On January 12, 2016, the Assembly Health Committee will hear AB 927 (McCarty), a bill to help prevent nursing home owners with poor track records from acquiring nursing homes in California. Many California nursing home residents are in grave danger because they live in facilities owned by operators who routinely neglect their needs.

We need your help. Please send letters of support to Assembly Member Rob Bonta, Chair of the Assembly Health Committee and to the Assembly Member in your district. 

Assembly Member Rob Bonta, Chair 
Assembly Health Committee
State Capitol, Room 6005
Sacramento, CA 95814
Fax: 916-319-2197

CANHR’s fact sheet on AB 927 provides a sample letter and more information on AB 927.

AB 927 is a direct response to the November 2014 Sacramento Bee three-part series on nursing home ownership in California that examined the dominant role of nursing home chains in California, the troubled history and poor performance of some of these chains, and the Department of Public Health’s failure to protect the public from operators who put profit before care. In June 2015, the Sac Bee published a lengthy expose on California’s largest nursing home operator, Shlomo Rechnitz, whom the Attorney General has referred to as a “serial violator of rules within the skilled nursing home industry” in legal proceedings.

In addition to strengthening background checks on nursing home operators, AB 927 would require: 

• The Department of Public Health to disclose the name and contact information of nursing home chains that operate a nursing home on its consumer information website.
  
• Nursing home operators to disclose additional information about nursing home holdings and their compliance history when filing for a change of ownership or management.
  
• The Department of Public Health to review and approve changes of nursing home ownership and management that occur at any level of the corporate structure.

CANHR and the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office are co-sponsoring AB 927. 

Help us get rid of unfit nursing home operators, stop the Department of Public Health’s rubber-stamping of ownership applications and give the public vital information on who really owns California nursing homes by supporting AB 927! Please send us copies of your support letters.