Social Welfare Law Commons^™

America’S Constant Crisis Of Care: The Case For Passing A National Direct Care Ratio For Nursing Homes, Marissa Espinoza

Journal of Law and Policy

For decades, the conditions in America’s nursing homes have been the subject of bombshell media reporting, governmental investigations, and public outrage. Longstanding issues—such as chronic staffing shortages and inadequate infection control measures—were laid bare as the COVID-19 pandemic tore through nursing homes, exposing society’s most vulnerable populations—the elderly and the sick—to appalling living conditions. Amid horrifying media reports documenting life inside nursing homes, and in response to mounting public outrage, legislators sprang into action. The most aggressive policy proposed was a direct care ratio, which caps the profits that nursing home owners can extract from facilities by mandating a minimum …