Transcript Generated by AI 00:07 Mark Parkinson back with Park Place, and we're here today to 00:09 talk about the twenty twenty-six elections and what an historic, incredible 00:11 election twenty twenty-six was. About a month ago, I predicted that 00:14 there wouldn't be a blue wave, there would be a blue 00:16 tsunami. And that's exactly what happened last night. Democrats not only 00:18 won the House, it looks like they have possibly over 250 00:20 seats. And in the Senate, where 00:21 Exactly what happened. 00:30 They just needed to pick up four seats to get to 00:31 51. It looks like they might get to 54, 55, 56, 00:32 just a completely massive blowout. When you have a wave like 00:33 this, it has impacts in the states. There are Republican governors 00:34 that we thought would win yesterday. They all lost. there were 00:35 all sorts of changes made in this in the state houses, 00:36 the state legislative and senate races, and it's going to have 00:37 massive implications for policy across the country. Now, obviously, this can 00:38 create some angst in the sector. The sector's done pretty well. 00:40 Yeah, we point. 01:00 With the current lineup, but we're here today to talk with 01:03 JJ Rabinowich, who's the executive director of the ambassadors. And both 01:06 JJ and I believe that there is a path for the 01:09 sector to continue to succeed. And so we're here to talk 01:13 a little bit about that this morning. JJ, welcome to Park 01:16 Place and give us your take on the election results. 01:19 Thank you, Mark. I appreciate it. And I think one thing 01:22 you and I both share is that we are always optimistic. 01:25 And I think that, you know, I'm gonna leave aside the 01:29 big picture items to other smarter political pundits, but talking specifically 01:32 for the long-term sector, I think that there's just two things 01:35 for operators to keep in mind. Number one is that stereotypically 01:39 speaking, Democrats are better for stronger social safety net programs. They 01:42 believe strongly in making sure Medicare, Medicaid, programs are taken care 01:45 of and people are able to access those programs at times 01:49 of need. There may be oversight, there may be regulation, there 01:52 may be challenging operational day to day issues to deal with, 01:55 but having a democratic control typically means that they will make 01:59 sure the programs needed to sustain the financial operations will be 02:02 strong and solvent. Number two is that it wasn't just in 02:05 DC that there was a democratic you know, blue tsunami. It 02:08 happened at the state level as well. I think one estimate 02:12 puts somewhere between six hundred to eight hundred seats are gonna 02:15 s flip from Republican to Democrat at state legislate legislatures. And 02:18 of particular note is that there are at least four confirmed 02:22 new trifectas. The trifecta is when the governor, the house, and 02:25 the senate at the state level are all controlled by a 02:28 single party. Best I can tell there's four new trifectas confirmed 02:32 at the time of this recording. Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. 02:35 And at some point in time today, Michigan, Arizona, and Alaska 02:38 are all expected to join them as democratic trifectas. And when 02:42 you have a democratic trifecta, that means it'll be easier for 02:45 the party in power to create new policies. But even in 02:48 states that didn't get a trifecta, you know, you've there is 02:52 an earth shift, an earthquake. Texas is now a blue state. 02:55 The governor, the lieutenant governor, and the house in Texas are 02:58 all blue. North Carolina and Georgia are just one. 03:01 Yeah. Yep. 03:11 seat or two seats shy of a democratic trifecta. Supermajorities were 03:15 lost in many states by the Republican Party. And in for 03:19 example, in Iowa, you now have a Democratic governor who is 03:23 made taking on Medicare Advantage, the managed care programs, a key 03:27 part of his platform. So ultimately, I think that it is 03:31 certainly from a you know, it's certainly a difference that we've 03:35 had the last few years, but fundamentally the choice for operators 03:39 as always remains the same. Get involved, go talk to your 03:43 people in power and make change. 03:45 Yeah, I agree with you completely, JJ. It it's gonna make 03:46 it easier to get funding because Democrats historically have been so 03:46 supportive of Medicaid. But there's gonna the the price that's gonna 03:47 come along with that is gonna be some regulatory oversight. And 03:47 so when you look at DC, it strikes me that there 03:48 will be two major initiatives in in the Capitol that really 03:48 highlight that. On the Medicaid side, the Democrats have already said 03:48 this morning that one of their top priorities will be to 03:49 reverse the Medicaid cuts that were in the big beautiful bill. 03:49 Yeah. 04:16 And obviously that's very helpful to the sector. The SNFs were 04:19 carved out of some of those cuts, but the pressure that 04:22 it's put on other providers is starting to impact SNFs at 04:26 the state level. On top of that, that bill prevented states 04:29 that didn't have provider taxes from having them. So that actually 04:32 could be a good thing. On the flip side, it's very 04:36 likely that there will be a nursing home reform package that 04:39 Senator Wyden will be pushing. Now, neither of these things is 04:42 likely to become law. Because President Trump is still there to 04:46 to veto it and have his influence. But it will certainly 04:49 dominate the debate and maybe kind of provide a template for 04:52 what might happen in 2029. So I agree with you that 04:56 we're going to have a lot of oversight, but certainly on 04:59 the Medicaid side, things are going to be easier. JJ, you've 05:02 also made the point to me that the extremes may not 05:06 end up running things like people might think. Tell us about 05:09 that. 05:09 So I think one of the paradoxical nature of the complete 05:13 blue wave is because there's such a large majority in the 05:16 house for the presumed next speaker of the house, Hakeem Jefferies 05:19 out of New York to work with, he doesn't necessarily have 05:23 to get in line some of the extremists in his own 05:26 party. One of the problems that Speaker Johnson had over the 05:29 last few years is that he had such a slim majority, 05:33 he had to make sure that everybody was in line and 05:36 getting, you know Getting two hundred and eighteen votes in Washington 05:40 DC is really, really hard, especially when you have folks representing 05:43 the super, you know, conservative right and people that are more 05:46 moderate Republicans. now that he has such a large majority, Speaker 05:50 Jeffries can, in theory, you know, deal with the more conservative 05:53 voices within his party and in hopefully will lead to more 05:56 normal government. I think ultimately what voters showed last night is 06:00 they just want to go back to normal, whatever normal means 06:03 and Twenty twenty six. 06:04 Yeah, I completely agree. Well, JJ, thanks for being here with 06:09 us this morning and giving your quick analysis of the amazing 06:13 results from last night. and I think JJ and I agree 06:17 it's there's gonna be a lot of oversight. There's gonna be 06:21 hearings on SNFs, there's gonna be talks about staffing mandates and 06:25 all that kind of stuff. But if we do the work 06:30 that we've done for decades, we provide great policy and great 06:34 results and quality in our nursing homes. We're gonna we're gonna 06:38 not only get through this, heck, maybe, maybe things might actually 06:42 be better. So, JJ, thanks again for joining us. And thanks 06:47 all of you for your support of Park Place.
