Kill Old People Cheap Act of 2008
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Nursing Homes, along with their politically active PAAC’s have funneled huge sums of money to Tennessee legislators in an effort to support nursing home supported legislation which would placestrict limits and hurdles on those who would sue nursing homes as a result of the negligence and abuse of their elderly patients.
It is hard to imagine how legislators voted into office by the general public would even consider supporting legislation which would take away longstanding rights to victims of nursing home negligence and abuse to make a claim in court to remedy these wrongs.
The only beneficiaries of this legislation are the large corporations which own nursing homes throughout Tennessee. Those that will be hurt by this legislation are residents of nursing homes who will have limited abilities to fight abuse and neglect in nursing homes if this draconian legislation is passed.
Who is the constituency of these legislators who favor such legislation? Certainly not the voting public in their districts. Although these corporations do not have the right to vote in their district, they do have the ability to pour multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars into the coffers of legislators who are willing to do the bidding for large corporations who own nursing homes and for special interest groups who favor the legislation to take away the rights of people.
The lackeys controlled by nursing homes in Tennessee who have introduced this legislation have the gall to name this proposed legislation: “The Nursing Home Patient Protection Act of 2008”. With this ridiculous nomenclature, these nursing home lackeys hope to obscure the fact that the bill is anything but a patient protection act. On the contrary, it removes from nursing home residents the little protection they have under the law as it is now.
Cook County, Tennessee Representative Henry Fincher who heads a key subcommittee in the Tennessee legislature has correctly labeled this bill the “Kill Old People Cheap Act of 2008”.
Senate sponsor of the bill, Jim Tracey, a Republican, lamely argues that: “If we can cut the cost of insurance down for nursing homes, they can have more nurses, better patient care.” If he really believes this ridiculous statement, it shows what a simpleton Senator Tracey really is. Does it not occur to him that the way nursing homes can avoid lawsuits is simply to give good patient care. Who could argue against a nursing home giving good patient care? However, if the right to sue nursing homes is restricted, the incentive for nursing homes to “have more nurses, better patient care” will be severely limited.
Among the provisions of this legislation is to require nursing home residents to sign away their right to a trial by jury and to force them to agree to have their claims arbitrated. Additionally, the bill would cap noneconomic damages at $300,000.00 and would reduce the amount a patient could receive in punitive damages, no matter how egregious the conduct of the nursing home which leads to the claim.
In the front-page story which appears in the April 6, 2008 The Tennessean the headline reads: “Nursing homes want to limit lawsuits”. Of course, they do, what special interest group would not like to limit lawsuits against themselves. By doing so, they would become completely unaccountable for their conduct.
Even though nursing homes want to limit lawsuits, they should not have special privileges or immunities that other individuals and corporations do not have. We all have to be accountable for our negligence and wrongdoing. Nursing homes feel that they should not have to follow the laws that the rest of us follow.
Although there currently are no such proposals in North Carolina, if the Tennessee legislation passes, you can be sure that the nursing home lobby will open up their checkbooks to North Carolina legislators and urge them to pass similar legislation. All North Carolina citizens should vigorously oppose such efforts.