Improving Direct-Care Compensation in Nursing Homes: Medicaid Wage Pass-through Adoption, 1999-2004.

The article presents a study which examines the association of the party control and other economic and political factors with the adoption of wage pass-through (WPT) policies, which direct a portion of Medicaid reimbursement or its increase efficiency and the quality of care provided. It says that the WPT which earmark additional Medicaid reimbursement for increasing compensation for direct-care workers is standing at the nexus between incremental and comprehensive change in nursing home settlement. It adds that combination of factors including the interaction of political and economic circumstances with the capacities of the states to develop policies can explain the adoption of WPT. Moreover, a rational decision to adopt a policy with unequivocal evidence is not reflected in the WPT.