http://www.nytimes.com/...
The link above takes you to a NYT story about how nursing homes are using guardianship legislation to take control of residents' finances to collect debts.
While the attorneys for homes consider nursing home debt just another debt, they are both callous and incorrect. In reality, it is not just another debt. They are perverting a procedure meant to protect the interest of frail older persons into a cage that protects the nursing home rather than the person.
The needs of the uninsured and the under-insured have often been the rallying cry for health reform. The need for a reform program that includes long-term care never seems to reach the bargaining table.
It is a problem, but it is not unsolvable. The answer is really quite simple. We need a Medicare Part X, Y, or Z to cover long-term care costs. People pay in when they begin work and some percentage of them will receive the benefits 60 years later.
Private long-term care insurance isn't really the answer. Most people don't think about buying it until they think they may need it, and then it is very costly. Also, buying a private policy today, with benefits tailored to the current health care system, that you may use in an entirely different health care system sixty years from now makes little sense. Creating a large government controlled and managed risk-pool is much more flexible and more reasonable.
Will it cost some taxpayer money? Undoubtedly. Everything does. It is just a matter of deciding whether we want to do this as a public priority. Security and comfort for the oldest and frailest among us is a goal of any civilized society. Using social resources to meet that goal seems a good thing to do.
The Palermos, a wonderfully loving couple, should never have had to face this. But, as the nursing home attorney said, love is irrelevant. For the nursing home, its the money.
Oh last thing.
Dear Sister Sean William (the Carmelite nun who runs the nursing home):
You might do well to read, remember, and make a greater effort to live by what the Carmelite Sisters of LA say about your calling.
"We are called by God to be a presence inflamed within our world, witnessing to God’s love through prayer, joyful witness and loving service. Our mission is a God-given mission which overflows from each sister’s profound life of prayer. It is a mission of the heart, a mission of loving service in the fields of healthcare, education and spiritual retreats. Mother Luisita, our foundress, used this analogy to describe our mission, “the soul of each Carmelite raises herself to Christ, Who is her heaven, while her shadow falls in charity upon earth doing good to all people.”
http://www.carmelitesistersocd.com/...
Yeah, I know. "Without money, there is no mission!" [not-for-profit rationale for acting like a for-profit entity]. That is true, but it is trivial. Getting the money for your mission does not require that you do what you are doing to the Palermos--no way, no how.