State Rep. Aaron Miller today supported a plan to rectify the governor’s fatal error that contributed to the COVID-related deaths of nearly 2,000 nursing home residents.

The mandate to put COVID-19 patients into long-term care facilities alongside uninfected residents was decided by the governor alone, without any legislative input.

“What Gov. Whitmer’s nursing home policy has been doing in Michigan is absolutely unconscionable,” said Miller, of Sturgis. “It needs to change.”

The legislative plan requires the state’s Health and Human Services Department (DHHS), along with the state department for Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, to complete an evaluation and report of the current policies regarding COVID-19 patients and nursing homes by Aug. 15.

Additionally, the legislation requires DHHS to develop and implement a new plan by September 1 creating at least one dedicated regional facility within each of the state’s eight health regions for use as COVID-19 patient facilities.

Finally, Senate Bill 956, unlike the governor’s plan, protects nursing home residents by prohibiting the placement of individuals with COVID-19 in any long-term care facility unless it has a separate dedicated building where affected patients can be properly quarantined and cared for.

“Early on in the pandemic, nobody knew what to do, but we’ve learned a lot in four months,” Miller said. “Putting COVID patients into nursing homes is the problem, not the solution.”

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