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Ohio has $50M plan to shrink nursing home bed count Kaitlin Schroeder
Older Ohioans overwhelmingly prefer to stay home and out of a nursing home as long as possible, and when in a nursing home, people primarily want the room to themselves.
This has prompted the DeWine administration to propose a $50 million fund that would buy back bed licenses from nursing homes and shrink the number of beds in the region. The fund is proposed as part of DeWine’s newly unveiled two-year operations budget proposal, which will be considered by the Ohio General Assembly.
Even though the number of older adults in Ohio has grown, occupancy rates have fallen in nursing homes. People instead stay home with the help of health aides or seek alternatives as they get older like assisted living choices boosted over the years by funding programs for eligible people.