News Tagged ‘U.S. Senate’

Senate to consider Patient Safety and Abuse Prevention bill

This week, members of the U.S. Senate will consider a bill that will establish a nationwide system of background checks for individuals who apply for jobs at long-term care facilities, The Daily Times (Farmington, New Mexico) reported today. If passed, the Patient Safety and Prevention Act would allow to choose not to hire potentially abusive caregivers based on a coordinated system of checks against and registries, state police records and the FBI national database of criminal history records.

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U.S. Senate debates arbitration

A joint meeting of the U.S. Senate Committee on Judiciary, Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition and Consumer Rights and U.S. Senate Aging Committee was held this morning to discuss S. 2838, The Fairness in Nursing Home Arbitration Act, sponsored by Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis., chairman of the Senate Aging Committee, and Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla. The bill’s sponsors argued that more facilities are requiring patients and their families to sign mandatory arbitration agreements, signing away their right to sue in the event of or , which they said is unfair.

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2 million elderly victims

“Every day, American families face difficult decisions about whether to move a loved one into a nursing home. There are nearly 17,000 in the United States that currently care for 1.6 million residents — a figure expected to quadruple to 6.6 million residents by 2050. The quality of care provided by these has been the subject of much scrutiny in recent years.” – U.S. Congress Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Chairman Henry A. Waxman, 110th Congress

According to the National Center on Elder (NCEA), no one knows precisely how many older Americans are being abused, neglected, or exploited. This is because there are no official national statistics.

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