[The following is a paid advertisement and has been updated at the advertiser’s request.]

Advocates for senior care and nursing home frontline workers have been fighting for over 14 years to hold the nursing home industry in Illinois accountable for safe staffing levels.

Lawmakers established legal requirements for safe staffing levels, only to have nursing homes routinely ignore them. Then these legal limits were bolstered with enforcement measures—but the worst actors in the industry continue to staff at dangerously low levels. In fact, Illinois is worst in the country with the largest gap between care hours needed and care hours actually provided. Dead last among states.

And now after 14 years of time and again receiving warnings and incentives and second, third and tenth chances to staff at the legally required levels, the industry began accruing fines in January that are actually substantial enough to take the profit motive out of short staffing.

The industry’s response? HB 2292—designed to once again water down the existing fines and enforcement measures so they can continue to shortchange vulnerable seniors.

This is despite the over $3 billion that Illinois pays to nursing homes annually for resident care—including hundreds of millions of dollars specifically earmarked to bolster direct care staffing levels.

It’s time for lawmakers hold firm and let the nursing home industry know that in Illinois, care comes first—not nursing home profits.

Oppose HB 2292—because safe, dignified, accountable nursing home care can’t wait.