No limits on abuse

Place me squarely in the camp that believes protecting the elderly and most dependent among us in nursing homes far outweighs the desire of the group calling itself Health Care Access for Arkansans to limit the amount of legal damages such facilities must pay to residents they victimize through neglect or abuse.

Using what strikes me (and many others) as a misleading title cloaked in innocence, this group has submitted petitions to the Secretary of State in an attempt to place a constitutional amendment on the fall ballot. If approved and voters say yes, that amendment would limit attorneys to collecting a third of all damages awarded in a nursing-home civil suit while restricting noneconomic damages for each victim's suffering to $250,000.

A sweet deal for the nursing-home industry, yet clearly a move that hands residents of these care facilities the butt end of a thorny switch.

Reporter Spencer Willems wrote the other day that attorney and Blue Hog Report blogger Matt Campbell filed a complaint with the state's Ethics Commission over the lack of transparency in who's contributing to these amendment efforts and specifically who's given how much of the $606,000 collected to see the amendment placed on the ballot and approved at the polls come November.

Campbell reported that the Arkansas Health Care Association (an organization of Arkansas' long-term-care homes) has contributed some $330,000 toward Health Care Access for Arkansans' amendment efforts.

And based on specific percentages (determined by revenue or operating expenses) that any group is allowed by Arkansas law to contribute to state political movements, Campbell filed his ethics complaint against the Health Care Association, claiming the group's contributions make it a ballot question committee subject to registration and disclosure of funding sources. Now Arkansans need the commission to act quickly in its decision.

While I realize this explanation can prove tedious, the underlying point to Campbell's complaint is simple. Should the Arkansas Health Care Association be allowed to avoid identifying specific contributors of roughly half the funds raised by the lobbying Health Care Access group without disclosing which association members have given (and how much) to pushing the amendment to clearly benefit them?

I believe Campbell is likely to be proven correct. He should be. All contributors hoping to amend our state's constitution should be known.

Meanwhile, as valued readers know, I've always turned to the state's tireless champion for nursing-home residents, Martha Deaver of Conway, when it comes to matters involving the well-being and proper care of those who occupy these places.

I do so because no one better understands what's going on behind the walls. And, as we might suspect, an irate Martha, president of Arkansas Advocates for Nursing Home Residents, has come out with both fire hoses gushing to hopefully extinguish the Health Care Access effort.

Deaver and her group, the Committee to Protect Arkansas Families, filed formal paperwork the other day that enables them to publicly fight for the rights of families and maintain accountability in heath care across the state. The group's primary thrust will be to "disqualify and/or defeat the misguided attempt to amend the state's constitution" which would place an arbitrary figure of $250,000 on human life.

She issued a statement condemning the "special-interest lobbyists" behind the proposed amendment that's she believes is so clearly designed to protect nursing homes' bottom line at the expense of family members entrusted to their care. "Furthermore," she said, "this is an attack on our justice system and will protect the people who neglect our elderly family members."

"Arkansans cannot sit back and allow our constitutional right to a trial by jury be stolen from our most frail and vulnerable citizens. Many of these citizens cannot stand up for themselves, but have spent their entire lives as productive, honorable Arkansas taxpayers. Arkansans need to know that very own tax dollars pay these nursing homes ... to the tune of $400 million a year."

She told me public data she's reviewed document hundreds of serious abuse violations occurring in Arkansas facilities annually. "I will not stand by silently and allow those wealthy nursing-home owners to be protected when it's our Arkansas nursing-home citizens who need protection."

"It is clear that the so-called 'Health Care Access for Arkansans' is actually an organization bought-and-paid for through the nursing-home industry's dark money machine to increase nursing-home profits," said Deaver. "It was just a matter of time before people started to connect the dots behind this organization created to push a constitutional amendment that would give nursing homes a free pass to abuse the elderly. I look forward to the Ethics Commission's attention and speedy response to this matter."

I think many good folks across the state share such feelings. And I can't help but wonder, even if these groups get their way and the petition has sufficient signatures to make it onto the ballot, just how many Arkansans would vote to shortchange the most feeble and vulnerable adults among us.

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Mike Masterson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at mmasterson@arkansasonline.com.

Editorial on 07/23/2016

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