HHS and CMS repealed federal nursing-home minimum-staffing rule after industry gave $4.8M to pro-Trump super PAC

On December 2, 2025, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services repealed the Biden-era Minimum Staffing Standards for Long-Term Care Facilities rule, with formal publication in the Federal Register on December 3. The rule had required nursing homes participating in Medicare and Medicaid to provide 3.48 total nursing-care hours per resident daily -- including 0.55 registered-nurse hours and 2.45 nurse-aide hours per resident daily -- plus 24/7 on-site RN presence. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. framed the repeal as relieving a "one-size-fits-all mandate" burdening rural and Tribal facilities.

The New York Times reported that nursing-home executives donated approximately $4.8 million to the pro-Trump super PAC MAGA Inc. beginning in August 2025, including $750,000 from PruittHealth and $100,000 each from Reliance Health Care, Northshore Health, and Central Management administrator Teddy Price. That same month, a group of the largest donors and industry lobbyists met privately with Trump at one of his golf clubs to press for repeal of the staffing mandate. Within roughly a month of that meeting, federal prosecutors stopped defending the rule against pending legal challenges, and HHS formally repealed it in December. Industry representatives have disputed the Times's framing, pointing to two federal district court rulings that had already vacated parts of the rule and to workforce-shortage concerns as independent grounds for repeal.

Updates

2026-02-12 — Senate Democrats introduced bill to restore federal staffing minimums [6]

Sen. Ron Wyden and six Senate colleagues introduced the Nurses Belong in Nursing Homes Act (S. 3886), which would write a 24/7 registered-nurse-coverage requirement and a study toward a 3.48-hour minimum care standard into federal law, responding directly to the December repeal.