JBE, the COVID After Action Report (AAR) and the case against Nursing Homes...

It's readily apparent that Nursing Homes are huge liabilities as we look back from the plateau we currently seem to be experiencing here in Louisiana. They house huge concentrations of at-risk populations and even mild outbreaks of diseases, viruses and infections that as a whole our society has a good handle on can decimate the folks crowded into them during the end stages of their lives.

I had an octogenarian (person in their 80's) Grandmother who became a nonagenarian (person in their 90's) when she had to briefly stay in a nursing home after a spill in her home and a transition to stay with my Mother two years back.

Until her final week of life, she remained mentally sharp as a tack. Could remember and recite poems she wrote as a child in rural Mississippi, tell stories about her neighbors and family growing up in the Rural South during the Depression, talk to you about what Trump said on TV that day and had an uncanny ability to kick the tires and translate to you her green thumb in the flower beds while watching you do the work LOL.

This woman wouldn't have been best served in a Nursing Home. Thankfully she had multiple generations of her family that cared for her at the end that spent quality time with her. Yet in Louisiana, the Nursing Home Lobby spent $6,000,000.00 over the last 15 years supporting campaigns of candidates that helped spike reform legislation like SB 357 back in 2018 which would help divert more funding to Louisiana Home Health Care options for Seniors.

To think about how powerful this Lobby and the Special Interest Group it represents is, think about this:

For every Medicaid dollar spent in Louisiana on the elderly and physically disabled, 77 cents goes to a Nursing Home. This is while Home-Based care is cheaper and more popular by a large margin.

In the last 10 years, Nursing Home Rates in Louisiana have risen over 50% (54 to be exact as of 2018). While Home Health Care averages between approximately $13,500 and $33,100 annually for the elderly and physically disabled, nursing homes care costs the state $47,300+ per year per resident.

As we look at the grim statistics and rates of fatality for our most at-risk population and hear horror stories from Nursing Home Facilities across the State, including the Tragic Stats from Lambeth House in New Orleans alone, at what point do we admit that whether we are talking about quality of life, dignity, family and personal choice, good government, fiscal responsibility or reasons of public health...Nursing Homes should only be part of the answer for elderly and physical disability care. Not the only one.

...and before we talk partisanship, solidly conservative politicos from places like Houma, Livingston Parish and Governor's including both Bobby Jindal and JBE have accepted multiple millions in contributions from the Nursing Home Lobby. It's not a partisan issue.

We need to do better.