The Stage Was Set for Disaster: For-Profit Nursing Homes, Federal Law, and COVID-19

Abstract

For-profit nursing homes came to dominate nursing-home care in the United States in the second half of the twentieth century, especially after the passage of Medicare and Medicaid legislation in the 1960s. However, for-profit nursing homes on average provided inferior care when compared to state-run and nonprofit nursing homes. Congress attempted to address the problems in nursing homes in the final decades of the twentieth century, but massive statutes and abundant regulations served mostly to legitimize the problematic for-profit nursing home. COVID-19 then tragically underscored the flaws in the legally sanctioned for-profit nursing home as a major socio-legal institution in American life.

Keywords: Nursing homes, infection control, Nursing Home Reform Act, Residents Bill of Rights, deregulation, COVID-19