Under current law, nursing homes are gold mines for the plaintiff's bar. Because the law provides incentives to sue and incentives for the nursing homes to pay, the liability insurance costs of nursing homes are soaring out of sight, sending some into bankruptcy. No other states, even those with worse care, have a comparable problem. What is proposed would not prevent claimants from pursuing cases of actual neglect, which do occur occasionally. But it would prevent bed-sore bonanzas.
Lawyers say only bad homes are sued in bad cases.
There is no compelling reason to treat nursing homes differently than hospitals in this regard. Opponents of the bill argue that there is too much reliance on nursing homes and alternatives should be used more often. That is a valid argument, but is beyond the scope of this legislation. A major thrust of the bill is to improve care in the nursing homes by helping with a real problem, which is a lack of staff. That has been tried.