Obama: Publicize names of bad nursing homes
The Des Moines Register | December 06, 2007
By CLARK KAUFFMAN
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama is threatening to take
action against the federal agency that's keeping secret the names of nursing
homes it has designated as among the worst in the United States.
As The Des Moines Register reported earlier this week, the federal Centers
for Medicare and Medicaid has established a list of 128 nursing homes that
have repeatedly fallen in and out of compliance with health and safety
regulations and caused harm to residents. The agency has shared the full
list of these so-called "special focus facilities" with industry lobbyists
at the American Health Care Association, but has made public only an
abbreviated version of the list that names 54 of the facilities.
On Thursday, Obama called for the agency to immediately make public its
complete list of special-focus facilities. In a letter to Michael Leavitt,
secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which
oversees the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Obama voiced
"serious objections to the withholding of critical information about nursing
home conditions from America's senior citizens."
