as if there weren’t enough reasons to avoid going into a nursing home…

Trump gives nursing homes shocking green light to abuse elderly to point of death https://t.co/nF2RWNmewD pic.twitter.com/9HA9Upkdm5

— R. Saddler 📎🗽 (@Politics_PR) December 26, 2017

Reacting to the demands of lobbyists, the Trump administration has struck down several regulations that have governed the nursing home industry. The New York Times reports that this now means several common citations that used to result in fines will either see reduced penalties or no penalties at all.

These citations have included “failing to protect residents from avoidable accidents, neglect, mistreatment and bedsores.” Americans can now know that their grandparents, parents, or great-grandparents can be neglected and abused without the government exercising oversight.

snip

In his eagerness to undo as many regulations as possible, regardless of consequence, Donald Trump has thrown those policies out the window after the lobbyists for companies that operate the homes got the ear of his administration. A memo from the Trump administration referred to these fines as penalizing a “one-time mistake.” Even if that “one-time mistake” killed someone’s grandmother.

The Times notes one nursing home where the failure to monitor and treat a patient’s wound led to a pain-medication pump slipping through a ruptured suture, protruding from her abdomen. Under the Obama rules, the nursing home at fault — Lincoln Manor in Illinois — was fined $282,954. Under Trump, the home where a person died because of neglect would be fined less than $21,000.