Letters to the Editor
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We, the Patients of the United States
There is an article in today's New York Times about how nursing home care is deteriorating while profits climb, and lawsuits that might otherwise discourage negligence and unnecessary deaths are now too difficult to conduct. The reason? No one can determine the ownership of these facilities. Private investment forms have gobbled up these money-makers and figured out how to protect themselves with a maze of perfectly legal ownership structures and layers of obfuscation. Patients die of ridiculous things like infected bedsores, and too bad.
Sounds just like what's going on here, too. "Not my fault, I didn't know." Everybody's got just a little piece of ownership in this war, and even if we could punish an owner here and there, it wouldn't make a dent. There is just too much green, green money to be made.