Nursing Homes and EVs

There is no guarantee that those who implement a policy are trustworthy or effective or that they are impervious to the temptations associated with power. Nor is there any reason to believe that they will choose the means that best serve the articulated goals of the group instead of the means that best serve their private goals.--Levy

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Sustained prosperity, as distinct from occasional windfalls, owes little or nothing to natural resources: witness West Germany, Switzerland, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. The wide differences in economic performance between individuals and groups in the same country with access to the same natural resources throw into relief the personal and cultural differences behind economic achievement.--Bauer

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While media coverage tends to hype the benefits of climate policy, it plays down the costs, which Mr. [Richard] Tol’s analysis shows are substantial. Based on the latest cost estimates of emission reductions from the United Nations climate panel, he finds that fully delivering on the 1.5-degree Paris promise will cost 4.5% of global GDP each year by midcentury and 5.5% by 2100. This means that likely climate policy costs will be much higher than the likely benefits for every year throughout this century and into the next. Under any realistic assumptions, the Paris agreement fails a basic cost-benefit test.--Lomberg

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Nursing Homes and EVs

A new rule proposed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) seeks to radically increase federally mandated staffing levels in nursing homes in two ways. First, the rule, if finalized, would require every nursing home in the nation to have an RN on-site at all times, which is much more than the current requirement of eight hours daily, five days weekly. It would separately impose new minimum staffing ratios, requiring a certain number of RNs and CNAs per resident per day.

Not even half of the nation’s nearly 15,000 nursing homes are currently staffed at the level required by the proposed rule, as facilities across the nation are contending with a workforce shortage.

The nursing home workforce has declined by 12 percent since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since President Biden took office in 2021, inflation is up more than 17 percent and labor costs for nursing homes are now 22 percent higher than they were at the start of 2020. Yet CMS expects nursing homes to find an additional 3,267 RNs to satisfy the 24/7 RN part of the rule. This would cost nursing homes $349 million per year and would increase annual costs for residents by almost $2,180.

To meet the rule’s minimum staffing ratio requirement, an additional 12,639 RNs and 76,376 CNAs would be needed nationwide, costing nursing homes $4.2 billion per year at an average cost of $13.24 per resident per day. So, implementing the two parts of this rule would require upwards of 15,000 new RNs, plus more than 76,000 CNAs.

This assumes those nurses are there, and there is no evidence they are. This promises shortages, closures, and deprivation, all in a good cause.

If you are reminded of EVs, you are right.