Friday, August 22, 2014

Cedarbrook Nursing Home Controversy

By Colin McEvoy | The Express-Times, "County commissioners voted 7-2 across party lines last week to eliminate $3 million set aside in a capital plan for building improvements at the South Whitehall Township nursing home... The nursing home operated at a loss of $4.7 million in 2013."

David Robinson Reporter- Albany Business Review reports, "Nursing homes are basically losing money because Medicaid doesn't pay enough money to cover the amount of care delivered... Of the nearly 15,700 total nursing homes in the U.S., just 912 were public in 2012."


Commentary
As usual I have more questions then answers. Here's a few of them..* Has this whole funding shortage been contrived by the for-profit nursing home industry's lobbyists at both the federal and state level?

* Defying logic, how is it possible private nursing homes can do things cheaper, provide the same level of care and still make a profit?

* Should nursing homes be the responsibility of government? If so at what level? City, county, state or federal?

Here's How I Feel
George H.W. Bush rallied under the banner "a thousand points of light". The Clintons, "it takes a village". While I feel both value merit, what happens when families are either incapable or blow off their elders in their most desperate final days of need?

There will come a time for nearly all of us when we become incapacitated near our final days. Few will be fortunate enough to "die healthy" in our sleep.

Not if, but when that time comes should our amount of suffering be determined by our financial resources?

No one should value one's life over another's.

It's my view everyone deserves the same kind of care in our final days on this Earth. If families refuse to help or individuals can't afford nursing care on their own then government needs to step in to provide it. To do otherwise negates why governments exist in the first place. Which is to provide for the needs of it's peoples.

In my eyes any government that exist only to sustain itself over that of the needs of it's people isn't worthy of it's continued existence. Anyone got a problem with that?

1 comment:

  1. i totally agree with you. although i have only advocated once for cedarbrook at county commissioner meetings, they will see more of me on that topic.

    ReplyDelete

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