Times sort of writing about Dowagiac Nursing Home

Published 3:33 pm Monday, October 15, 2007

By Staff
Did you see the story in the New York Times about Dowagiac Nursing Home?
Well, the Sept. 23 article didn't specifically mention Dowagiac Nursing Home, but it sure sounded like a similar situation before the state shut it down in July.
The Times examined more than 1,200 nursing homes purchased by private investment groups by examining data available from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a division of the Department of Health and Human Services.
The Times examined more than 1,200 nursing homes purchased by large private investment groups since 2,000, and more than 14,000 other homes.
The analysis compared investor-owned homes against national averages in multiple categories, including complaints received by regulators, health and safety violations cited by regulators, fines levied by state and federal authorities, the performance of homes as reported in a national database known as the Minimum Data Set Repository and the performance of homes as reported in the Online Survey, Certification and Reporting database.
The Times highlighted a 150-bed nursing home in Tampa, Fla., that was struggling when a group of large private investment firms bought it and 48 other nursing homes in 2002.
Managers quickly cut costs.
Within months, the number of clinical registered nurses was half what it had been a year earlier.
Budgets for nursing supplies, resident activities and other services also fell. Soon, investors and operators were earning millions of dollars a year from their 49 homes.
Residents fared less well.
Over three years, 15 died from what their families contend was negligent care in lawsuits filed in state court.
Regulators repeatedly warned the home that staff levels were below mandatory minimums.
When regulators visited, they found malfunctioning fire doors, unhygienic kitchens and a resident using a broken leg brace.
"They've created a hellhole," said a woman who sued in 2004 when her mother died after a large bedsore became infected by feces, only to find its owners and managers spread control among 15 companies and five layers of firms, preventing her attorney from definitively establishing responsibility for her mother's care.
War in Iran: "Some time early next year, Dick Cheney is planning to start his third war in the Middle East," Robert Dreyfuss, author of "Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam," minces no words in the Oct. 18 Rolling Stone.
That makes complete sense, based on our military being stretched thin by being bogged down in two wars already in Afghanistan and in Iraq.
Sure, the country is in an anti-war mood, but Cheney never lost sleep fretting about public opinion.
It is the same m.o. by which Cheney set the table for war in Iraq: ignore objections from the State Department and the military, engage in token talks, then mobilize American troops after declaring United Nations efforts pointless.
There was his implied threat made in May aboard the aircraft carrier U.S.S. John C. Stennis in the Persian Gulf.
"With two carrier strike groups in the Gulf, we're sending clear messages to friends and adversaries alike" to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and regional dominance.
Since escalating the conflict could cost their Republican Party at the polls in 2008, would Bush, who asked Congress for $195 billion in war spending while vetoing $35 billion for children's health insurance, and Cheney really bomb Iran?
"We see a stubbornness in the president that is virtually unique," former Reagan aide Doug Bandow tells the magazine. "What does he care about the party's future? He parachuted into politics on his father's coattails. He's never been much of a party guy, and I think he could care less. Cheney's more of a Republican, but he's at the end of his career. He just might be ready to bring the whole house down on top of them if that's what it takes."
An Illinois man who evaded justice for almost a year for leaving the scene of an accident on Edison Road fatal to William Bennett Jr., 50, of Mishawaka, Ind., pleaded guilty Oct. 9.
Daniel S. Berebitsky, 43, faces up to eight years in prison for the November 2006 traffic death of Tim Bennett's brother.
Tim Bennett, who now lives in Los Angeles, was Dowagiac's Elks Citizen of the Year in 2003.
Quips, quotes and qulunkers: "Ignoring reality has become our national psychic self-preservation strategy … We're tuning out everything that threatens to invade our willfully oblivious bubble."
– Rob Sheffield. Or, why worry about another war when you can surf over to VH1 and watch Mystery in a fuzzy Dr. Seuss hat teach pick-up artistry?
"Every American loves free speech – for themselves. We think the other guy should shut up and sit down … nine out of 10 minutes of radio talk broadcast in America on any given day now takes a conservative view … If the FCC were to reimpose the Fairness Doctrine, talk radio would no longer be a part of the GOP base … The sad irony is that the only voice that isn't being heard in all this talk over talk is that of the public, which, after all, owns the airwaves over which this struggle is being waged."
– Tim Rutten,
Los Angeles Times
"What was striking about the performance of the leading Republicans was the absence of fresh policy ideas … given the economic travail in Michigan, where the candidates were debating, such complacency seemed more than a little odd."
– Washington Post political columnist David Broder on the GOP presidential debate in Dearborn Oct. 9
"People don't sing happy songs if they're broke. If you fix our communities, we'll fix our lyrics."
– Mississippi rapper David Banner, who testified before the House of Representatives on Sept. 25
"Forty-seven people got their Green Bay Packers season tickets this year. Some of them have been waiting since 1970, the year the Beatles broke up. If you put your name on the waiting list today, you would be number 74,659 … you'll have your tickets by the 3074 season. Luckily, you'll still catch Brett Favre's last year."
– Rick Reilly in Sports Illustrated. The SI jinx lives. The "USC on fire" cover was followed by "LSU still standing on top," although famous fan James Carville in his self-interview, "A Good Time to be a Tiger," was smart to reflect on being "scared to death of Kentucky this week." He also dubs himself "prophet" for pointing out the "uninspired, gutless football" Michigan plays as early as 2004. The Democratic political consultant notes that on Sept. 15, Akron, Buffalo, Citadel, CMU (Fire up Chips!) and Florida Atlantic averaged 28.6 points against Big Ten
opponents.
"(John McCain) will sometimes say what he actually thinks, even if it costs him politically – like calling Jerry Falwell and other televangelists 'agents of intolerance' … The cruelest irony of the McCain campaign is that had Bush not invaded Iraq, we might be looking at the runaway favorite for the presidency … It seems amazing to say, but in the Bush era, distancing oneself from the Spanish Inquisition actually qualifies as an act of political courage."
– Matt Taibbi
in the Oct. 18 Rolling Stone
"You know something is wrong when the New England Patriots face stiffer penalties for spying on innocent Americans than Dick Cheney and George Bush."
– Democratic presidential candidate and New Mexico
Gov. Bill Richardson
President George W. Bush and his economic team are proud of their $162.8 billion federal budget deficit in the fiscal year just ended because it's better than the $248.2 billion they racked up the year before.
National debt, meanwhile, has ballooned to $9 trillion on Bush's watch.
Democrats punish Michigan: Five candidates have withdrawn from our Jan. 15 presidential primary, turning it into a beauty contest for Hillary Rodham Clinton. Barack Obama, John Edwards and Bill Richardson filed paperwork Oct. 9, the deadline to be removed from the ballot. Joe Biden and Dennis Kucinich said they are also bypassing Michigan's primary, leaving Sen. Clinton of New York, Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut and Mike Gravel to woo a critical Midwest state which crossed Democratic National Committee rules in moving its primary earlier in a process which New Hampshire and Iowa apparently still own.
The DNC also vowed to strip Michigan of its 156 delegates.
A Democrat not running for the White House, former vice president Al Gore, won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on global warming.
How are peace and climate change connected?
The Nobel Committee said an ever hotter Earth "may induce large-scale migration and lead to greater competition for the Earth's resources … There may be increased danger of violent conflicts and wars, within and between the states," like the one brewing for the Great Lakes. The Southwest wants our water so they can go on watering their lawns, filling their pools and building more desert casinos.
George Harrison will be profiled in a documentary directed by Martin Scorsese, who gave similar treatment to Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones.
Miller and Coors, the second- and third-largest brewers, plan to join forces to compete with leader Anheuser-Busch.
The deal, announced Oct. 9, would place 80 percent of the U.S. beer market in the hands of two companies, MillerCoors and Anheuser-Busch.
Collins &Aidman Corp. survived the Depression to become a Fortune 500 auto supplier, but it went out of business Oct. 12 after collapsing under the weight of its own debt, auto industry troubles and an accounting scandal involving former CEO David Stockman, for which our former congressman and Reagan budget director awaits trial on criminal charges of bank fraud, lying in financial statements and to auditors.
In 2001 alone, C&A doubled in size to sales of $4 billion through acquisitions.