The numbers are staggering:
Nursing home residents and staff have accounted for more than 20% of America’s coronavirus deaths even though they make up less than 1% of the entire U.S. population.
There have been countless stories about horrifying levels of dysfunction and disregard at nursing homes all across the country last year — despite the known risk that COVID-19 poses specifically to people who live and work in such facilities.
Yet Republicans in Congress tried to shield nursing homes from being sued for failing to take necessary precautions.
We stopped that.
But then this January, the Trump administration issued a thinly reasoned advisory opinion supporting an argument by nursing homes that they are nonetheless immune from lawsuits seeking to hold them accountable for the consequences of their failure to take basic precautions.
The Biden administration should reject this effort to deprive nursing home residents and their families of their legal rights.
Tell President Biden:
Direct your Department of Health and Human Services to review and revise the wrongheaded Trump-era advisory opinion that nursing homes claim allows them to dodge accountability for harms caused by their own negligence related to COVID-19.
Add your name.
Thanks for taking action.
For justice,
- Robert Weissman, President of Public Citizen
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