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Workers, residents protest proposed Medicaid cuts to nursing homes

</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[Employees, residents, retirees and others rallied at the Carrier Mills Nursing Home and Rehabilitation Center against Gov. Pat Quinn&#39;s proposal for 6 percent in cuts to Medicaid payments to nursing homes.

The Monday rally was the 16th stop by the Health Care Council of Illinois in a statewide effort to rally opposition to the proposed cuts.

A 6 percent cut "Could mean $110,000 to this facility alone," Pat Comstock, executive director of HCCI, said.

The proposed cuts generally would mean $140 million out of nursing home coffers and as many as 7,000 jobs on the line, Comstock said.

For Carrier Mills Nursing Home, the cuts would mean elimination of raises and scrapping planned improvements at the nursing home, Administrator Scott Stout said.

Carrier Mills is always looking to add staff, particularly certified nurses&#39; aides. These cuts would put a stop to such hiring, Stout said.

Residents could have fewer programs available to them at nursing homes, which is a concern to people like Bernice Buchholz, a resident and president of the Nursing Home Council at Carrier Mills.

"If the facility wasn&#39;t here it would impact my life, because this is my home," Buchholz said.

Terry Guest, whose mother is in the nursing home, wouldn&#39;t be able to keep a promise he made to his father five years ago without places like Carrier Mills Nursing Home. He told his father he&#39;d take care of his mother when she couldn&#39;t take care of herself anymore. She began to need constant care, so he took her to Carrier Mills Nursing Home where he knows there is constant, reliable care.

"The staff is attentive and they conduct themselves in a very professional manner," Guest said.

Quinn&#39;s budget proposal is just one piece of the budget puzzle, Comstock said. The House and Senate budget proposals are expected in the next couple of weeks.

"They could recommend higher rate cuts or lower rate cuts, we don&#39;t know," Comstock said.