The Teitelbaum Brothers at War or Something Else? A Petri Dish for Covid-19 Spread!!

The below letter to the editor is being published at the behest of an anonymous reader who is concerned about both the spread of Covid-19 and the raging “Hatfield’s and McCoy’s” style civil war between the brothers Teitelbaum, leaders of two factions of the Satmar religious community. We have not edited it.

We are not going to provide an analysis of the long-standing war between the brothers Rabbi Aharon and Rabbi Zalman Teitelbaum. It is an existential battle that would require an archivist, an expert in Satmar religious affairs, a magician and a philosopher to explain. But the spread of Covid-19 is an almost certain and foreseeable consequence of a massive gathering of the Kiryas Joel Rabbi Aharon Teitelbaum Satmar community. Moreover, that will likely then be followed by a massive gathering of the Rabbi Zalman Teitelbaum faction, if the author of the below is correct.

We cannot independently verify why the community is being gathered.

Kiryas Joel’s Rabbi Aharon Teitelbaum could be summoning his community to excoriate local and state government on Covid-19 mask mandates, or for any number of unrelated reasons. It’s anyone’s guess.

The author sent the below along to try and save the lives of his or her religious community members. If this post helps, so be it.

Note to reader: The translation of the Hebrew in the second to last paragraph is “Anyone who has saved a life it’s as if he has saved the world.”

It is signed: “And in the name of G-d may we do and may we be successful.”

Dear friend,

Please let’s prevent more deaths of our family and friends, more than enough died the last 2 years around us! And more than enough became severely sick with strokes and heart attacks around us!

I hope you are doing alright now, and if not it’s ok nor does anybody else do alright now… But if we do something proactive we may be feeling just a bit better.

The  hasidic Whatsapp groups are ablaze with Satmar Rebbe Rabbi Aron Teitelbaum of Monroe NY ‘s latest bombshell; he called for a gathering of thousands of his Hasidim followers to give a speech. Nobody knows yet what it will be but it is a scandalous because he asked no recordings should be allowed so we know it’s going to be a very dirty hateful speech against his brothers Zalmen followers that are becoming very strong in Kiryas Joel

This is based on a collection of all the leaks and speculations on whatsapp:

Tomorrow evening Thursday night the 16 of December 2021 8;30PM thousands will gather there in the main Kiryas Joel synagogue at 12 Garfield road.

All this amidst a new variant raging and the government not enforcing any masks nor other Covid precautions on this powerful bloc vote; so prepare for many more deaths there of their old and sick from omicron the next week or 2 while this major gathering is all about infighting of the grand rabbi Aron the older brother leader will forbid to buy homes and products from the growing minority who follows his younger brother grand rabbi Zelman there will be clips and pics so i tell u about this mass infecting of thousands with Covid a day and a half in advance.

The Aroiny Kiryas Joel leaders no doubt say this gathering is for G-d and Torah so they are ready to get infected; but we all know that it’s only for hateful politics!

Please spread this notice to all who may make a difference to halt this mass genocide of our vulnerable immune compromised members that will no doubt catch it form people who will attend this super spreader. כל המקיים נפש אחת מישראל כאילו קיים עולם מלא and even if we don’t like those aroinis they all have friends in business or family who are zalies that they will kill!

We can stop this if all of us really do speak up!

ובשם ה’ נעשה ונצליח!

Senator Serino – Cuomo’s Revisionist History – Have you Considered His Nursing Home Conglomerate Donor Pool?

SERINO SLAMS GOVERNOR’S REVISIONIST HISTORY ON NURSING HOME DEATHS

SUE SERINO

April 29, 2021

• NURSING HOME DEATHS

HYDE PARK, NY – Senator Sue Serino released the following in response to comments made today by the Governor at a Buffalo event in relation to COVID-19 deaths in New York’s nursing homes:

“The Governor can rewrite history all he wants, but the truth is the only people who played politics when it came to hiding the number of nursing home deaths in New York State are the members of his Administration who have now been caught doing so for months.

I first called for a full investigation into the state’s overall handling of the COVID crisis in nursing homes on May 7, 2020—at a time when the Governor’s approval rating was through the roof—and most would argue it was actually politically unpopular to criticize anything his Administration was doing at the time. I did so because it was the right thing to do. Families who were losing loved ones deserved answers. Having access to the real number of deaths could have provided a more accurate picture of the pandemic’s impact, which could have helped us improve the state’s response and maybe even saved lives.

Time and again, the Governor clearly put politics—and profit—over the residents of these facilities. It’s not right, and we will not stop pushing for truthful answers and real accountability.”

When asked today why his Administration hid the accurate number of nursing home deaths for so long, the Governor claimed the issue was simply politicized. He continued to argue that withholding the data was about ‘accuracy.’

Senator Serino countered that point saying, “If they were so concerned about ‘accuracy,’ then they would have withheld all the numbers until they were properly audited. Instead, they were okay with publicly releasing a blatant undercount that fit the Administration’s own political narrative. An undercount the Governor publicly bragged about repeatedly. The hypocrisy is stunning. New Yorkers—especially these vulnerable residents and their loved ones—deserve so much better.”

Senator Serino is the Ranking Member of the Senate’s Aging Committee.

Senator O’Mara – Weekly Column, Gov. Cuomo – What about the Nursing Home Tragedy? AND OVERSIGHT??? Covid-19

Senator O’Mara’s weekly column ‘From the Capitol’ ~ for the week of May 10, 2021 ~ ‘No, governor, nursing homes tragedy not ‘smart'”

May 10, 2021

• COMBATING COVID-19 AND PROTECTING NEW YORKERS; PROTECTING NURSING HOME RESIDENTS

Senator O’Mara shares his weekly perspective on issues facing New York State government.Every available action needs to be taken to compel the governor and his inner circle to tell the truth and be held accountable. New Yorkers, in particular families who lost loved ones in nursing homes due to Cuomo’s fateful order, deserve nothing less.

Senator O’Mara offers his weekly perspective on many of the key challenges and issues facing the Legislature, as well as on legislative actions, local initiatives, state programs and policies, and more. Stop back every Monday for Senator O’Mara’s latest column…

This week, “No, governor, nursing homes tragedy not ‘smart'”

Here was the lead paragraph in a National Review article late last week following Governor Andrew Cuomo’s May 5th news conference: “New York governor Andrew Cuomo defended an executive order that may have exacerbated coronavirus outbreaks in state nursing homes as ‘smart’ from a ‘medical point of view.’”

Smart?

After all these months, when how Governor Cuomo and his inner circle addressed the COVID-19 pandemic in nursing homes has been defined by cover-ups, stonewalling, lies, and the like, and keeping in mind that the Cuomo administration is under federal investigation for its actions, the governor calls it “smart.”

Trust me, there’s another side to that story.

Recall that Governor Cuomo issued a March 25, 2020 directive requiring New York State nursing homes to accept COVID-positive patients from hospitals into the homes. Last year’s March 25th directive would end up sending more than 9,000 COVID-positive patients into hundreds of nursing homes statewide, according to reporting from the Associated Press earlier this year, and likely contributed to thousands of deaths. Over 6,000 of those were new admissions to nursing homes, not readmissions as the Cuomo administration has tried to lead the public to believe.

Here’s how “smart” that action was considered at the time by many of the nation’s leading long-term care professionals.

The day after Governor Cuomo’s March 25 directive to nursing homes, on March 26, 2020, a prominent, national group of long-term care professionals denounced the directive and warned against it.

Specifically, the prominent, national medical professionals group American Medical Directors Association (AMDA)-The Society for Post-Acute Care and Long-Term Care (PALTC) Medicine released a statement that the Cuomo order was “over-reaching, not consistent with science…and beyond all, not in the least consistent with patient safety principles.” The group’s statement went on, “Rather than bullying nursing facilities and medical providers to make unsafe decisions, the State of New York would be wise to direct its energies at ensuring adequate personal protective equipment is available to all healthcare providers…developing a long-neglected healthcare workforce, and identifying and standing up alternative care sites.”

Three days later, on March 29, AMDA-PALTC was joined in another statement by the American Health Care Association (AHCA) and the National Center for Assisted Living (NCAL). The groups stated, “As organizations dedicated to preserving the safety of patients and residents in post-acute and long-term care settings including assisted living, we strongly object to this policy directive and approach…This is a short-term and short-sighted solution that will only add to the surge in COVID-19 patients…We understand the need for public health and elected officials to weigh the risks and benefits of their decisions…However, a blanket order for every nursing home in the state to accept all admissions from hospitals is not sound policy.” [Both statements can be viewed in full on the AMDA-PALTC website: paltc.org]

Despite these dire warnings from the medical community directly involved in the care of our state’s elderly nursing home residents this directive was left in place for more than 30 days, until May 10, 2020. During this period, in excess of 9,000 COVID-positive hospital patients were sent from hospitals into New York’s nursing homes. Over 6,000 of these patients were not in a nursing home prior to entering the hospital.

During a joint Senate-Assembly hearing on the nursing homes crisis on August 3, 2020, I directly asked Health Commissioner Howard Zucker if he had received and read the March 26 and March 29 statements. He denied knowledge of them.

I didn’t believe Commissioner Zucker on that day and I still don’t believe it. It is simply not credible that New York’s top health official would not have been informed on statements from leading medical professionals expressing their alarm at one of New York State’s key directives and its potential and alarming risk to the elderly and these residential facilities overall.

And I don’t believe that Governor Cuomo’s policy was “smart.”

If Governor Cuomo and his top lieutenants had heeded the warning from the experts on the front lines of nursing home care in America, thousands of nursing home residents would have at least been better protected. Many lives could have been saved. 

The question is no longer whether the Cuomo administration’s handling of the nursing homes tragedy was smart.

Instead, in my view and the view of many others, the question remains unanswered about why Governor Cuomo and his inner circle ignored the warnings from public health experts that their March 25 mandate to nursing homes to accept COVID-positive patients was over-reaching, and not consistent with science or patient safety principles. 

It is just one of many unanswered questions that still demand to be pursued regarding the Cuomo administration’s nursing homes cover-up.

Governor Cuomo has tried to conceal the truth on the devastation of this crisis in our nursing homes and in other places, and it has caused great harm. Reports keep forcefully exposing the lies, cover-ups, and crimes.

Every available action needs to be taken to compel the governor and his inner circle to tell the truth and be held accountable. New Yorkers, in particular families who lost loved ones in nursing homes due to Cuomo’s fateful order, deserve nothing less.

Time to Toss the Granny Killer Immunity Provisions in NY – And Country-Wide

MIDDAY POSTER: NY Dems Move To Repeal Cuomo’s Nursing Home Immunity

New York’s now infamous corporate immunity law for nursing home executives has been placed on the legislative docket for repeal. The law, slipped into last year’s budget by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, shielded nursing homes from liability as they were forced by the governor to accept patients presumed to have COVID into their facilities.

Last Spring, while the national media was celebrating Cuomo, The Daily Poster helped break open the story of Cuomo passing the law after receiving huge campaign donations from the corporate group pushing it. As The Daily Poster reported earlier this week, the law has shielded administrators and executives from liability for a wide range of negligence claims, even those that don’t appear to be directly related to COVID.

To continue reading in The Daily Poster

Millions in Cuomo’s War Chest, Donations from Killer Nursing Homes and their Lobbyists and Representatives – The Blood of Covid-19 Death

[EXCERPTED BY LM]

Andrew Cuomo Shielded Killer Nursing Home Executives From Justice

By Joel Warner

Governor Andrew Cuomo offered blanket immunity from prosecution for negligent nursing home executives last year. Now those who lost love ones during the pandemic thanks to those executives’ greed have nowhere to turn. Those who put profit over human life — and Cuomo — need to be held responsible.

As the Daily Poster reported last May, the Cuomo administration quietly inserted the liability shield provision into the state’s 2020 budget bill after a powerful health care industry group that donated more than $1 million to Cuomo’s political machine drafted and lobbied for the law.

The provision was ostensibly designed to help nursing homes as they made difficult decisions in the face of an unprecedented emergency. But the law extended the protections not just to medical staff, but also to corporate executives — and critics worried that the law would allow the facilities’ owners and operators to cut corners and risk people’s lives without repercussions.

As lawmakers pushing to revoke the measure noted in a legislative memo that month, the immunity law “egregiously uses severe liability standards as a means to insulate health care facilities and specifically, administrators and executives of such facilities, from any civil or criminal liability for negligence.”

Now, as Cuomo’s handling of nursing homes during the pandemic has exploded into a national scandal amid revelations of suppressed COVID death counts alongside reported threats against Cuomo critics and allegations of sexual harassment, the Daily Poster has found the law is indeed insulating nursing home administrators and executives from civil or criminal liability for their actions.

Over much of the past year, the provision has apparently had a chilling effect across the state, causing many lawyers to refuse all new nursing home–related negligence cases, whether or not they seem to be directly related to COVID-19, and limiting the scope of other legal actions begun before the pandemic. Though New York has seen more than fifteen thousand nursing home deaths, there have only been a handful of wrongful death cases filed in the state, according to data compiled by the law firm Hunton Andrews Kurth, which has been tracking COVID-related cases.

Joel Warner, Jacobin

“Lobbying Money Well Spent”

On April 3, 2020, as the media was reporting on how New York was becoming a global coronavirus hot spot, Cuomo signed into law the state’s budget bill for the year, which included a little-noticed provision on page 347 that noted that executives, board members, trustees, and other corporate officials at nursing homes and other health care facilities “shall have immunity from any liability, civil or criminal, for any harm or damages alleged to have been sustained as a result of an act or omission in the course of arranging for or providing health care services” related to COVID-19.

The liability shield, which covered both lawsuits and criminal prosecutions, was made retroactive to March 7, 2020. A Cuomo spokesperson would later insist the measure wasn’t due to industry influence — but lobbyists suggested otherwise.

The day before the measure became law, the Greater New York Hospital Association (GNYHA) — a major lobbying group that represents hospital systems, including some that own nursing homes, that has donated more than $1.25 million to Cuomo’s political operation — sent out a memo stating it had “drafted and aggressively advocated for this legislation.”

As GNYHA noted to its members in the announcement, “You and your heroic workers have enough to agonize over without having to worry about liability for decisions and actions made under extraordinarily challenging circumstances.”

The provision’s effect was immediate.

Holly Mosher, a partner at the Friedlander & Mosher, PC law firm in Ithaca, which focuses on nursing home negligence cases, told the Daily Poster that before then, her firm usually followed up on several reports of alleged nursing home abuse or neglect each week. Now, suddenly, they weren’t looking into any potential new cases at all. That included not just allegations of residents getting sick or dying from COVID-19 because of improper conditions, but also claims of negligence that seemed to have little to do with coronavirus at all, such as preventable injuries and bedsores, other than the fact that the incidents occurred in the middle of the pandemic.

To continue reading the article in its entirety, click here.

Nursing Homes, their Attorneys, Cuomo, His Donor Pool and Those Who Reaped the Rewards of their Campaign Contributions

Mapping campaign donations to Andrew Cuomo For New York, Inc. during years 2014-2019. 
OPENTHEBOOKS.COM

Dear Readers:

New York is a cesspool of corruption; and sadly for those of us for whom this State has some sentimentality, we may be deluding ourselves into believing it can be fixed. absent tearing down the entire system of government and rebuilding it. It does not help that there is very little in New York that is transparent and, more to the point, even transparency is shrouded in secrecy. For instance, most states prohibit vendors who have significant state contracts from donating to politicians within the state. Sounds logical. But New York does not have such a prohibition. Couple that with the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling (Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010)), which paved the way for mega-donors to give money in secret, and you have a recipe for unending money-meets politics power brokering. And the players have learned to game the system like a BlackJack card-counter plays a hand. New York has no safeguards against running amok either. And it has.

Moreover, for those of us who misguidedly thought it could not get any worse, Covid-19 made corruption that much easier. While all eyes were on the extraordinary havoc Covid-19 was wreaking on the state, and while many of us chose Cuomo’s news briefings over those of the President at the time, Cuomo was constructing a return to his donors. He had made promises that needed to be kept if he ever wanted to be President. While New Yorkers were dying, Cuomo was devising the “quid pro quo”. Sadly, the real difference between Cuomo and Trump is political sides. Both played to their acolytes similarly. Interestingly, many of Cuomo’s top donors in New York and the greater Tri-State area were also Trump’s top donors. There is an heir of true opportunism in that.

Real Estate moguls who had donated large sums (either themselves or through their attorneys) were given an “essential business” pass to continue building, or operating when all other businesses were shut down. Hospitals and nursing/rehabilitation homes were given the well-touted immunity from any and all liability for deaths that occurred during the height of the Covid-19 spread. It does not matter what was the cause of death. The immunity is very broad. Any accountability for the negligence of nursing home owners, operators and staff, if not gross negligence got a Cuomo signed pass without accountability. We have dubbed those provisions the “Granny Killer Immunity” provisions, and it is noteworthy that these hugely significant provisions were snuck into a well-needed budget bill.

And, for those mega-donors who did not need global sweeps in return for their investment in Cuomo: including exceptions to rules, regulations, standards of behavior or full on immunity, Cuomo returned his donor largesse into important and influential political positions. Some of the megadonor law firms, those responsible for deciding the political slate of Democrats who run in many counties, most notably Kings County were the beneficiaries of client satisfaction. Moreover, to add icing to the cake, the person tasked with investigating the wrongdoing within Cuomo’s administration, notably the nursing homes and the Cuomo sexual harassments allegations is also the beneficiary of many of those donations. Her hands are largely tied, the question is how she will play the political chess game.

It should be clear that where Cuomo did not directly reap the benefits of the nursing home lobby, the major New York hospital chains and the related unions, Cuomo had the benefit of donations from their lawyers and accountants, who stepped in and donated big. Some of the highest donations to Cuomo’s campaign came from law firms representing nursing homes, real estate magnates, construction contractors, their lending banks and finally union members. And, to add insult to injury, some of the top donating law firms also requested and received some of the most extensive PPP loans.

One might consider that the PPP loans actually went to donations to Cuomo’s campaigns if it all comes out in the wash.

We are not providing you with information you could not find on your own. There are countless articles that have questioned the Cuomo donations over the years. Few have connected the dots. We are directing you to the most intriguing of the articles, but there are many more. The following we have only excerpted . We encourage you to read the entire article. It tells an important historical story of who has been scratching who’s back, the graft, the political PAC’s that help to make it possible and the incestuous web of political ties and money. And… this was before Covid-19.

The following is from Forbes October 2020.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo Reaped $6.2 Million In Campaign Cash From 347 State Vendors Who Pocketed $7 Billion Since 2014

[EXCERPTED]

Our auditors at OpenTheBooks.com found 347 state vendors that gave $6.2 million in political donations to Cuomo over a six-year period (2014-2019). Meanwhile, these companies reaped $7 billion in state payments.

These donations represented the equivalent of more than half of the current cash on hand – $11.9 million – in the governor’s campaign committee as of 12/31/2019, according to disclosures.

We created an interactive map displaying by ZIP Code all of the governor’s campaign contributions since 2014. Just click a pin (ZIP Code) and scroll down to see the results that render in the chart beneath the map.

Hospitals – Covid-Positive Patients Transferred To Nursing Homes

The Greater New York Hospital Association (Association) funneled $1 million to Cuomo’s re-election through the state Democratic party in 2018. That same year, the Association and the healthcare union, 1199SEIU, backed Cuomo’s healthcare “reforms” and spent $5.9 million lobbying in Albany.

By February 2020, Cuomo appointed the Association’s past chair and board member Michael Dowling along with 1199SEIU President Dennis Rivera as co-chairmen of the “Medicaid Redesign Team.” (State Medicaid was $4 billion in the red because of Cuomo’s accounting gimmicks.)

Just six weeks before the governor’s appointment, Michael Dowling gave Cuomo a $5,000 campaign donation (12/14/19). (Dowling is also the CEO of Northwell Health – which received $10 million in state payments in 2019.)

Twenty-eight days before the governor made 1199SEIU president Dennis Rivera co-chairman of his Medicaid Team, the union gave $15,000 to Cuomo’s re-election fund (1/6/2020). Since 2014, 1199SEIU backed Cuomo with political endorsements and $95,250 in campaign cash.

Real Estate, Development, and Construction Companies

Between years 2011 and 2020, real estate tycoon Scott Rechler, owner of RXR Realty, LLC, his wife, children, and affiliated LLC businesses gave $540,000 to Cuomo’s campaign fund. Family donations amounted to $385,000 and multiple LLCs funded another $155,000.

Scott’s brother, Todd, Chief Construction and Development Officer at RXR Realty, also contributed an additional $90,000 to Cuomo during the period.

We found four real estate leases owned by RXR Realty affiliated LLCs and signed by two state agencies: Office of Inspector General and Commission on Judicial Conduct. These leases were signed in the years 2014, 2019, and 2020 and are worth $41 million with $13.7 million already paid out. (Note: In 2014, RXR bought the building and the state agencies were existing tenants.)

The public has a right to know whether Cuomo was serving the public interest or his private political interest when his administration negotiated these leases. Every single transaction is a potential conflict of interest.

Furthermore, in 2011, the governor appointed Rechler to the Board of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, where he became chairman. In 2017, the governor nominated Rechler to the Board of the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) and he served until 2019.

Big Four Accounting Firms – $360,000 in campaign cash

The independent accounting firms, Deloitte; Ernst & Young (EY); KPMG; and PriceWaterhouseCooper collectively gave Gov. Cuomo $360,000 in campaign donations during years 2014-2019. The firms reaped $258.8 million in state payments. 

Between 2013 and 2015, New York regulatory agencies and the governor investigated Deloitte, PwC, and EY for alleged wrongdoing. The firms paid $45 million and other penalties to settle the various claims.

Are these firms “independent” auditors with a fiduciary responsibility to taxpayers? We found that the firms coordinated their campaign cash to the governor giving the same amounts on the same days in the same years.

Three of the Big Four – PwC, KPMG, and EY – each gave the exact same amount of campaign cash to Cuomo during the six-year period ($88,333.33). Deloitte contributed another $105,000.

Andrew Cuomo survived without indictment and denies any connection between campaign contributions … [+]
 
OPENTHEBOOKS.COM

For-Profit Nursing Homes Should be de-Licensed- The Elderly Need Protection From Quantifiable Valuation Over Humanity!

Dear Reader:

We have been railing about for-profit nursing and rehabilitation facilities for years: when an elder care facility, any version of elder care, is for-profit, there is utter lawlessness. Money flows like water through a sieve, unencumbered by laws or oversight.

A thorough review of the names of for-profit nursing homes and rehabilitation facilities in New York, cross-checked with PPP Loans reveals that many of them (and/or their attorneys) were some of the largest recipients of PPP Loans during the first round of Covid relief. The second round remains to be seen. They will likely be the first to get PPP Loan forgiveness even though many of them did little, or more accurately nothing to protect their employees or their patients. In fact, the word “nothing” here is quite forgiving. It would mean a passive omission, simple apathy.

To put the narrative in a more truthful perspective, many of the for-profit nursing homes fed their own pockets with the Covid-19 funding. That money should have guaranteed staffing but they were underpaying wages or not hiring. And, many of the country’s nursing homes are owned by the same or similar groups of owners, and they actively manipulated and continue to manipulate the system to profit from Covid-19. Yes! To profit!

Many nursing homes (though not all) take out life insurance on their patients with them as beneficiaries of the policy, when the patient signs in. If that patients makes it past 30-days to 60-days depending upon the policy, the death of the patient generates income to the homes. It is a win/win. Well, the insurers are out – but there is little oversight there either. These are small money policies that generally are unregulated by the insurance industry.

LeadingAge, the “elder care facility advocacy group” believes that the failure of many of these homes cannot be fixed by oversight it can only be fixed by adding money. The comments by LeadingAge imply that there is not enough money to help these facilities take appropriate care of their patients. That is a vile and utterly false interpretation of events. The business model is profit above all else. A view from 30,000 feet shows his analysis doesn’t match the math with respect to many, if not all, of the for-profit elder care facilities.

The problem, in this blogger’s humble opinion: YOU CANNOT BUY MORALITY. IF YOU ARE LACKING IN A MORAL COMPASS, THERE IS NO AMOUNT OF MONEY IN THE WORLD THAT WILL FIX THAT. ADDITIONAL MONEY SIMPLY FEEDS THE MONSTER!

The nursing and rehabilitation home industry is a well-played, well-gamed and manipulated system run by super savvy individuals or groups who know how to game every aspect of the operation. Many are partially owned by the attorneys who represent them and some of those attorneys, at least in NY, help decide who runs on political tickets. These “moblike” industry is a web of somewhat incestuous industry connections. The Elder Care Centers will contract out linen and food services to friends, family or even themselves (a rose by any other name…). They buy drugs from distribution or drug companies owned or operated by their friends, colleagues or even their own corporate enterprises who provide a scratch on their proverbial backs. Foodservice is provided by friends, family or interrelated entities. Mobile medicine is provided by interrelated companies.

These facilities use inexpensive sharps for things like insulin and other injectable drugs that often result in more pain to the patient but less pain to the bottom line. Many reuse insulin or other injectable drug vials but charge each patient for their own, sometimes stockpiling the extra meds and sidestepping laws that prevent the reuse of needles or vials. Instead of giving their patients the name-brand drugs they may have used before admission to their facilities, they give them the generics and file claims for name-brand. They often fail to provide necessary services: occupational, speech, physical and other therapies, they claim to provide those services and bill for them; but many of the patients will attest to what they are not getting and therapy is on the top of that list. They charge for doctor’s visits that don’t happen or are substituted by RN’s, NP’s or PA’s so the doctors are often paid multiple times for the same hour in a day – a reward for often misdiagnosing ailments or over-diagnosing meds.

Facilities that have specialized Dialysis centers associated with their services have little reason to protect a diabetic’s kidneys when a slow destruction of the kidneys yields greater profit. Dialysis is far more profitable then kidney treatment and insulin.

These numbers can be obtained for the asking by law enforcement or anyone reading this blog. Nursing homes and rehabilitations centers need strict oversight absent loopholes. For-profit nursing homes need to be de-licensed – all of them. The ownership of the homes is available on public links. The links between owners in different states can be found by cross checking ownership state-by-state. We have done this analysis with respect to about 30 of the largest of the and most mafia-like ownership groups, which, by the way, own some of the country’s worst nursing homes. We are not stating anything that is not otherwise publicly available and we have been making these claims for years.

No one should be listening to the lobbyists. They have an agenda and quality care for elderly and vulnerable individuals is a far too altruistic endeavor. The lobbyists also have skin-in-the-game and it amounts to a fortune!

New York Assembly releases package of nursing home reform bills

The Democratic-led New York state Assembly released a package of nearly 20 nursing home accountability bills Friday, aimed at tightening restrictions on the hundreds of for-profit facilities.

Among the 19 bills is one sponsored by Assembly Health Chair Dick Gottfried (D-Manhattan) that would prohibit the creation of any new for-profit homes and impose a morratorium expanding the capacity of existing homes.

“Lots of people have been discovering that there are enormous problems in our nursing homes. COVID may have brought them to light and made them worse but a lot of us know those problems have been there for many, many, many years,” Gottfried said during Thursday’s remote Joint Legislative Budget Hearing on Health. 

He railed against the for-profit industry in an interview later Thursday evening with NY1, arguing those nursing homes often have higher infection rates and instances of bed sores among patients.

“We’re not going to license any more for-profit nursing homes or for-profit beds,” he said. “We should stop the creation of for-profit beds…you should [operate a nursing home] to care for people not because you want to make money.”

Right now, there are 401 for-profit, privately owned nursing homes out of the roughly 619 in the Empire State, according to a January report from the office of state Attorney General Letitia James.

To continue reading in The New York Post