Personally, I don’t look to the Seattle Times for this kinda stuff anymore. Like most people today, I purchase most of my seniors on Craigslist.
(All snark aside, if there’s anything that makes daily newspapers essential, it’s investigative reporting like this.)
MOSES AND THE RED SEA
This would be a good picture of what Obamacare would look like for seniors, well at least the ones who didn’t follow their “end of life counseling”.
@2;
You realize that this is what senior care looks like now, right?
@1 Are the goats on strike?
It’s worth noting that the picture accompanying the article is actually more shocking online than it was on the front page of yesterday’s paper. The Web copy is a higher-quality image as opposed to the paper’s washed-out halftone, and the latter was also straddling the middle fold.
It would sure be nice to see journalism eventually meld the best of both worlds: the immediate accessibility and vivid media capability of the Internet, combined with a business model that provides the resources for true investigative reporting.
@2 This is a good picture of what frail, elderly, vulnerable Washington citizens look like when DSHS doesn’t have enough money to regulate group homes and assisted living facilities.
As a retired state lawyer, I’ve had some experience with regulated activities, and believe me, I’ve seen photos of worse bedsores than this. You can’t trust for-profit providers to do the right thing on their own. If they aren’t regulated, or if you don’t have enough state caseworkers to monitor them, the private operators will cut corners on staffing and care to boost profits as much as they can, and you’ll get results like this every time.
It’s called “market failure” and is why we need a state bureaucracy to protect our citizens from the worst excesses private business.
Daycare licensors, with caseloads of over 300 licensees, who only have time to process license paperwork and never visit or inspect facilities. Child still dying of abuse because there aren’t enough CPS workers to handle the workload. And so on. DSHS needs more, not less, money and staff.
Take a good look at this photo. It’s the conservative vision for America’s future.
Re 6
Yes government can and should have a regulatory role in assisted living or full care retirement homes. But families have a role to play as well.
My Grandmother passed away a couple of years ago. Some family member visited her 2-3 times a week. We talked to her doctors and nurses about changes in her condition or care once a week. They didn’t offer this service, we inititated it. By contrast many of the people there hadn’t seen a visitor in weeks or months. If a patient is suffering from dementia or related mental capacity issues they can’t speak for themselves in a meaningful way. To simply warehouse a relative just doesn’t work.
Rog–
Why do we need the government, when we have an experienced chap like you!!
You can start a non-Profit and use some of your voluminous free time to go out and heal bedsores!
Why do we need more government when we have such a generous, experienced bedsore expert like you?
Rog’s Motto–
Bedsore’s are moi!
@8 Repeating yourself, Cyn? That’s an early sign of dementia.
Hopefully, the problem described in the article (which also explains the way it evolved out of the best of intentions combined with limited resources and a degree of wishful thinking) will be addressed, some asses kicked, and we’ll get it right, or at least do it better. If you’re are lucky, maybe it’ll save you from winding up like this poor chap.
Why is this shocking? In an unregulated capitalistic system, this kind of thing happens, and is to be expected. Get the most amount of money for the least amount of services.
You corporate conservatives should be trumpeting this as an ideal, because all that matters is profit.
@6 Rabbit is correct on this one “Take a good look at this photo. It’s the conservative vision for America’s future.”
lost @ 7
Good comment. Nice to see you’re not a completely lost cause.
Hi Goldy.
I just read the Times article. Wow. Almost unbelievable that our society treats our elderly so poorly. It’s sick.
I happily pay for news. What Clay Shirky calls “accountability journalism”.
If The Times was smart, they’d add a donate button, with the monies directly supporting the reporter’s work.
Advertising dollars won’t carry journalism any more. We need to fund it directly.
The NY Times and others are going the paywall route. That will hasten their demise. I have mixed feelings about that.
On one hand, we need actual journalism. And the NY Times still surprises me by publishing lucid editorials now and then (e.g. opposing the Supremes recents decision on corporate political contributions).
On the other hand, NY Times still publishes those neocon, pro-corporate pundits (Will, Friedman, Kristof, etc.) and editorials, directly contributing to the destruction of our country.
Many old people don’t have families to check up on them, or their families are across the country or in other countries. It’s not 1950 anymore.
So if the families don’t “regulate”, someone must do it. These homes are opened to make money, not to do good. Ethically, they’re no different from the banks and financial institutions and the insurance companies.
Re 13
No, it isn’t 1950 anymore. A plane or train could transport a relative to where family can monitor their care. Teleconferencing and other electronic forms of maintaining contact exist, if transport is infeasible or against the patients’ wishes. Yes there are people who simply have no-one, but that is the exception, not the rule. Some jobs are just the job of the family, not the government.
I don’t know if you have a relative in one of these homes. I found the staff generally helpful and genuinely caring about the welfare of my Grandmother. They simply didn’t have the personal knowledge we did of her and needed our input to best care for her.
@7 “But families have a role to play as well.”
Spare us your empty platitudes.
Many of these people don’t have relatives in the area. Some don’t have living relatives at all. None of the people in these facilities would be there if they had families willing and able to take care of them.
@8 So your response to my comment is a snarky, supercilious, smartass, off-the-kneecap comedy line? You’re a lightweight, goatfucker, a lightweight.
@11 No, that wasn’t a good comment. It was an emptyheaded comment that lacks useful application in the real world. See #15 for explanation.
RE 15
Most of this is answered in 14.
“None of the people in these facilities would be there if they had families willing and able to take care of them.” This is simply untrue. Many residents need the professional care families simply can’t provide. There is a need for these homes, a need for government regulation, and a need for families to do their jobs.
How much does the old man in the photo go for?
@10 “@6 Rabbit is correct on this one “Take a good look at this photo. It’s the conservative vision for America’s future.””
This is why I chose to be a public servant instead of devoting my life to pursuit of the almighty dollar.
When you say “state lawyer” most people think of the attorney general’s office. The AGO employs about 500 lawyers, most of whom are nonsupervisory litigators working in the trenches, who start at very low pay and work their way up by putting in long hard years of devoted service and demonstrated competence.
But there are almost as many lawyers scattered throughout the state bureaucracy fulfilling various roles, from protecting investors to regulating insurance companies to enforcing a wide range of laws. They, too, work long hours in the trenches, doing unglamorous work, for plumber’s or carpenter’s pay; and at the end of it, the wingnut assholes want to take away their pensions because private corporations are taking away their workers’ pensions so why shouldn’t public retirees get shit on by the employers too? These guys believe in equality of poverty. If you’re not a mercenary like them, in it just for the bucks, they don’t respect you. Fuck ’em, I’m a public servant anyway. I never did it for them, anyway. I did it for people like the guy in the photo.
Obam-Mao–
Redefines fiscal insanity!
Once again, the guy says one thing in his SOU…and immediately follows up with a proposed Budget that contradicts his goals.
http://www.foxnews.com/politic.....unchers/m/
Our National Debt under Obam-Mao is soaring…while Obam-Mao’s words try to reassure us all is well under his control.
Hardly.
This Budget is totally unsustainable.
Hey Rog–
Did you buy the 2 gold stocks I told you to buy?? Oops, you said gold was stupid to own!
ABX 36.50 +1.68 +4.82%
GOLD 72.75 +3.82 +5.54%
Nice Day!
@9
This story is at least 20 years old, it just gets rewritten by a different paper about a different group of vulnerable adults every 5 years or so. The last time it was the PI talking about developmentally disabled adults in community protection programs.
@13
Spend 5 minutes inside the group-home where I work (same system as the ADF’s) and you’d see that your statement isn’t universally true.
There are good folks out there, but they are the minority. Better training and more and better over-site (much of what the state does do is a joke) are needed.
Hopefully, this story will prompted many of the folks at the top of the food chain at Adult and Aging, that are nearing retirement to retire early.
Mr. Cynical previously said the post SOU poll should show a minimum of -7 for the bounce.
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
Gotta love how the NAGs (National Association of Gals) are all a twisted over Pat and Tim Tebow.
He places scripture on his cheek patches. He volunteers every summer to help impoverished children. The more I read, the more I like the Tebows more and more everyday.
Where are the HA Libtardo Ladies on this topic? If you aren’t a jackbooted lockstep pro-abortion type, you are attacked attacked attacked. Sucks to be you guys/gals being on the wrong side of the argument again!
Think of John Edwards who asked Reille Hunter to abort her child. He was ylb arschloch and others presidential choice in 2008. Hmmm…………? Sucks to be a progressive libtardo!
In 2011 per Odumba’s budget the charitable deduction will be eliminated.
Why do progressives hate America?
“Think of John Edwards who asked Reille Hunter to abort her child.”
You should think of Bob Allen, Florida Repuplican, who offered a black undercover cop $20 if he could blow him in a public park toilet.
You should think of the PA Republican, Alan David Berlin, he of the infamous panda costume, who was busted thinking it was his next child victim at the door instead of the cops.
You wingnuts have absolutely no fucking say on morality. Why? Because you’re a bunch of goatfucking degenerates and purveyors of decadence and degradation. That’s why.
Uhhh Steve, what does that have to do with the pro-life Tebow Superbowl ad? As correctnotright would say… “nice deflection”!
Still drinking the Stupid Solution in February 2010. Puddy guesses the addiction is strong in Steve.
While you are at it Steve check out these articles on Mike Easley Dummocrapt.
Looks like federal taxes are going up after all eh HA Libtardos?
Puddy links to a site whining about capital gains and estate taxes. No surprise there. Interesting though, the site our black-guy-who-sold-his-soul-to-wingnut-racists-for-a-tax-cut linked to is called “The Angry White Guy”. Sigh! No surprise there, either.
“Uhhh Steve, what does that have to do with the pro-life Tebow Superbowl ad?”
Puddy, the topic of this thread is, “Republicans Suck”. Get with the program.
Steve, who plays the moron everyday… Puddy gave that link becuz Reuters took down the page after someone in da whitey house complained the truth was being let out of da bag. You’re gonna have your taxes raised, all the way down to $33k incomes fool.
As always you miss the big picture because you are myopic.
Drink some more stupid solution steve.
And Steve, since Odumba won this state by a certain margin… Puddy wonders if that margin holds up for the adult care industry… You know voter percentages = home care by Democratics percentages? Now that would be an interesting study! Who knows that poor dude in the picture could have Democratics care givers.
BTW Steve, if ylb arschloch is still on unemployment this year… the first $2400 of unemployment benefits will be taxed. That’s gotta hurt!
Puddy–
You are truly on top of your game today!!
I thought the KLOWNS would like to see how little Obam-Mao’s SOU and aftermath affected the Generic Congressional Polls–
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
-7 !!
And that reflects the SOU bounce which ought to disappear in the next couple weeks.
TOO DAMN FUNNY!
BTW–
One of my all-time favorite Christian Athlete’s was the late and great Waymon Tisdale. What an incredible man.
Have you heard the Toby Keith song about Waymon?
Cynical,
Yep Toby and Wayman T. were musical friends.
If y’all watch George Steponallofus and his “interview” with Edwards ex-aide Andrew Young you still don’t know john Edwards is a Dummocraptic after an hour of TV coverage on NotSo Good Morning America!