File this under “Your Taxpayer Dollars At Work.” … Or, as I’ve been thinking recently about doing with this blog, creating a new category of post called “Outrage Of The Day.”
According to a recent article in The Boston Globe, in 2009 Medicare paid approximately $5.1 Billion in taxpayer dollars to nursing homes across the United States — including Massachuetts. That’s a staggering number. If it went to truly help the elderly and infirmed patients at these nursing homes, that would be money well spent. But there’s more to this story, and it isn’t good.
Those taxpayer dollars apparently went to sub-par nursing homes that reportedly were not meeting the most basic requirements necessary to look after their residents, according to government investigators. As a Boston nursing home neglect and abuse lawyer, I believe that these nursing homes could very well be perpetrators of the nursing home neglect, negligence and abuse that we as a Boston, Massachusetts nursing home neglect law firm see all too frequently.
This report was released this past week by the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services. It states openly that one-third of all patients in nursing homes were in facilities that failed to follow the most basic health care standards that are required by Medicare.
It’s head-shakingly horrible to realize that elderly residents are not only going without the care that they need, but that the U. S. government is apparently spending our hard-earned taxpayer money on nursing home facilities that could actually endanger and harm those elderly residents, instead of actually caring for them. As it stands now, the elderly and other patients who require help from a therapist or nurse on a daily basis are usually sent to a skilled nursing facility. In return, that nursing home usually gets reimbursed by the government for much of the care they provide to the elderly. According to law, each nursing home then needs to tailor-make care plans for each resident, so all caregivers including doctors, nurses, and therapists are all in agreement about giving the elderly resident the best, most optimum care.
Yet, we find out that the U. S. government is spending our money on facilities that provide poor care. That is totally unacceptable, and in my mind, more proof yet (along with $2,000 toilet seats paid for by the government,) that government bureaucrats just can’t get it right.