The Florida legislature sunk to a new low today by passing a bill that would shield nursing home investors from lawsuits stemming from abuse and neglect. If Rick Scott signs the bill, he'll be giving a free pass to something the industry already has a history of in Florida. It would virtually give investors all the profits but little of the accountability:
The National Organization for Women Florida Chapter and the Florida Alliance for Retired Americans, and union groups representing the health care workers in nursing homes, are among the groups that warned the measure will not only hurt residents of nursing homes but subject individual staff members to lawsuits while the owners are shieleded. [sic]
""The Florida Legislature just handed the nursing home industry a 'get of jail free card' in cases of abuse or neglect,'' said Brian Lee, director of Families for Better Care, a non-profit that advocates for senior rights and is heavily funded by Wilkes. "If enacted, the nefarious operators, those who cut staffing and care budgets just to maximize profits, will be exonerated from ALL wrongdoing."
He predicted that nursing homes will take advantage of this new shield on liability and warned that "care that's bad now is about to get whole lot worst."
The measure would stop Wilkes’ strategy in Florida by preventing “passive investors” from being named in a lawsuit unless a court determines they have had an active role. Wilkes contends the bill is written too broadly to describe who is considered a passive investor and restricts discovery in such a way that it will make it more difficult to persuade a judge that there is a link between the investor and the nursing home.
When you give any industry a deal like this, it stands to reason they'll do whatever it takes to profit, and sadly, that merely provides an incentive to cut corners and makes it easier for them to look the other way in cases of neglect and abuse. If anyone doubts this, there's a lot of money flowing from the nursing home industry to those who have the power to change the laws in their favor that says otherwise:
The legislation also shows the power of political contributions to buy into the session's agenda. The nursing home industry spent $2.4 million on political campaigns in 2012 and has contributed another $903,000 on legislative campaigns so far this cycle. Wilkes and McHugh, by contrast, have given $18,000 this election cycle to legislative campaigns.
If you follow the philosophy that says you can tell a lot about people by how they treat children and the elderly, many in the Florida legislature are without a doubt some of the worst people you'll ever come across.
In the past six years, 477 children have died whose families were known previously to the Department of Children & Families. The legislature claims they want to change that, yet when it comes to putting their money where their mouths are, those at-risk children are pretty low on their priority list.
Let's recall that the state has also shoved disabled children into nursing homes, a place where they couldn't get proper care and where they never should have been housed in the first place.
In a state that has more than our share of less than quality conditions in nursing homes, what incentives would profiteers have to do the right thing?
Say, for instance, an investor like Illinois Republican candidate Bruce Rauner, the former chairman of GTCR, a company that invested in nursing homes, like this one in Florida:
"People have died (in) nursing homes, because of the way Bruce Rauner and his friends have invested in these homes," said Dillard, while talking with reporters about a series of court awards against the business venture in lawsuits alleging patient abuse and neglect.
At issue are lawsuit awards in a half-dozen wrongful death and patient-neglect cases that at one point totaled more than $2.3 billion, as well as allegations by personal injury attorneys that GTCR and other nursing home investors failed to provide proper funding for care and later moved to shield assets to avoid paying damage claims.
In one 2012 case, a jury awarded $900 million in damages for neglect involving a man who had been in a Gainesville, Fla., nursing home. But in December, a Florida state appeals court overturned the award and sent it back to the trial court, saying the trial judge had erred by preventing the defense from making its case. Last July, another $1.1 billion judgment was handed down in a 2007 wrongful death of a Florida woman, but that award was put on hold as part of the bankruptcy proceedings, court documents show.
So what do you think? Will Rick Scott, the governor who made a name for himself with a company that set the record for Medicare fraud sign this bill into law?
He can hardly plead the Fifth this time.
