The past week in Washington, DC, has been “very eventful,” with rapid change due to the 2024 presidential election results, but a clearer picture is emerging as to how those results could affect the future of the senior living industry.
During a special Argentum Advocates briefing on how a second Trump administration will shape the senior living industry, Senior Vice President of Public Affairs Maggie Elehwany said she sees the country entering an era of populism that may bring both parties more to the center, with the potential to bring the parties together for a more commonsense look at what the nation needs.
The past four years, Elehwany said, have brought intense scrutiny to the senior living industry, and specifically assisted living — President Biden in his first State of the Union called for more oversight of the long-term care industry (although especially nursing homes), states introduced legislation regarding staffing and regulation of assisted living, and regulatory bodies began to more closely scrutinize assisted living.
Elehwany attributed much of that heightened scrutiny to negative media attention on the industry.
Senior living resident elopements and elopement-related deaths were the focus of a Washington Post package of stories in December, kicking off the publication’s “Memory Inc.” series, which subsequently also questioned a provider’s use of a staffing algorithm and accused a senior living referral site of manipulating reviews of communities.
The initial Post articles and others from lay media outlets prompted the US Senate Special Committee on Aging to launch a review of the assisted living industry and to hold a hearing during which senators asked for federal study of assisted living, sought consumer feedback and pondered federal oversight.
Priorities remain unchanged
But Elehwany said that Argentum’s priorities remain the same — namely, to increase access to senior living communities and to resolve the workforce shortage. Assisted living, she added, remains a commonsense solution to the nation’s long-term care needs, and Argentum will focus on educating new agency professionals and staff members in Congress about senior living’s importance in the long-term care continuum.
“Education is important,” she said. “We have an opportunity to play offense with tax and pro-business policies.”
Potential appointments to the secretary positions at the Health and Human Services, Veterans Affairs, Housing and Urban Development, and Labor departments could greatly affect the industry. Elehwany said the newly announced Department of Government Efficiency, which will aim to reduce federal spending, also will have an impact.
Elehwany said she expects that many regulations affecting the long-term care industry under the Biden administration will be pulled back. She said she also anticipates a more positive view of private equity, whereas policies related to tariffs, spending and border security may negatively affect the sector.
One area of focus for Argentum will be on the impending expiration of tax cuts implemented under Trump’s Tax Cut and Jobs Act in 2017. Action on that front may provide opportunities to advance new tax credits, including one for family caregivers that Trump mentioned just before the election. Argentum’s aim will be to have the federal government recognize that senior living caregivers are “intrinsic” to any policy proposal calling for a caregiver tax credit, as senior living communities are considered “home” to older adult residents, Elehwany said.
A ‘sea of change’
Meanwhile, in a post-election recap webinar, experts from law firm Fisher Phillips touched on many of the same topics from an employer standpoint, particularly in the areas of labor, wage and hour, workplace safety and immigration law and regulation.
Rick Grimaldi, co-chair of the Fisher Phillips government relations team, summed up the impending changes at federal agencies by saying that “things will be messy.”
With the appointment of Tom Homan, a former immigration and customs enforcement director, as “border czar,” Grimaldi said he believes that policy will lean toward campaign promises from Trump to enforce mass deportations of illegal immigrants.
“That is going to have a profound impact on employment in this country,” Grimaldi said, adding that a scramble for labor will occur and that employers will be subject to raids by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Although the federal government’s target will be illegal immigration, Grimaldi said, the actions will affect regular business immigration as well. He said he anticipates that the immigration system will become bogged down with travel bans, in-person interviews for employment and restrictions on visa categories.
“While not a direct target of border enforcement, normal day-to-day business immigration functions will be ground to a halt and will be challenging for industries that rely on foreign labor and vias,” Grimaldi said.
