“The Trump administration has been working to relax regulations governing America’s nursing homes, including rules meant to curb deadly infections among elderly residents.
The main federal regulator overseeing nursing homes proposed the rule changes last summer, before the coronavirus pandemic highlighted the vulnerability of nursing homes to fast-spreading diseases.”
“The push followed a spate of lobbying and campaign contributions by people in the nursing-home industry, according to public records and interviews.”
Medicynical Note: As is their want, the Trump administration has worked diligently at reversing the progress of the Obama years. In their time in office the Trumpists have ignored regulations controlling the management and quality of nursing homes. Their neglect has endangered patients housed there.
Trump has been influenced by contributions to republican causes by the nursing home industry and in response he has pushed for a relaxation of regulations for infectious disease control, among others, at nursing homes. This even during the thousands of deaths, yes thousands, of nursing home patients from the covid-19 virus infection.
“Together these changes gut enforcement,” said Toby Edelman, a senior lawyer at the Center for Medicare Advocacy, a nonprofit legal assistance group for the elderly. “They are a gift to the industry.”
“The administration’s moves came after intense lobbying by the nursing home industry, including by the firm run by Brian Ballard, Mr. Trump’s friend and a fund-raiser. Parlaying his personal connections to Mr. Trump, Mr. Ballard has become one of the most powerful lobbyists in Washington, with the most clients of any registered lobbyist last year, according to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics. His firm has lobbied on behalf of nursing homes in his home state, Florida, for years, according to public records. (He was also a lobbyist for Mr. Trump’s Florida golf course, the Doral.)”
Medicynic 