HB 2227-S - DIGEST

(DIGEST AS ENACTED)

     Finds that the department of veterans affairs indicates that it may acquire and staff an existing one-hundred-bed skilled nursing facility in Spokane and reopen it as an eastern Washington veterans' home by using a combination of funding sources.  Funding sources include federal per diem payments, contributions from residents' incomes, and federal and state medicaid payments.

     Declares that, in authorizing the establishment of an eastern Washington veterans' home, it is the intent that the state general fund shall not provide support in future biennia for the eastern Washington veterans' home except for amounts required to pay the state share of medicaid costs.

     Declares that there shall be established and maintained in this state a branch of the state soldiers' home, under the name of the "eastern Washington veterans' home," which branch shall be a home for veterans and their spouses who meet admission requirements contained in RCW 72.36.030.