The morally bankrupt Bush legacy continues to inflict its damage on the country. By way of yet another secret, last-minute rule change, the Bush administration has shut off an important source of information about abuse and neglect in long- term care facilities that people suing nursing homes consider crucial to their cases.
Bloomberg news has reported that this latest Bush rule (affecting 16,000 nursing facilities and over 3 million residents) designates state inspectors and Medicare and Medicaid contractors as "federal employees", a group which is shielded from providing evidence in private litigation.
The practical effect is to force victims and families who are suing retirement homes to go to greater lengths (and cost) to get inspection reports or depositions for cases they are pursuing or defending. The rule change hurts nursing-home residents and their families by allowing bad practices to be kept in secret by nursing homes and inspectors. More than 90 percent of U.S. nursing homes in each of the previous three years were cited for violating federal standards, according to a report in September by the inspector general of the U.S. Health and Human Services Department.
Requests for [inspectors and federal contractors] to participate in private cases “divert [them] from their federal survey, certification and enforcement responsibilities,” the Bush administration said in defense of the rule change. “The cumulative effect of these requests can impede these activities.” In other words-- elderly retirement home victims and their families can go f*** themselves.
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