Andrew Cuomo gave immunity to nursing home execs after big campaign donations

[friendly_iconoclast]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/26/andrew-cuomo-nursing-home-execs-immunity

As Governor Andrew Cuomo faced a spirited challenge in his bid to win New York’s 2018 Democratic primary, his political apparatus got a last-minute boost: a powerful healthcare industry group suddenly poured more than $1m into a Democratic committee backing his campaign.

Less than two years after that flood of cash from the Greater New York Hospital Association (GNYHA), Cuomo signed legislation last month quietly shielding hospital and nursing home executives from the threat of lawsuits stemming from the coronavirus outbreak. The provision, inserted into an annual budget bill by Cuomo’s aides, created one of the nation’s most explicit immunity protections for healthcare industry officials, according to legal experts...

...New York has become one of the globe’s major pandemic hotspots – and the center of the state’s outbreak has been nursing homes, where more than 5,000 New Yorkers have died, according to Associated Press data.

Those deaths have occurred as Cuomo’s critics say he has taken a hands-off approach to regulating the healthcare industry interests that helped bankroll his election campaign. In March, Cuomo’s administration issued an order that allowed nursing homes to readmit sick patients without testing them for Covid-19. Amid allegations of undercounted casualties, the governor also pushed back against pressure to have state regulators more stringently record and report death rates in nursing homes...

[Faux pas]

1. Oops

looks like his halo is slipping.

[Igel]

3. This is reasonable.

Cuomo directed the nursing homes to take COVID patients. While he says he was merely following CDC guidance, it was "guidance". "Guidance" is not some sort of funny euphemism in this case for "order".

Letting them get sued for not coping with the high-risk environment government created seems unreasonable.

On the other hand, the curve ball thrown by the infectious asymptomatics makes any lawsuit problematic. We insist that somebody be found to be guilty for anything we don't like, even if guilt is a difficult thing to ascribe. Every victim must have a human oppressor, somebody who, if they'd been on the ball, could have saved them.

[friendly_iconoclast]

4. No, it isn't. This is a 'get out of lawsuits free pass' for Cuomo's campaign donors

Nursing homes were *already* known for poor infection control and overworking their underpaid staff.

Those not involved in nursing home management have known this for years...

[CrispyQ]

2. This is why we need publicly funded elections.

Americans have been successfully programmed to hate the idea of using public funds to pay for elections, and yet it costs us sooooooooo much more in the end. Will we ever wake the fuck up?

Also, I am so sick of being in campaign season all the fucking time! And I know I'm not alone. We have about one year, after the presidential election, where there is minimal campaigning, then it's full on campaigning through the mid-terms and then into the next presidential election. No wonder so many people tune politics out. The entire electoral process needs overhauling.