Block grants won’t lead to cost-cutting efficiency
By
Brendan Williams
May 31, 2019
Eviscerating the social safety net through block grants can only further contribute to a dystopian future for aging adults and all others on Medicaid.
When celebrity obscures suffering
By
Brendan Williams
Sep 10, 2021
There is a poignant scene in the first episode of Spike Lee’s “NYC Epicenters 9/11-2021½” on HBO in which New York Assembly Member Ron Kim breaks down recounting the efforts of former Governor Andrew...
With POC testing strategy, federal government continues to respond poorly to COVID-19 in nursing homes
By
Brendan Williams
Sep 08, 2020
In the federal government’s fight against COVID-19, nursing homes have effectively been left for dead. Despite a death count that began with the February outbreak in a Kirkland, Washington, nursing...
Facts, not anecdotes, must guide long-term care policy
By
Brendan Williams
Feb 14, 2020
An oft-repeated canard that bedevils advocates for facility-based care is the assertion, by an organization that peddles Medicare insurance products, that “90% of people don’t want to be in a nursing...
NY Tough campaign can’t disguise nursing home cuts that worsened COVID-19 struggles
By
Brendan Williams
Mar 10, 2021
No long-term care advocate is surprised by what was hiding behind Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s mask of self-congratulatory competence. Indeed, his reckless disregard for the lives of nursing home residents in...
A beast of a month leads nursing homes closer to the brink
By
Brendan Williams
Apr 22, 2022
Providers can be forgiven for thinking that at this terribly perilous moment, those looking to administer the coup de grâce have been empowered.
Hospitals are heroic, while nursing homes are always to blame
By
Brendan Williams
Apr 29, 2020
Hospitals have always enjoyed “most favored nation” status in healthcare, and that’s even more true during the COVID-19 pandemic. But apparently you can’t have heroes without villains. While lauding...
Useless PPE befitting federal nursing home neglect
By
Brendan Williams
Jul 29, 2020
According to Paraprofessional Health Institute data, there were 581,000 nursing assistants working in nursing homes in 2018. Their median wage was just $13.38 an hour. Ninety-two percent were women,...
The truth behind long-term care insurance
By
Brendan Williams
Jul 06, 2018
For some, long-term care insurance has long been viewed, despite all evidence to the contrary, as a nostrum to fix what ails long-term care.
Help for nursing homes? All we hear are crickets
By
Brendan Williams
Jul 11, 2022
Nursing homes were an early epicenter of the pandemic, as they were especially vulnerable to viral respiratory transmission due to chronic state Medicaid underfunding that kept infrastructure aged and...