WHCA/WICAL Hits the Hill
Last week, several WHCA/WiCAL Staff and members were in Washington, DC and made several visits to members of Wisconsin’s Congressional Delegation.
In total, we visited four members of the House of Representatives, two Democratic and two Republican offices to primarily discuss two of AHCA/NCALs priority bills in Congress.
The group met with Congressman Bryan Steil (R-WI1) and his health policy staff, Congressman Mark Pocan’s (D-WI2) health policy staff, Congressman Scott Fitzgerald’s (R-WI5) health policy staff, and Congresswoman Gwen Moore’s (D-WI4) legislative director.
The two bills that we focused on are:
H.R 7096 – Ensuring Seniors’ Access to Quality Care Act, commonly referred to as the CNA Training Lockout bill. This bi-partisan bill would narrow the circumstances where the 2-year prohibition on in-house CAN training programs would be used. The bill would allow the nursing home to resume their training program if: they have corrected the deficiency for which the CMP was assessed; the deficiency for which the CMP was assessed did not result in an immediate risk to patient safety and is not the result of patient harm resulting from abuse or neglect; and the facility has not received a repeat deficiency related to direct patient harm in the preceding two-year period.
Attendees stressed the importance of these programs to continuity of care in facilities, boosting the ability of facilities to attract and retain staff, and the benefit that these CNA training programs have to the entire community.
H.R. 8375 – Medicare Advantage Improvement Act of 2026. This important bill put forward by a bi-partisan group of physician Congressmembers seeks to bring the provider-payer relationship in Medicare Advantage (MA) back into balance. This bill will: protect patients from inappropriate delays and denials; will standardize coverage between MA and traditional Medicare; will promote prompt payments; will prevent retroactive clawbacks for pre-approved, reapproved, and delivered care and services; will penalize MA plans that fail to meet oversight and compliance benchmarks; and will strengthen patient access to post-acute providers.
Attendees shared their experiences working with MA plans, the complexities of the different systems, and the increased staffing and workload required to meet the different requirements put in place by each Medicare Advantage plan. Both Republican and Democratic offices seemed generally supportive of efforts to address the imbalance between payers and providers in MA.
Lastly, the group thanked the members of Congress for their roles in supporting Wisconsin’s hospital bed tax increase in the 2025-27 Biennial Budget, which was crucial to balancing the state’s Medicaid budget, and ensuring that we maintain and increase reimbursement rates for providers.
We will continue to support AHCA/NCAL’s legislative priorities with members of Wisconsin’s congressional delegation and advocate with our members of Congress through office visits, events, and facility tours. If you are interested in hosting a member of Congress at your facility, please reach out to Eric to help set something up.
