I just sent this letter to NC Senators Burr and Hagan and Rep. Watt. Please add your voice! Our seniors are being wronged. Who is there to speak for them?

The letter:

Lutheran Services for the Aging serves over 1,200 North Carolinians every day, employs over 1,200 more North Carolinians, and touches the lives of thousands more. As a provider of high quality long-term services and supports and a member of LeadingAge, I am most concerned about cuts to our field that may result from efforts to reduce the federal budget deficit.
My field already has taken billions of dollars in Medicare and Medicaid
reductions:
Under the Affordable Care Act, Medicare payments to nursing homes will be cut by over $14 billion over the next ten years. The ACA also contains numerous provisions to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse and to make nursing home operations more transparent.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has just handed down a payment rule for fiscal 2012 that cuts Medicare payment rates to skilled nursing facilities by 11.1% across-the-board. The total reduction in payments to nursing homes may total as much as 20% because the payment rule also corrects billing for therapy services.
Many states have made severe cutbacks in their Medicaid payments to nursing homes over the last two years. Medicaid is the single largest source of operating revenue for nursing homes; we cannot absorb more reductions at the federal level.
The Community Living Assistance Services and Supports Act (CLASS) was enacted to reduce reliance on Medicaid as a source of financing for long-term care. This program actually will help to reduce the budget deficit according to the Congressional Budget Office. Its implementation needs to continue moving forward.
I understand that you and your colleagues must find ways to reduce the federal budget deficit. However, I must respectfully ask you, on behalf of the people who live and work in my organization, not to direct any more cutbacks to the long-term services and supports sector.
We have absorbed as much as we can. Enough is enough.
Sincerely,

Ted Goins
(704) 754-8220
President
Lutheran Services for the Aging, Inc.