You Can't Blame This Bit of Conservative Cruelty on Trump

[babylonsister]

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a56857/nursing-home-arbitration-conservatives/

You Can't Blame This Bit of Conservative Cruelty on Trump
This is a pre-existing condition.
By Charles P. Pierce
Aug 7, 2017



LINCOLN, NEBRASKA—The modern conservative brand is cruelty. Sometimes, this cruelty is collateral to other modern elements of conservatism. These include heedless deregulation and, most recently, a mania to erase the achievements of the Obama administration from the statute books and, by all indications, from the mind of humankind. Sometimes, the cruelty is quite obvious and quite deliberate. From The Hill:

The Centers for Medicare & Medicare Services (CMS) announced plans in June to do away with an Obama-era rule that prohibited nursing homes that accept Medicare or Medicaid funds from including language in their resident contracts requiring that disputes be settled by a third party rather than a court. Public comments on the CMS proposal to do away with that rule are due Monday and groups are urging the agency to reconsider.

Gregg said the provisions, known to lawyers as pre-dispute arbitration agreements, create an unequal balance of power between the nursing home and its elderly patients or the family members caring for them. "When you are trying to get someone in a nursing home, often time it's stressful or an emotional time. Often times loved ones can't take care of themselves, so for a nursing home to say in order to get in you have to waive your right is shameful," he said. "We're talking about everything you may have a problem with – abuse, neglect, sexual assault, a wide variety of things – they are now saying you are waiving your right to full justice."

This isn't one you can pin on the president*. This is a move spurred by a conservative judge in Mississippi and taken up by one of those customary coalition of business groups that have financed conservative politics and politicians for 40 years and who have prospered from an arbitration system that they could rig to their advantage, those profits coming at the expense of considerable human misery. That's been the currency of modern conservative politics since way back in the days when Donald Trump was a parasite on the Democratic Party.

[Tanuki]

1. It is incredibly cruel and coercive. Trump is the public face

of an inhumane, heartless, greed-driven agenda in many spheres and although he is totally in synch with it, the OP is correct in pointing out that it didn't start and won't end with him. This particular issue regarding nursing homes is thoroughly reprehensible, as families often face limited choices and are likely to sign away due process rights out of sheer desperation. This seems tantamount to signing something under duress.