. Once I said
that, they realized they had to come to the table.”
georgia Rep. chuck Martin
In a state that allows for personal home care and
skilled nursing care, Rep. Chuck Martin saw a
glaring gap. The eight-term state legislator put
forward a bill to create a new assisted living licensure category that would allow residents to age in
place. The legislation would also establish a medication technician program for trained staff—had
the bill succeeded.
The nursing home industry got involved and
hired a troop of lobbyists who worked to disparage the care provided by assisted living providers.
“I personally don’t see how anybody could
oppose giving residents another choice,” Martin says. “But there is a stiff lobby from the
