A Stage Set for Disaster: For-Profit Nursing Homes, Federal Law, and COVID-19

Abstract

This article exposes the tragic relationship between for-profit nursing homes and the spread of COVID-19 in those facilities. For-profit nursing homes came to dominate nursing-home care in the United States in the second half of the twentieth century. However, for-profit nursing homes on average provided care which was inferior to the care provided in state-run and nonprofit nursing homes. Congress attempted to address the problems in nursing homes in the final decades of the twentieth century, but massive statutes and abundant regulations served mostly to legitimize for-profit nursing homes. COVID-19 then underscored the flaws in the legally sanctioned, for-profit nursing homes, as thousands died within the problematic institution’s walls.