Legislature accelerates elimination of nursing home bed tax

OLYMPIA – Last year Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen, D-Camano Island, won passage of a bill that would have phased out the state’s nursing home bed tax by 2011. This year she went even further, pushing through a bill that repeals the tax as early as next year.

"I think it’s a terrible tax, and I won’t be happy until it’s gone,” said Haugen, who sponsored Senate Bill 6368. “I can’t conceive of a worse idea than taxing elderly, bed-ridden patients.”

The supplemental budget passed last week by the Legislature eliminates the tax on nursing home patients as of July 1, 2007.

Monica Mattson, administrator of the Josephine Sunset Home in Stanwood, called the repeal “tremendous” and said, “it wouldn’t have happened without Mary Margaret’s passion.”

Mattson said she also felt it helped that Neva Sullivan, a family member of one of the elderly patients in the Josephine Sunset Home, went to Olympia to testify in favor of the bill.

“I think the Legislature listened to this woman who said, ‘It’s my family you’re taxing, folks.’ I’m just really pleased it’s going away,” Mattson said. “I think it’s great.”

The tax currently adds about $150 a month to the cost of a bed and is covered by Medicaid and by Medicare. However, patients not on Medicaid or Medicare must pay the tax directly. The tax was levied in 2003 at $6.50 per day. Haugen sought to repeal the tax last year, but her bill was amended to phase the tax out by July 1, 2011, shrinking it incrementally. The tax is now $5.25 per day.

“Repealing this tax really rights a wrong that was done to our seniors,” Haugen said. “This legislation wipes it completely off the statutes, once and for all.”

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