Political Quotes

“I call my colleagues' attention to an issue that has affected many families in Iowa and throughout the country. That issue is elder abuse and neglect of those same people. Many older Americans reside in assisted care facilities, nursing homes, and all kinds of group living arrangements. It is critical that these care facilities and the staff at the facilities not only follow the law but provide the type of care they would want their own family members to receive. The Des Moines Register last year published reports suggesting a troubling lack of compassionate care for elderly residents in some of the nursing homes in my State. We also had other reports surfacing in 2017 of nursing home workers in at least 18 different facilities taking humiliating and unauthorized photos of elderly residents and posting them on social media websites. Earlier this year, I convened an oversight hearing in which we heard from the daughters of two elderly women who resided in a federally funded nursing home. One testified that her mother, an Iowan, died due to neglect in a facility that held the highest possible rating--a five- star rating--on a Federal Government website. The family discovered that the nursing home was the subject of multiple complaint investigations related to those complaints in recent years.…”