"Florida’s Republican politicians are shielding their campaign donors from liability while chipping away at safety standards for elderly residents." - Read Sludge
Where are these nursing homes? How many seniors may be hurt? Where are these political donations coming from? How much do the donors stand to make from weakened nursing home regulations? What can you do to protect grandma?
This map created with data from the Homeland Infrastructure Foundation provides details of over 3,000 nursing homes in Florida along with details of the number of beds and who owns it.
Handouts to the nursing home industry
"Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and his fellow Republican lawmakers delivered multiple legislative handouts to the nursing home industry. That included extending protections for these companies from COVID-19-related liability lawsuits, as well as reducing the amount of resident care the facilities are required to provide to residents. The legislation came in the wake of the nursing home industry donating hundreds of thousands of dollars to DeSantis and the Florida Republican Party in recent years." - Read Sludge
DeSantis weaken standards
"Gov Ron DeSantis recently signed legislation altering Florida’s mandated staffing requirements for nursing homes, a move sharply criticized by elder care advocates. But it was pushed by the nursing home industry, which said it needed the change to deal with staffing shortages. Florida law requires nursing homes that fail to meet minimum staffing requirements for two consecutive days to self-impose a moratorium on new admissions.
The moratorium must stay in effect until the facility is able to meet the mandated minimum requirements for six days. In legal documents AHCA submitted in support of its April 16 emergency order suspending the license of Destin Health and Rehabilitation Center, regulators included a chart of 28 facilities that had continued to accept new patients even though they were required to put a moratorium in place." - Florida Politics
Opposed by AARP
"AARP opposed the move to lower the nursing care requirements in the bills and also lobbied to keep the moratorium in place. Moreover, Smith said AARP pushed for a change in the law to require AHCA to levy a $1,000 fine against facilities that ignore the law.
“Let’s put our money where our mouth is,” she said, recalling the AARP’s strategy. “If you are going to lower the minimum care then fine them. Make them hurt.”AHCA is authorized to impose a fine of $1,000 on a facility that fails to self-impose a moratorium for noncompliance with minimum staffing requirements. AHCA would not say how much the state has collected in fines from facilities that violated the law. The move to eliminate the moratorium received little public debate or attention as most lawmakers focused instead on the changes to the minimum managed nursing care requirements facilities are required to provide." - Florida Politics
DeSantis Is Giving Nursing Home Companies What They Paid For: Deregulation
"DeSantis has received huge campaign contributions from Florida’s nursing home industry. He is paying that industry back by deregulating nursing homes — including by reducing the amount of care facilities are required to provide to residents.
Florida’s new law reduces the number of hours of certified nursing staff time that facilities must provide to residents each day. This opens the door to nursing homes substituting trained staff for essentially unskilled labor. That is dangerous for residents and a clear step in the wrong direction.
The bill, proposed by Naples-area state representative Lauren Melo (R), amended the law to reduce the number of hours of care per day that nursing residents are guaranteed from certified nursing assistants. Rather than receiving at least 2.5 hours of daily care by a certified nursing assistant, as had been previously required, the bill stipulated that elderly patients only had to receive two hours of such nursing care each day." - Jacobin
How this dashboard was created
- The dashboard includes a data-rich map, a graphic (GIF) and a call to action (vote)
- the GIF was created with the free iMovie app using royalty free images from UnSplash.
- This GIF was overlaid with captions and embedded in a map created with ArcGIS Online using data from the Homeland Infrastructure Foundation.
- The map shows Florida nursing homes with their contact details, details on the deregulation and encourages viewers to vote for responsible, ethical governing.
TakeAway: Stop the dark money and corporate politicians that put greed above public safety. Vote Democrat!
Deepak
DemLabs
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