Federal regulators need to ramp up their oversight of nursing homes, big time, with recent news reports and studies finding persistent abuses of elderly patients, including during crackdowns on problem operators, and facilities failing to care for vulnerable charges so they don’t lapse into emergency or hospital care. Jordan Rau and the independent Kaiser Health….
Continue ReadingNursing homes
Over 4th, GOP senators seek independence from their health care jam
Republicans in the U.S. Senate will spend a long Fourth of July break trying to figure if they can repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, with their Better Care Reconciliation Act, aka Trumpcare. Their bill, drafted in large part by just 13 GOP senators, some of the most conservative in the Senate,….
Continue ReadingUncle Sam’s bad reverse: nursing homes returning to forced arbitration
Look out Baby Boomers and Gen Xers: Just when you or your elderly loved ones may be most vulnerable and needing nursing home care, the government is going back to allowing nursing home administrators to push a pile of documents for you to sign at you at admission time. And when you put your John Hancock….
Continue ReadingState botches complaint disclosures on its consumer site on nursing homes
For policy-makers and politicians who seek to offer robust, transparent information about the quality and safety of all too often troubled nursing homes, a newspaper investigation in Oregon underscores how poor execution guts good intentions. The Oregonian deserves praise for discovering that a highly praised public health initiative in the Pacific Northwest foundered due to….
Continue ReadingTrumpcare’s hit on the poor also would steal benefits from the middle-class elderly
Republicans have long fumed about the federal government’s role in health care, ever since Medicare for the elderly and Medicaid for the poor were both passed in 1965. Now, though, we’re at a crossroads, where a frontal assault on Medicaid could cause big damage to both programs. The temptation for too many Americans, as I’ve….
Continue ReadingGOP campaigning to strip patients of key legal protections
We all know how con artists work the streets. One might bump into you in a train or in a crosswalk, while the other grabs your wallet. Or one might smile and chat with a mom at a playground, while her partner nabs the purse. Patients and consumers may want to watch carefully for the congressional….
Continue ReadingInvestigation uncovers troubling numbers of sexual assaults in nursing homes
It’s one of the more disturbing, revolting, and painful health care investigations put out by a news organization in recent times. It’s disheartening but it also demands action: So, what steps will federal, state, and local authorities take now that CNN has reported that thousands of sick, disabled, and defenseless patients, most of them women,….
Continue ReadingMore disturbing data on over-prescription of powerful pills to seniors
Some diligent, grown-up sons and daughters may want to check in on mom, dad, and grandma, grandpa, all the aunties and uncles, too. That’s because there’s yet another warning that too many doctors are whipping out their prescription pads all too readily and writing scripts for retirement-age Americans, who now take on average three psychiatric drugs….
Continue ReadingHealth care takes some good steps forward
Yes, there can be progressive steps in health care—and with all the controversy and change going on in the sector it’s worth spotlighting some of these: Patients should get access to own health records, researchers say Three researchers—Dr. Harlan Krumholz of Yale Medical School (photo right), Connecticut lawyer Jennifer L. Cox, and Yale student Austin….
Continue ReadingBig Pharma, Big Soda spending big to battle ballot measures
Just some quick updates on some topics that the blog has followed in recent days: Big Soda, Big Pharma spending big to battle ballot measures The Fall 2016 elections that have caused such cconsternation will be done, none too soon. But not before Big Soda and Big Pharma have poured millions of dollars to oppose….
Continue Reading