8. Department of Justice sues American Health Foundation for `substandard` nursing home careThe Department of Justice filed a lawsuit on June 15 against the American Health Foundation, its affiliated management company and three affiliated nursing homes, alleging they provided “significantly substandard” services to residents between 2016 and 2018. Similar appeals are pending in the Second, Fifth, Ninth, Eleventh and D.C. Districts. These cases are important because they will help determine the extent to which nursing home residents and their survivors can hold facilities accountable for injuries sustained during the pandemic. As of June 1, 2021, more than 184,000 people who have died from COVID-19 in the United States were residents and staff of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. Search for queries by topic or specific case name. For more information about partnering with the Litigation Center, see the Litigation Center Litigation Selection Criteria. Over the next two years, the Supreme Court could review the legality of Medicaid`s block grant programs. These are programs that implement an aggregate or per capita cap on Medicaid spending. In January 2020, CMS sent a letter to the state`s Medicaid directors announcing its intention to approve plans to implement these caps under Section 1115 of the Social Security Act, which gives the agency the authority to waive a state`s compliance with certain Medicaid requirements only for an “experimental project, pilot or demonstration”.

which is likely to help advance the goals of the Medicaid Act. 42 U.S.C. § 1315(A). These cases are important to nursing home residents because they consider whether residents can require states and state agencies to enforce their NHRA rights. Holding care facilities accountable allows residents to obtain compensation for injuries and deter future misconduct. The first group of these cases concerns Article 1557 of the LCA. Article 1557 prohibits discrimination in health care for protected categories. 42 U.S.C. § 18116.

In drafting the law, Congress recognized the need to ensure that all people have access to health services and insurance, regardless of race, color, national origin, sex, age, or disability. The law prohibits such discrimination by applying existing civil rights laws to relevant conduct covered by the ACA. Recently, the Seventh Circuit ruled that the NHRA grants a private right of action under Section 1983. Talevski v. Health and Hosp. Corp. of Marion Cnty., No. 20-1664, 2021 WL 3163061 (7th Cir.

2021). In this case, a resident of a care facility is suing a public facility and others under the NHRA, claiming they chemically detained him and illegally fired him. The district court dismissed the lawsuit on the grounds that a resident cannot use Section 1983 to challenge an NHRA violation. Talevski v Health & Hosp. Corp. by Marion Cty., no 2:19 CV 13, 2020 WL 1472132 (N.D. Ind. 26 Mar. 2020). AARP and the AARP Foundation filed an amicus curiae letter to the Seventh Circuit in support of the resident. To date, 38 states and the District of Columbia have expanded Medicaid. Kaiser Family Found., Status of State Action on the Medicaid Expansion Decisions: interactive map (July 23, 2021).

Since 2017, six states have expanded Medicaid through election initiatives — Maine in 2017, Idaho, Nebraska, and Utah in 2018; and Oklahoma and Missouri in 2020. On January 31, 2020, then-HHS Secretary Alex M. Azar II declared a health emergency in response to the pandemic. HHS then issued a statement activating the protection of the PREP Act, which is in effect from February 4, 2020 to October 1, 2024. A fourth amendment to the December 2020 declaration states: “There are important federal legal and policy issues, as well as important federal legal and policy interests, in a single statewide response to the COVID-19 pandemic between federal, state, local, and private companies.” The defendants believe that this declaration paves the way for seeking federal jurisdiction to suppress state court cases that they say involve immunity under PREP. It is far from certain that law enforcement is an effective tool in the fight against substance abuse. But just as Dobbs overshadowed the ruin, these cases remind us that the addiction crisis continues to worsen even though it has been overshadowed by COVID-19 and other health emergencies.