Consumer Law

Bush, Obama and Nursing Homes

By Joe Consumer

Can we first just say, what a pleasure it was to finally hear a President address Congress without launching into a blatantly political attack on sick and injured people who file lawsuits?  What?s it been, like 8 years of having to put up with that kind of garbarge?  But I digress ? sorta.

We?ve written about the need for Obama to clean up the mess Bush made of federal agencies, after having destroyed the regulatory safety structure in this country. 

Here?s another really egregious example that the Washington Post covered yesterday. Seems the Bush administration issued a secret rule that ?shut off a source of information last fall about abuse and neglect? in nursing homes, with ?no public notice or attention.?  According to the Post, ?the rule designates state inspectors and Medicare and Medicaid contractors as federal employees, a group usually shielded from providing evidence for either side in private litigation.?The practical effect is to force litigants to go to greater lengths, including seeking court orders, to get inspection reports or depositions for cases they are pursuing or defending.?

An attorney with L.A.?s National Senior Citizens Law Center was quoted as saying, "This change hurts nursing-home residents and their families by allowing bad practices to be kept in secret by nursing homes and inspectors.? Government inspectors have the right to go into nursing homes and investigate, and they learn things that residents and families otherwise could never find out."

Every person with a parent in a nursing home today better get alarmed. The amont of abuse and neglect in nursing homes in the country is mind-boggling, and this outrageous regulation, which makes it more difficult to hold this industry accountable in court, will only make conditions worse. 

Full post as published by ThePopTort on February 25, 2009 (boomark / email).