PRESIDENT TRUMP “KILLS ELDERLY” BY DEREGULATING NURSING HOME INDUSTRY AND ENDING LAWSUITS AGAINST NURSING HOMES

August 13, 2018

Ventura Family Law Elder Law, Family, Health Care, Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

They’re killing us softly, like frogs in a slowly boiling pot. Every day it gets harder for those born into my generation to get a break in our little battle for what we call life. We struggle head-on with the economy, our health, Western medicine, the pharmaceutical industry, corporate profits, GMOs, chemtrails, Smart Meters, 5G cell towers, geo engineering, firestorm terrorism, “fake news,” and those with different views in what is seemingly a never ending assault on all senses that promises to change all that is, us included, in dramatic fashion.

The state of the health care nation for our elderly grows darker by the hour. This is again evidenced by the Trump Administration that has scaled back the use of fines against nursing homes that harm residents or place them in grave risk of injury. This is a “reversal of guidelines put in place by President Obama,” writes Jordan Rau of Kaiser Health News.

Not surprisingly, it was the nursing home industry itself that requested the changes to the Medicare program’s penalty protocols, saying that relief was “critical”. The nursing home industry’s central trade group, the American Health Care Association, the Kaiser article says, had complained to the Trump Administration that government inspectors excessively focused on catching wrongdoing rather than helping nursing homes to improve. Where some people come from, this is called deterrence. And isn’t deterrence the whole point of nursing home regulation? To deter abuse and neglect by health care facilities whose operators are focused on the bottom line — budget cuts disguised as shareholder profits.

Since 2013, nearly 6,500 nursing homes — 4 out of every 10 — have been cited at least once for serious violations. “Medicare has fined two-thirds of those homes,” Rau writes. “Common citations include failing to protect residents from avoidable accidents, neglect, mistreatment and bedsores.” And so we’re going to just cut that oversight, right? Avoidable accidents, neglect, mistreatment and bedsores be damned!

The new Trump guidelines discourage federal regulators from levying fines in some situations, even when they have resulted in a resident’s death. The guidelines are expected to result in lower fines for many facilities. “The change in federal policy aligns with Trump’s promise to reduce bureaucracy, regulation and government intervention in business,” the Kaiser article says. Many facilities are going to be saving money as well by not having to pay stiffly appropriate fines.

The change in federal policy also aligns with health care providers’ argument that they have been spending too much time complying with regulations that they say get in the way of providing health care for their patients. What they don’t say is that paid nursing home employee time spent attending to oversight regulators also takes profit from shareholders’ mouths.

WHOSE LIFE IS IT ANYWAY?

Statistics say there are 1.3 million Americans living in nursing homes today. This number seems very low. According to Morning Star, by the year 2020, 40 percent of all deaths in the United States will take place in nursing homes. So is dismantling federal regulations in this industry really something we who represent aging baby boomers want to do? Who is protecting the seniors interests in health care that doesn’t kill them? Do seniors really have to go to nursing homes to suffer, be drugged, and die? How many caregivers do we need to accomplish this?

The federal guidelines that were put into place in 2013, which increased fines for nursing home actions that harm or even kill patients, were reversed. The oversight and imposition of fines were intended to encourage nursing homes to toe the line and meet the high standards. With the Trump Administration guidelines, however, regulators are discouraged from levying fines in many situations, some that have even resulted in deaths of the residents.

According to the Kaiser article, Senior attorney at the Center for Medicare Advocacy, Tony Edelman, confirms, saying: “They’ve pretty much emasculated enforcement, which was already weak.” The article cites a Kaiser report of one nursing home patient who died because of staff failure to monitor and treat a wound. Under the 2013 guidelines, the nursing home was fined almost $300,000. Under Trump’s new guidelines, the maximum fine would have been less than $21,000. That’s a $279,000 windfall for corporate shareholders to divide among themselves.

RESIDENTS WAIVE RIGHT TO SUE IN COURT

To make matters even more difficult for Alzheimer’s patients and wheelchair bound elderly, for decades patients and their families have been prevented from legally redressing their grievances by suing nursing homes even when they were guilty of egregious negligence or abuse. The nursing homes ensured this by making people entering the facilities sign contracts requiring them to settle any future disputes through arbitration.

The Obama Administration had barred nursing homes from this practice, protecting the rights of residents and their families to take nursing homes to court. However, the Trump Administration not only threw out this protection, says The New York Times, it has proposed a federal rule change to affirmatively allow nursing homes to bar residents and their families from filing lawsuits.

Again, there has to be a group that truly represents the seniors’ interests. Here, the issue seems quite clear. Those seniors who live in health care facilities are doing so because they have no other choice in life. Many of them have suffered severe health ailments that have rendered them wheelchair bound. Many of those who are disabled physically also suffer from major mental and emotional issues that are related in cause and origin. True science has proven that Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and other neurological diseases are tied to physical deterioration of the cells of the body. In other words disease of the mind originates from a diseased body. In mind as in body.

Many of these disabled seniors have no money and rely on government to protect them from negligent and abusive caregiving. Their families don’t have the money to take care of their beloved seniors. So family members have no choice but to commence searching for a nursing facility that will even admit their senior loved one. When they get accepted, under the Trump Administration suggested policy, the seniors’ family would have to sign a waiver saying they can never sue the nursing home no matter what kind of abuse or neglect they do to a loved one. Regardless, burdened family members who have run out of energy, money, and options on how to care for their senior loved one will jump at the chance to hand their mother or father over to a nursing facility and breathe easier as a result, believing someone else has relieved them of the responsibility of providing direct health care.

BOTTOM LINE IS MORE LEGISLATION NEEDED TO AID GROWING NUMBER OF SENIORS

Here’s the bottom line. Elderly citizens confined to nursing home care are not getting the protection they need from bigger institutions that are supposed to provide their health care. Deterrence for the nursing home industry to comply with adequate standards is being squandered by government and the corporations that play banker investment games for profit with the nursing homes that care for the elderly across the country.

New, more meaningful legislation appears to be the only adequate fix to the glitches in the present health care laws. We will also need to appropriate the necessary funding in government health care budgets to allow for zealous regulation of the home nursing industry and then to legislate unbiased bi-partisan supported laws with crocodile sharp teeth that will hold the operators of American nursing homes, and the shareholders who climb into corporate board of directors’ heads to maximize profits, accountable for every misstep they take in caring for each and every nursing home patient. Only then will we begin to relieve the suffering of those who require nursing home care, because the industry will then be appropriately regulated, and the penalties for negligence and abuse will be too steep a price to pay for disobeying the law.

Advertisements

SENIOR CITIZENS SQUEEZED BY NURSING HOME PROFITABILITY AND CALIFORNIA LAW REQUIRING MORE CARE FOR ELDERLY

August 6, 2018

Ventura Family Law Elder Law, Family, Health Care , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

There’s no question it takes a special kind of person to provide compassionate care for the elderly. Bathing, feeding, medicating, attending to other daily needs of patients is a lot to ask for from the me now generation. Care giving for the elderly takes a lot of energy and thoughtful attention. There is tremendous value for this kind of work for the elderly in today’s society. But it doesn’t pay very well, which begs the question: Where does the position of caregiver for the elderly fit in the overall structure of today’s generation of aging baby boomers and broken millennials?

We’re not spending a lot to pay for difficult work like nursing care, that much has been established beyond doubt. Stressful work and low wages is a difficult combination to overcome during a questionably down-turning economy, but that, according to one group, is what we’re facing in our fight to protect the rights of our growing geriatric population.

They say our elderly citizens who require nursing care need qualified caretakers. Yet, it takes money to find someone who knows how to care for seniors and to be able to pay them, and the entire industry is scrambling for the almighty dollar that it takes to do so.

Latest available state data indicates CNAs are undervalued in the industry. Certified nursing assistants in California made an average of $13.96 per hour in 2016. That’s just a few dollars above the minimum wage and less than what some retailers pay sales clerks, who don’t need to spend the money or time getting licensed to work.

In a July 13, 2018 article for the Los Angeles Times, Ethan Millman describes how elderly healthcare matters in California have become hostage to this nursing home drama which is attributed to new state legislation that went into effect in July that puts even more “pressure on the state’s 1,000-plus nursing homes”, Millman writes, “which some in the industry say could be forced to turn away or even discharge patients as a result.”

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? OR IS THIS A BLUFF BY THOSE WHO RUN PRIVATE NURSING HOMES?

The new law tightened staffing requirements for direct caregivers and added new ones specifically for certified nursing assistants. Millman cites the new legislation as being championed by organized labor and patient advocates.

Under that scenario, we’d have the union representing nursing assistants, which pushed for the law, acknowledging that nursing homes face a challenge, but saying there is an overriding health-and-safety issue behind the new legislation. “There must be enough direct care staff to meet the quality care needs of nursing home residents and ensure a healthy workload for every caregiver,” Millman quotes an unnamed SEIU representative as saying.

The problem with this angle of course is that it places undue emphasis on the value of a CNA in this particular equation. The beginning of the statement is true — “There must be enough direct care staff to meet the quality care needs of nursing home residents,” period. Nobody of sane mind could conclude otherwise. We need better care for our seniors, and we must figure out how to pay for it. Whether every caregiver has a healthy workload or not is up to the caregiver’s skill set versus the demand for such a skill set in the everyday industry marketplace, and it’s a problem for the CNAs union to deal with, not state health care legislators. This aspect has nothing to do with the well being of the nursing home resident, whose need for quality care giving is being debased in the debate.

QUALITY OF CARE EQUALS QUALITY OF LIFE

As the new legislation reads, effective July 1, 2018, California Health and Safety Code section 1276.65 requires skilled nursing facilities, “except those skilled nursing facilities that are a distinct part of a general acute care facility or a state-owned hospital or developmental center,” to provide 3.5 hours of direct patient care each day, which is up from 3.2 hours. That’s 3.5 hours per day that the nursing facility caregiver has to directly care for a patient.

But what stresses out nursing home operators the most, and what seems to be the central theme of Millman’s writing, is California law’s first-ever requirement that “skilled nursing facilities shall have a minimum of 2.4 hours per patient day for certified nurse assistants.”

That means 2.4 hours of the 3.5 direct care hours per patient day must be filled by CNAs. And so the L.A. Times article is framed front and center around the nursing home gripe. Certified nursing assistants cost money. They have to be trained. Profits are shrinking. The big bad wolf is blowing down our door. What the article doesn’t tell us is that monies not spent toward better patient care get deposited into shareholders’ bank accounts, and that’s really the rub of this whole picture.

PRICE INFLATION HAS NOT HIT THE NURSING INDUSTRY

The Los Angeles Times article has framed this issue as a battle between the government enacting the law to provide more skilled health care to nursing home patients versus the burden it places on nursing homes to provide CNAs to fill the required hours.

The article portrays the nursing home industry as being in a quandary with the new legislation because, industry consensus says, it is difficult to get qualified CNAs to begin with, and now the requirement of 2.4 hours by a CNA is too tremendous a burden on the industry, especially in less populated rural counties. They say half of California’s counties are designated by the Public Health Department as having a CNA worker shortage.

The nursing home industry, through the Los Angeles Times article, sets up the CNAs as the tipping point of much broader issues. These are the men and women who work the front lines in home nursing, dealing hands-on with our wheelchair-bound seniors, those we pay privately and with tax dollars to give compassionate care to our elderly parents, friends, and relatives, yet price inflation has not hit those employed by the nursing home industry the way it has the rest of the economy, and we’re not getting our money’s worth. And who’s going to pay for it most?

QUALIFIED CNAS ARE SCARCE

When one studies what’s plaguing the home health care industry the areas for concern become obvious. Low wages and a high-stress working environment are not an attractive combination to offer a hungry, caring job seeker. When you add the prospective CNAs being required to take 100 hours of clinical training and 60 hours of classroom instruction, people are going to be looking for other types of employment.

They’re not going to take the time and expense to receive training through what amounts to be about 700 state-wide programs, many that are offered at community colleges, adult education programs, and for-profit schools, with most charging several hundred dollars to complete. Most people don’t have several hundred dollars or the time and inclination to make the effort to become a CNA. They can’t afford to.

Then you add the fact that nursing homes have just plain eliminated free in-house training to recruit workers basically because profits are down. No one has the money to pay anybody for anything. The nursing home industry cites tighter budgets. Those who want to become CNAs don’t have the money to go through the education and training to become CNAs. And senior citizens, their families, and the government don’t have enough money to be able to afford nursing home health care for seniors to enable them to spend the last months, weeks, or days of their lives in a compassionate and dignified manner.

THE NURSING HOME INDUSTRY CITES TIGHTER BUDGETS, BUT NEEDS TO LOOSEN PURSE STRINGS

This is the crux of the issue centering the problems cited by Millman. Nursing homes are owned by corporations owned by their shareholders. The list of corporations owning care facilities across America is short and those that do are locked in a dog-eat-dog battle to the death with each other and converging industries to suck in what dwindling profit margins there are left. Mergers and acquisitions are rampant in all areas of health care.

Who has time or resources for patients? The nursing home industry is making across the board cuts in staffing, training, and compassionate care for their senior residents. This is happening across the country as evidence mounts that those who own nursing homes should be loosening their purse strings and offering training and better care at their rural facilities, because their senior residents are suffering at an alarming rate as a direct result of their industry-wide, self-imposed budget cuts.

UNCLE SAM NEEDS TO LOOSEN HIS PURSESTRINGS AND COVER THE COSTS OF HEALTHY HEALTH CARE

Nursing homes come in all shapes and sizes. Some are more upscale and receive private pay for income, with much of the rest coming from Medicare.

In California, the majority of nursing homes draw more than half their revenue from Medi-Cal, the state program that provides health services to low-income residents, which the industry complains doesn’t cover the cost of care.

This only exacerbates the shameful problem that pay isn’t high enough across the industry to provide for adequate and dignified care giving for our ailing senior citizens. Both private nursing home providers and government health agencies must be willing to budget more money into healthy health and nursing care for seniors. Private care facilities, many of which are run through giant real estate trusts or conglomerates, must find a way to operate their holdings to actually benefit those who seek their services. A new model in the way of doing business industry wide is mandatory, or they are simply going to go out of business. Nobody can afford their poor service.

CONCLUSION: CALIFORNIA SENIORS ARE TAKING A BRUTAL HIT

The proof is in the pudding. Just ask the California state auditor who singled out the California Department of Public Health for scathing criticism regarding skilled nursing facilities and their lack of performance of necessary “inspections or issued timely citations for substandard care.” They cite absent effective oversight and substandard quality of care, a deadly combination. This apparently means the reason the nursing home industry continues to fail our seniors is because the government isn’t doing its job by monitoring them adequately.

The California governmental agency responsible for nursing home operators rightfully took a hit for having allowed poor care to proliferate at nursing homes around the state, with the number of incidents that could cause serious injury having increased significantly in recent years. The California state audit concludes that the California Department of Public Health’s failures in oversight increase the risk that nursing facilities may not provide adequate care to some of the state’s most vulnerable residents. Safety and accountability problems at nursing homes across the United States are rampant, says the California State Auditor.

Federal inspection reports show that infection control is routinely ignored in nursing homes across America. To exacerbate matters, the Trump Administration has scaled back the use of penalties to punish nursing homes that put residents at risk of injury. This compounds the issue cited by the audit where in a vast majority of cases government investigators found problems that could severely harm patients, the public health department failed to cite or fine the facility involved. Who’s watching out for the seniors?

It is disturbingly clear that the public health department in California is not holding nursing homes accountable for what amounts to be crimes against the elderly. Neglect can be criminal. The government needs to regulate this industry. It also needs to make sure there are enough beds in nursing homes that can be attended to for 2.4 hours per patient day by a registered CNA, and 3.5 total hours of direct skilled attention each and every day. Government health agencies and the nursing and home care industry are going to have to be brought together in the most unlikely of marriages, or a large segment of our growing numbers of senior citizens is going to dwindle and suffer at a much greater rate than is necessary.

TIL DIVORCE DO US PART: AMERICANS BORROW RECORD $3.5 BILLION FOR WEDDINGS IN 2017

July 30, 2018

Ventura Family Law Asset & Property Division, Division of Assets, Divorce, Uncategorized , , , Leave a comment

Alright the stats are in, and they’re mind-boggling. American adults never cease to amaze me in this kind of stuff. Here, more than one million borrowed money last year to pull off their dream wedding. The average amount borrowed to cover the costs was $3,082. To put this into greater perspective, out of 126 million American adults, last year more than one million (1.13 million to be exact) got married. And they borrowed a lot of debt to do it.

U.S. couples borrowed $3.48 billion for weddings in 2017. Most of the couples turned to credit cards or personal loans to finance their nuptials, an article on Finder.com says. Additionally, one in five (21.4%) U.S. adults borrowed cash from family and friends over the past year in order to see their wedding dreams fulfilled.

DON’T BORROW MONEY TO GET DIVORCED

Why bother? is what I ask. Family and friends are cash strapped as well. You don’t need to create the personal stress on a good relationship. Odds are you’re going to end up coming to see us for a divorce sooner or later anyway, so save your friends, your family, and your money for a rainy day. Invest in gold coins. Don’t go into debt over something unless there’s a greater return and a positive cash flow.

I’ve been telling clients for years that all marriages end up in either divorce or death, so what was your rush in this down-turning economy? “Fifty percent of those who get married end up in divorce,” I would say.

Well, I was told I was wrong on that one. I did the research, and okay, maybe I was a off by a few percentage points. It appears the divorce rate may actually be on the decline, but there could be many factors attributable to that like maybe the fact that the marriage rate is declining as well. However, considering all factors, I believe what Bella DePaulo, Ph.D., author, and expert on single people, says regarding the chances that a marriage will end in divorce. According to DePaulo, the divorce expectation rate for those of us who are presently married is probably somewhere between 42 and 45 percent.

In PsychologyToday.com DePaulo cites a 2014 New York Times article reviewing the national divorce rate. “It is no longer true that the divorce rate is rising, or that half of all marriages end in divorce,” Claire Cain Miller wrote in that article. “It has not been for some time.”

BUT AGAIN, WHY BORROW AT A 55% TO 58% CHANCE OF SUCCESS?

Might as well just flip a coin then. Will we stay married … or won’t we? Heads you win, tails I lose. Do the math. Is it worth getting yourself in deeper debt to contractually bind you to a legal relationship that will end at some point anyway? Death or divorce, choose your weapon.

Right now the financial experts are telling us that the financial system is reaching crisis proportion. We’re being told to save as best as we can and to invest in real assets. We’re being told that the U.S. dollar as a paper currency is going to disappear; that we’re turning into a digital currency society. Experts predict, and financial trends indicate, we’re going to experience a severe credit freeze with banks. On top of all that, some of us are thinking of borrowing money to get married? Are we crazy? Are we American?

Good luck.

For those who must do it now, before it’s too late, there are sympathetic ears and advice. Blair Donovan writes for brides.com, giving some ideas about borrowing money for your wedding.

“First, assess the average loan period you are capable of in order to repay your debt on time,” Donovan writes. “Next, evaluate what the most reasonable interest rate might be. A higher interest rate may seem less daunting if your payoff period is short, as in the case of payday loans. However, if you need several months or years to pay back what you owe then a lesser interest rate may be the most sensible option to cover your wedding day expenses.” Or….

You can get married without borrowing. Have the wedding in a national forest with three witnesses, a minister, and a portable hot tub. Much less expensive without the bar tab and no room for in-laws in the tub. Or …

Forget about getting married, save the money, invest it wisely in undervalued assets, and just be friends. Dutch Treat worked great in the 90s, and it’d work just fine for the two of you heading into the Roaring 20s.

DYING WITH DIGNITY; WHO FAILED THE ELDERLY WOMAN? THREE GIRLS? THE ASSISTED LIVING FACILITY THAT HIRED THEM? OR WAS IT US?

July 23, 2018

Ventura Family Law Elder Law, Health Care , , , Leave a comment

It really doesn’t make any sense, but that’s just a sign of our times, right. Make jokes, flip the bird, smoke a vape pen. Feed a habit. Ignore responsibilities. Disrespect life. Who cares?

They’re just kids, though, right, so they can be easily forgiven. In this case they were responsible for a 76-year-old-woman who’d just suffered a stroke and lay dying in a Georgia hospice. Nothing to worry about, right? Third page news.

When I first read the story on Newsweek.com, it seemed so obvious where the blame for it all should fall, and of course it did with the arrests of the three young women / girls who made the video. I call them girls because that’s what they are, two 21-year-olds and a nineteen year old; lacking in development of working conscience, little if any consideration of consequences for their actions, a lack of maturity and a stunted development of sense and responsibility. Many teens suffer from these same symptoms. Adults too. It’s contagious in today’s society. It’s the way our kids are wired; breathing computer games, iPhones and chemtrails instead of life’s realities and healthy nutrition which swirls past them undetected.

So I call these three clueless young women kids because they did what kids do. Only different. Only indifferent – indifference being the operative word here, by all parties involved. Indifference manifests in many forms and in this case as childish, careless inattention that happens when kids are given too much responsibility by someone who shouldn’t be giving it to them at all. With responsibility comes a price that many senior healthcare facilities seem unwilling to pay.

SO WHAT DID THE KIDS DO?

The kids did the despicable on June 13 inside Bentley Senior Living in Northminster, Georgia. Too much responsibility for two 21-year-olds and a nineteen-year-old teen who would later be charged with exploiting an elderly and disabled person and for their dereliction of duty. The elderly woman would soon die. She had a stroke and the senior facility was waiting on a hospice nurse. It was going to be an extensive time before the hospice nurse would arrive, so it was the job of these three girls to closely monitor their patient until the hospice nurse arrived.

The dying elderly woman was said to have had difficulties swallowing and moving around, and there was a threat that she could choke or fall from her bed. That’s why the girls were there, to make sure that didn’t happen.

But the girls weren’t really concerned about responsibilities or their patient, because, well, after all, they are millenials. And sometimes millenials get bored or their ADD symptoms kick in and they just don’t have the time or attention span in their little heads to care for dying, bedridden seniors. Face it, healthcare in a senior home does not resonate at the same excitement level as iPhones, videos and Snapchat.

One of the girls decided to bring them all to life at once, and suddenly there was no more boredom. Now one of the girls was making a video and someone else was smoking a vape pen, and there were profanities and one of the girls was making obscene hand gestures into the camera. And it never occurred to their three millenial minds to do anything about the septuagenarian woman laying motionless from a stroke in the bed in the background.

When the girls were finished with their production they would post it on Snapchat labeled “The End.”

SO WHOSE FAULT IS IT ANYWAY?

It wasn’t just the girls involved in this who were culpable. Sure the girls were callous and indifferent with their duties, and they were rightfully arrested and charged with elder abuse. But my question is where were all the adults in the room when this was taking place? Who was these girls’ supervisor at the time this infamous video was being made? As the associated news articles might suggest, this is not necessarily an isolated type of incident, one where fate had these three girls gather in this room to commit this heinous deed on a one time basis only.

WHY IS THERE NO DIGNITY IN DYING?

The question here is whether there is such a thing as dignity in care giving at senior nursing homes anywhere? I want to know where the concept of dignity with dying is in relation to where America’s priorities are. Sure an employee of Bentley Senior Living discovered the video a couple days after the incident and the police were notified, but what if that employee hadn’t seen the video on Snapchat? There was going to be no dignity in dying for this 76-year-old woman either way. Could this have been avoided?

Did anyone really do the research to see who these girls were before they were hired to care for dying, bedridden senior citizens? Did these girls have any experience in caring for the elderly? Did any of them produce passports when they applied for their jobs?

COULD ONE OF THEM HAVE BEEN AN ILLEGAL?

One of the girls might have been in the country illegally. This creates a whole new series of issues when it comes to home and healthcare for the elderly. How can we hire people we can trust to care for our elderly when we don’t even know where they come from?

An article on onlineathens.com reports that the two twenty-one-year-olds were released on bond after their arrests and the teenager was reportedly still being held for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Why would Immigration and Customs hold a perfectly legal woman? Was the nineteen-year-old in this country illegally? If not, then why the immigration hold?

BENTLEY SENIOR LIVING SAYS THEY ONLY HIRE LEGALS

There have been no claims that the three girls or Bentley Senior Living had anything to do with the cause of the elderly woman’s death. According to NBC affiliate 11alive.com, Bentley Senior Living at Northminster delivered a statement claiming that no resident’s condition was compromised as a result of this “unfortunate event.”

Bentley Senior Living says that all employees must produce the required documentation that proves they are either U.S. citizens or legally permitted to work in the United States – which the three girls did. “We do not hire illegal immigrants,” the Bentley Senior Living statement reads. “An ICE detention does not mean an individual was working illegally.”

Then what does it mean? The two girls without ICE detentions are out on bail. Either way this is only one instance of abuse that happened to get caught on camera. There was no disputing the evidence in this case, and there may have been other types of incidents. The 11alive.com article quotes Jefferson Police Detective Jay Parker as saying police have been called to the facility prior to this instance, but never for anything as serious.

OUR SENIOR CITIZENS DESERVE BETTER

The bottom line is our senior citizens deserve much better than what they’re getting, and their lives depend on it. Dying with dignity is an important act with spiritual significance. We all deserve respect from those who care for us. This case of the three girls is evidence of abuse against a fragile segment of our society. The sad part is we know these kinds of events run undisclosed in the many corners of the elderly healthcare world. We have a greatly aging population merging into a society that has no true infrastructure in place to adequately care for them or the financial resources to hire the qualified people to run it.

Seniors in the private sector and senior military veterans are aging at a time when America does not put her resources toward their benefit or improvement of the quality of their last days alive. The entire healthcare system, including basically all of Western medicine, the governments that oversee healthcare, and the pharmaceutical complex, are all involved and intermingled and they won’t change their model of practice until we change them.

The aspect the article of the three girls brings up at its core is about the money being spent to hire competent caretakers at for-profit elderly care facilities to care for aging senior citizens in a dignified and appropriate manner. These issues will ultimately have to be addressed by those who represent the elderly and our military veterans. It takes money to hire better and more highly qualified people to care for our elderly. Hopefully this article will help bring needed attention to these serious issues.

Our legacy as a generation and as a nation will be measured by how much humanity we express toward the vulnerable segments of our population. Resourceful healthcare for our elderly and veterans must be a number one priority in all our communities.

Senior citizens are amongst our wisest and most valuable resources. There is so much wisdom and insight we can gain from them if only we take the time to listen. Their voices are soft. Listen closely. Give peace a chance. Make putting profits in shareholders’ pockets by sedating our elderly a secondary factor to providing better quality of life to our growing, aging population. This will only come through major changes to our healthcare paradigm and how much we pay whom to take care of our elderly. The old axiom that you get what you pay for has never been clearer. Just ask the three girls we put in charge.

 

LET’S MAKE THIS PERFECTLY CLEAR, SACHA BARON COHEN, MOCKING HANDICAPPED U.S. VETERANS IS A NO-GO

July 16, 2018

Ventura Family Law Health Care, Military, Veterans , , , , , , Leave a comment

Let’s make this perfectly clear. Don’t disrespect America, especially if you live or work here. And if you do live or work here, never disrespect an American Veteran of Foreign Wars, handicapped or otherwise. It’s uncool, it’s uncalled for. And it might be illegal. Instead maybe we could spend more of our energies on rebuilding America, not destroying what we truly stand for.

I’m tremendously grateful for the opportunities I’ve had in life. There’s no question I’ve worked hard to get this far, to survive – just one look at the wear and tear of soul etched into the lines of my face will tell you that – but I do recognize how fortunate I am to live in the greatest country on this planet, ever, right now.

History proves me correct on this bold assertion. America – and we have had our share of crooked elements in state-sponsored corruption, malfeasance, terrorism, and outright evil – stands for greatness because Americans are good at heart and we try to get it right. We try to make a positive difference. We are spiritual by nature and inspired by God. But we get misguided sometimes. The programming elements of a dying empire can misguide you.

Although I’ve never approved of the Banker’s Wars which have basically been nonstop across the world during my lifetime, I have always appreciated the men and women who have sacrificed so much of themselves and their families while working for our military overseas. Some argue that Veterans of Foreign Wars may have been guided into a false sense of truth behind what they were fighting for, but each one of them fought for what they believed was our freedom. Our freedom as a people, as sovereign individuals, was and still is at the heart of what young men and women commit to when they join the service. And I feel free thanks to that value displayed by American Veterans.

Many American Veterans, and Veterans from every other country that has fought in the endless series of bloody Bankers’ Wars, have suffered tremendously. They are rejected by the society from where they come. They are abused and neglected by the healthcare systems that care for the people they fight to protect.

American Veterans have taken a particularly severe beating under Obama, and other previous administrations, and only now is the American Veterans Administration beginning to look at itself in a deeper more transparent way; to reflect how badly it has failed and literally tortured America’s military heroes — and what needs to be done to change it. To drug our aging Veterans into compliance until death do us part is no way to treat with dignity anyone – especially those who serve our country in our name.

I see our Veterans every day, some as clients, others as the tortured faces of the homeless on our streets, bus benches, and even our jails. This is because our government has failed to provide American Veterans with the adequate housing and healthcare they require to deal with the plethora of serious physical and mental issues they have come home with. And now I gotta read this crap?

Sure, we’re talking Sarah Palin here, and she’s never been one of America’s trusted daughters, having previously aligned herself in a run for the White House with none other than former Hanoi Hilton songbird and dying GOP Arizona Senator John McCain. But Palin now represents herself as having been a pawn to the reprehensible and disrespectful actions toward handicapped American Veterans by CBS / Showtime and one not so funny British comedian who calls himself Sacha Baron Cohen.

SARAH PALIN VERSUS SHOWTIME VERSUS HANDICAPPED U.S. VETERANS

In a post on her Facebook page that has garnered national media attention, Sarah Palin writes of a recent experience where she was contacted by a speaker’s bureau regarding what she believed would be an opportunity to honor American Vets and contribute to a “legit Showtime historical documentary”.

Palin apparently bit hard as she and her daughter were asked to fly across country for an interview regarding what Palin believed would be a “thoughtful discussion with someone who had served in uniform.” Instead, the former Alaskan governor found herself sitting through what she describes as a long “interview” full of “Hollywoodism’s disrespect and sarcasm”.

Palin writes, “The disrespect of our US military and middleclass Americans via Cohen’s foreign commentaries under the guise of interview questions was perverse.” Palin removed her mic and walked out disgustedly before the interview was complete.

MATT DRUDGE DOESN’T LIKE COHEN’S ACT EITHER

American political commentator Matt Drudge doesn’t appreciate Cohen’s act either. In an article in thehill.com Drudge warns “Sacha Baron Cohen at it again.” On July 9th Drudge Tweeted: “This time for CBS / SHOWTIME. Lots of tricks played.”

The creator and editor of the Drudge Report rightfully maligns Cohen for his insensitive actions, but why does it have to come down to this? Why does “Borat” and Showtime have to continue to dishonor American Vets in a humorless, classless guise, hidden under a handicapped Veteran’s blanket and the American flag? Isn’t Cohen British anyway? He doesn’t even belong here. If anything maybe Sarah Palin’s admission to having been duped by a boorish British performer who has a history of denigrating Americans in his works, could be used to shine a light on what is really a very serious matter, and that is the respectful taking care of our handicapped American Vets with dignity.

Sgt. Joey Jones, a double amputee American Veteran doesn’t play that game either. Sgt. Jones offered a solution to FOX Business Network on Wednesday July, 11th. Jones believes what Sacha Baron Cohen has done might be illegal and the actor may have opened himself up for prosecution.

On YouTube Sgt. Jones says: “We have a Stolen Valor Act of 2013 that says you can’t take medals, honors and basically the stories of the heroes of this country and use them to benefit yourself in a tangible way. So at this point if this interview is used on Showtime I think there is an argument that any dollar made off of advertisement violates the Stolen Valor Act.”

I would like to imagine Sgt. Jones to be correct on all counts. I would like to see Showtime display the classless Sacha Baron Cohen as a disabled Vet and the show make tons of advertising dollars for its left-leaning defeatist commentators. And then I want to see some organization representing American Veterans sue the sh*t out of Cohen and Showtime under the Stolen Valor Act of 2013, beat them in court, win punitive damages, and have all proceeds go to housing and healthcare for our senior Veterans.

 

LAWMAKERS DEMAND DAMAGING SECRET VA NURSING HOME DATA BE RELEASED TO PUBLIC

July 9, 2018

Ventura Family Law Health Care, Military, Veterans , , , , , , Leave a comment

Darkness is coming to the surface for senior healthcare. In this instance it’s the Veteran’s Administration, where VA internal quality data documents that were obtained in a USA TODAY/The Boston Globe investigation reveal for the first time that VA nursing homes performed worse on average than private nursing homes on a majority of key measures, including:

  • Reported pain in the last five days
  • Received anti-psychotic medicine, which the FDA has associated with an increased risk of death in elderly dementia patients
  • Experienced marked decrease in abilities to perform daily activities like bathing, eating, and using the bathroom
  • Had a catheter left in their bladder, which can lead to urinary or blood infections and other complications
  • High-risk residents with serious bed sores, which may be prevented by repositioning/cushioning

As a result, several members of Congress have demanded that the Department of Veterans Affairs release a full complement of nursing home data that the agency has kept hidden from public scrutiny for many years.

Donovan Slack of USA TODAY and Andrea Estes of The Boston Globe write at bostonglobe.com that the VA pushed back by downplaying the contrary findings and calling the story “fake news”.

Yet to be released data includes the VA’s underlying quality data, such as rates of infection and injury. Several lawmakers have called for the release of the information immediately.

In a June 18, 2018 article at usatoday.com Slack and Estes describe one of the worst ranked VA nursing homes in the U.S., a place where American veterans are sent by family members in belief they would receive more specialized care, only to find they’ve been turned into “zombies” through the administration of too many anti-psychotic drugs accompanied by too little personal care.

The agency has tracked detailed quality statistics on its nursing homes for years but has kept them from public view, depriving veterans of potentially crucial health care information, the article says.

VA officials argued that the VA nursing home system, overall, “compares closely” with private nursing homes despite caring for typically sicker residents.

The VA’s hospitals have drawn intense criticism for repeated scandals involving health care in recent years, including preventable deaths, but the agency largely has operated its nursing homes with scant public scrutiny.

Internally the agency has long monitored care at its nursing facilities through quality indicators and unannounced inspections and, since 2016, through star rankings based on the indicators. Until now, the USA TODAY article says, it has kept all of these quality measures from the public eye.

Under federal regulations, private nursing homes are required to disclose voluminous data on the care they provide. The federal government uses the data to calculate quality measures and posts them on a federal website, along with inspection results and staffing information. The regulations do not apply to the VA. This information is not available to the public who are in the market looking for veteran’s homes.

But darkness is turning to light. The USA TODAY/The Boston Globe article quotes VA press secretary Curt Cashour as blaming the Obama administration for resisting making quality data public. “But under President Trump’s leadership,” the articles quotes Cashour from a June 12, 2018 statement,” transparency and accountability have become hallmarks of VA.”

Both the Republican-led House and Senate VA committees requested briefings from VA officials following the damning report. Transparency and accountability is what’s coming to the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, then the “fake news” won’t matter.

VICTORY FOR THE RIGHTEOUS IS JUDGMENT FOR THE WICKED

July 2, 2018

Ventura Family Law financial , , , , , , Leave a comment

According to a prophet, author, and former fireman, we’ve got a great future ahead of us here in America, and we’ve got to recognize it and work hard to make it happen for everyone. For twenty years Mark Taylor was a first responder in Orlando, Florida, where he witnessed up close and personal all the horrors a fireman could ever imagine. Then his world took a giant leap into the unfathomable when he authored the popular book, “The Trump Prophecies”, where he told us Donald Trump would win the White House along with the first GOP primary. Trump became President and Mark Taylor instantly became part myth and a part of our modern historical narrative.

In an interview with Greg Hunter at USAwatchdog.com, the former firefighter said that he gets all his information and prophecies from God the Father. This allows Taylor to champion causes like for firefighters everywhere, of whom he says PTSD, anxiety, and depression run deep. He says their suicide rate rivals that of military and law enforcement personnel.

And if you’ve been reading the news lately, you know that many top Obama government officials were involved in framing Donald Trump in an effort to remove him from office, while exonerating Hillary Clinton of serious crimes. Taylor predicts Obama is going to end up in prison for treason as a result thereof. There are many in this country who might agree. Taylor also says Hillary Clinton, Eric Holder, and Loretta Lynch, among many others, are going to jail.

Taylor warns us that these people are not going to go quietly, however, and civil unrest is going to ensue. We’ve already seen examples of this taking place in one form or another practically everyday in our depressing mainstream media. We need to be praying against and prepare for the civil unrest, Mark Taylor says. We need to protect our loved ones and our communities.

TRUMP PROPHECIES TURNED INTO A MOVIE

The Trump Prophecies has been turned into a movie. It will be released for two dates only, October 2nd and 4th. The former firefighter turned author calls this a positive movie with a positive outcome. The positive outcome is Trump becoming president. When asked, Taylor says Brad Pitt will not be playing him in the movie.

The former first responder is humbled that God chose him to be the one to deliver awesome messages like these. He is just a “vessel” or a “tool” through which God speaks, he says, and he takes no credit for any of it.

Mark Taylor hopes the movie, the book, and their prophetic words will open up the eyes and ears of people. He wants to bring people hope. “We live in a society that robs people of hope” the prophetic Taylor says, “and when you rob people of hope you rob them of the will to fight. But if you have hope, there is something to fight for.” We definitely have plenty to fight for.

FEAR NOT

In the past Mark Taylor has also predicted that the U.S. dollar would get stronger and the economy would improve, and by all indications he appears to be correct on both accounts. There’s still much work ahead for us but America seemingly is once again on the right economic track. We’ve had major tax cuts, there are regulation cuts, and people are pouring money back into America. The U.S. dollar is being repatriated. Trump is battling the international trade deficits and unconscionable foreign tariffs that have plagued our economy for years.

“We are living in some of the most dynamic times in the history of mankind right now,” Taylor says. “The Luciferian Reign is coming to an end. All the corruption is being exposed.”

The modern day prophet believes America is about to have her harvest. America has never had her harvest.

“America is going to receive its harvest, now,” says Mark Taylor. “Because there’s sowing time, there’s reaping time … America has got to have her harvest because America is going to be the hub from which the End Time spiritual assault will be launched. Like England was the hub from which the D Day assault was launched, America will be the hub by which the spiritual assault will be launched.”

And things are only going to get better for all of us, in time. “We’re going to have money, we’re going to have manpower,” Taylor says. “We’re going to have clothing, food … it’s going to be a time of prosperity for America. We’re going to reap 7-fold what has been stolen from America for decades from all these other countries.”

We are going to get what’s coming to us? We are going to see very prosperous times? Here in America? Pinch me when this dream is over. Prosperity in America for all of us would be something I’ve never seen in my lifetime.

There’s no reason to feel guilty about any of it either. Taylor says we as Americans are not being judged, it’s the system we live in. “The wicked are under judgment,” the author says. “Victory for the righteous is judgment on the wicked.”

Happy 4th of July America!!!

Older Entries