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The following is a Counterpoint:

By Guy Pierce

As an assisted-living facility owner-operator, I am saddened by the recent news that a local home was forced to close.

My sadness is not that a troubled home was shut down, but that the vast majority of honest, hardworking and, indeed, caring caregivers such as myself and my staff are facing guilt by association -- and the fact we could all be facing these same issues.

The problem is funding, a topic no one wishes to tie to good care. For those of us who choose to provide care and compassion to the aged who cannot afford private, high-end facilities, we are between the proverbial rock and hard place.

The General Assembly sets the rules and laws we must follow. They also set the rates we can charge. Unfortunately, payment levels have never equaled service rendered; annual cost reports required by law from assisted-living facilities to justify our funding needs are ignored. For example, my costs over the past three years have increased by 17 percent, yet payments for those services have increased by only 8 percent. It doesn't take a nuclear scientist to figure out that our industry is in dire straits.

Add to this the unfunded mandates of government in general (minimum-wage increases, which my staff deserves!) and it is easy to see how problems like those mentioned with Friendship Care get started.

We can pat our regulators on the back and say well done in getting another bad facility closed, but that does not address the problem of a system that wants a service but is not willing to pay for it. There is no way care can be enhanced without paying for it. The allowed rate of $2.40 per hour (or $57.60 per day) can go only so far.

I hope those in our communities who are committed to helping assisted-living residents continue to receive the care they deserve will contact your local legislators and ask them to provide the appropriate funding. I do not want poorly operated homes to remain in business, but the only way the problem will get better is by providing the funding necessary to do the job.

Do we as a society have the willpower to do the right thing?

The writer lives in Summerfield.