The Florida nursing home where eight residents died after the facility’s air conditioning went out during Hurricane Irma may be able to avoid accountability in a court of law through the industry wide practice of forcing residents to sign arbitration clauses. These contractual agreements require residents to essentially sign away their legal right to sue the nursing home in court if they are seriously injured and instead have their claims heard by arbitrators hand picked by the nursing homes themselves.
Aaron Mate of The Real News recently sat down with F. Paul Bland, Jr., an Executive Director at Public Justice, to discuss the dangers nursing home residents face as well as how nursing homes and assisted living facilities are fighting rules from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Studies to strip away forced arbitration agreements.
