Pennsylvania’s governor, Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf, showed political courage. He rejected a Republican bill that would grant legal immunity during 2020. The overly broad bill included all civil and criminal acts during the entire 2020 year even if unrelated to the coronavirus. Gov. Wolf said the measure’s liability protections were so broad the legislation would
Criminal Charges Nursing home corporations sought and received immunity for neglect and abuse during the pandemic. However, criminal charges can be filed. This seems inconsistent. Last month, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey announced the first COVID-19 criminal charges against nursing home officials. A grand jury indicted former Holyoke Soldiers’ Home Superintendent Bennett Walsh and Medical Director Dr.
As discussed before, the real drivers of healthcare costs are not lawsuits, which studies by Johns Hopkins Medicine found are less than 1% of healthcare costs. The big costs are a result of fraud. Kindred Healthcare, a large for profit chain of nursing homes, will pay $125 million to settle allegations that it billed Medicare for
The New York Times had an interesting article about the emergence of nursing homes replacing hospitals in providing basic medical care. Certain procedures and treatments require hospital admission, of course. But “the push is to reduce unnecessary hospitalization for things that can be handled in skilled nursing facilities,” said David Siskind, the medical director at
Kaiser Health News had an interesting article about the medical profession. The idea of the “15 Minute Visit”, where doctors spend a short amount of time with patients after waiting months for an appointment, sometimes hours in the waiting room, and have a list of complaints for their doctor, are becoming increasingly more common. Though
Thomas J. Donohue, the head of the US Chamber of Commerce congratulated a group of executives, lobbyists and insurance lawyers to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the chamber’s Institute for Legal Reform. But it is still too early to declare an end to the so-called tort wars, a decades-old propaganda movement to protect coporations and the
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