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No Comments [ Add Comment ]A future for vets nursing home
There app
ears to be hope that Ogden will build a veterans nursing home sooner rather than later.
The project, OK'd by the state Legislature but stalled due to a long waiting list at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, has been in limbo. The deal is for Utah to pay some, and the feds to pay its share. But, frankly, the feds aren't coming through.
There was an effort by advocates last session to get state legislators to pony up immediate cash for the nursing home, but it went nowhere. Lawmakers were reluctant to build the nursing home without a guarantee the state would be repaid by the feds.
The 120-bed nursing home is badly needed. There are 160,000 veterans in Utah and only one nursing home, in Salt Lake City. There is a long waiting list of ailing vets waiting for a home.
Two developments have increased odds that the nursing home will be built.
* Utah's 2nd Congressional District Rep. Jim Matheson is lobbying for it. The Salt Lake City Democrat wrote a letter to Veterans Affairs Secretary R. James Nicholson urging the feds to speed up the approval process for the nursing home. In his letter, Matheson told Nicholson that Utah may be forced to spend its money for the entire project -- a development which would set a bad precedent, he argues.
* Adding weight to Matheson's letter is Top of Utah Rep. Brad Dee, R-Washington Terrace. He will sponsor a bill next year to allow Utah to build the nursing home. "The bill will state that Utah will step up to the plate and support veterans. We may be the first in the United States to do that. We will expect to be reimbursed by the federal government, but who knows when that will happen," Dee told Standard-Examiner reporter Scott Schwebke.
Dee explained to Schwebke that he expects his bill to pass next year. We hope so, but we wonder why legislators didn't just do this last year when the state was flush with surplus cash?
A key urgency in getting a vets nursing home as soon as possible is the cost of construction. It keeps getting more expensive. The original deal called for Utah to spend $4.5 million and the feds to pay $10 million. But now, according to Terry Schow, executive director of the Utah Department of Veterans Affairs, the total building costs are almost $19 million.
Schow told Schwebke there is an effort in Congress to boost national funding to build vets nursing homes to $250 million a year. If that happens, Ogden may get its chance for construction. Currently, nursing home funding stands at $85 million a year.
The Legislature should not wait for the feds. Dee's bill should be passed, signed and the nursing home built. Not only it is badly needed, but building costs are rising, causing costs for the project to increase each wasted year.
If it pays the entire tab, Utah will likely get the federal government to one day pay its fair share. But even if that never happens, the nursing home is a good deal and worth the tab. Our vets risked their lives and health to keep us free. They deserve a place to live with the dignity they earned.
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