the Ugly Bush Stain: Nursing Home Watchdogs Muted

[ensho]

http://thepoliticalcarnival.blogspot.com/2009/02/ugly-bush-stain-nursing-home-watchdogs.html


Per Keith Olbermann just now on Countdown:

Another little surprise from BushCo that nobody discovered until yesterday. It involves nursing home state inspectors and Medicare and Medicaid contractors . Guess what they can't do any more? They can't give evidence in federal lawsuits. They can't testify. Bush just took a 144 billion industry and immunized it from civil suits.

And nobody knew about it.

The Bush administration shut off a source of information last fall about abuse and neglect in long- term care facilities that people suing nursing homes consider crucial to their cases.
The change that affects the $144 billion nursing-home industry occurred with no public notice or attention, perhaps because of the array of last-minute rules that President George W. Bush’s appointees rushed out before leaving Washington last month.

“This is pretty stunning,” said Mark Kosieradzki, a plaintiff attorney in Plymouth, Minnesota. “Nobody was told. It was just done.”
-snip-
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those neo con cluster bombs and booby traps left in govt. depts. keep going off

[shraby]

1. IIRC the Carlyle Group recently acquired a lot of

nursing homes. S'pose that has anything to do with Bush's ruling?

[ensho]

2. yep, just looking out for their business

got to keep the dollars flowing into their pockets. who cares if the old and frail have a pleasant life.