From 1980 to 1997, federal law directly linked Medicaid nursing home rates with minimum federal and state quality of care standards. As part of the Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 1980, the "Boren amendment" required that Medicaid nursing home rates be "reasonable and adequate to meet the costs which must be incurred by efficiently and economically operated facilities in order to provide care and services in conformity with applicable state and federal laws, regulations, and quality and safety standards" (Section 1902(a)(13) of the Social Security Act). State Medicaid officials overwhelmingly came to oppose the amendment as impossible to operationalize, believing that they were forced by the courts to spend too much on nursing homes at the expense of other services.