HARRISBURG — A one-year freeze on state Medicaid subsidies that Gov. Rendell has proposed for the coming year's budget would have a devastating affect on patients, nursing home operators said Wednesday.

Nursing homes had agreed for two years to accept lower payments to help the state cope with budget crises, but the operators had believed future state reimbursements would fully cover the cost of caring for low-income Medicaid patients, said Anne Wantz, chief operating officer of the Pennsylvania Health Care Association.

"Not only does the governor's proposed 2008-09 budget not fulfill this promise, it goes in the opposite direction," Wantz said Wednesday during a Capitol news conference. "Because of the increasing costs of caring for ever sicker (Medicaid) residents, the zero percent increase ... is a cut in funding."

The state would maintain its current average daily reimbursement rate at $180 per resident under the state budget Rendell presented to lawmakers earlier this month. Wantz's organization and other nursing-home groups are beginning a statewide campaign to push for more funding.

Over the last three fiscal years, the state's Medicaid program paid nearly $290 million less than it owed for nursing home care, Wantz said. About 80,000 of Pennsylvania's 1.9 million Medicaid recipients live in nursing homes.