HCR ManorCare Bankruptcy and Patients

One of the largest nursing home chains in the U.S., HCR ManorCare Inc. has filed for bankruptcy protection on March 4, 2018 in the Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Delaware.  Quality Care Properties Inc., HCR’s landlord, will take control of the company.

The private-equity firm Carlyle Group owns HCR ManorCare Inc. The departing CEO, Paul Ormond received $115 million in deferred compensation and severance even though HCR is approximately $230 million in debt.

HCR missed numerous rent payments even though Quality Care Properties Inc. agreed to multiple temporary reductions in such payments. Last August QCP took legal action and sued “to replace the company’s management and to appoint a receiver with the power to collect rent.”

The plan of reorganization filed with the bankruptcy court stipulates that the operating business will stay out of bankruptcy and Carlyle’s equity stake will be wiped out.

As per chapter 11 bankruptcy rules, HCR ManorCare will pay all creditors, vendors, and suppliers in full and on time with the exception of QCP. HCR blamed its problems on low reimbursement rates from government health programs.

According to the Wall Street Journal, “The Company, which employs 50,000 people, last year posted a pretax loss of $267.9 million on revenue of $3.7 billion, 82% of which derived from the long-term care business. HCR ManorCare listed $4.3 billion in total assets and $7.1 billion in total liabilities, debt and financing obligations, in court filings.” https://www.wsj.com/articles/hcr-manorcare-files-for-bankruptcy-1520261353?emailToken=3e08c926ad937feb42c06a6e927e293e9epWtsVf4xiOTCAmih%2FzF90OQmpFg%2FwrZe27eRUH2LN9hFhst1liU6fj2rUQEqSWwLOngxtntQr57quk37ilag%3D%3D

When the ownership transfer will be completed, the current Chief Executive Steven Cavanaugh will be replaced by Guy Sansone and Laura Linynsky, the senior vice president at QCP will become interim CFO at HCR ManorCare.

The Toledo-based HCR ManorCare will need approval of the chapter 11 bankruptcy plan within 40 days while QCP will seek government regulatory approval, which may take three to six months, in order to operate a health care business.

HCR ManorCare runs 500 skilled-nursing and rehabilitation centers, assisted living facilities, hospice, and home health agencies. The skilled-nursing industry blames its many problems on low government reimbursement, declining occupancy, and high labor expense.

 “As part of the agreement, HCR ManorCare paid QCP $23.5 million in past-due rent. The companies' plan sponsor agreement stipulates that HCR ManorCare will continue to pay rent during the Chapter 11 period.” http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20180305/NEWS/180309949

According to health experts, HCR ManorCare treated 143,000 patients in 2017 and has experienced declining Medicare reimbursements due to the growing Medicare Advantage plans offered through private insurers.

The bankruptcy agreement promises to provide stability for employees, residents, and patients. However, the turnover of employees at one such HCR ManorCare facility in northern Virginia is constant as I have witnessed first-hand over the last four years.

Medicare has been stripped of more than $716 billion over a ten year period in order to fund Obamacare. This has affected seniors and their medical care, including their ability to keep their doctors or to find specialists. Some have decided to no longer accept new Medicare and Medicaid patients and keep only the well-established patients who were grandfathered into the private system they began to accept. https://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2012/08/16/fact-checking-the-obama-campaigns-defense-of-its-716-billion-cut-to-medicare/#326c1c37385f

Nursing homes are financially strapped due to continuing underfunding. Mark Parkinson, CEO of the American Health Care Association, wrote, "In many areas of the country, nursing homes are paid for only a fraction of the care they provide. Our nation is at turning point where we must decide if we are going to continue to take care of America's seniors and individuals with disabilities." http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20180305/NEWS/180309949

This statement hits home for me. HCR ManorCare patients are cared for in one facility in northern Virginia where the atmosphere is somewhat strained, the staff is always short-handed, residents are not always cared for well, medications are denied because they are too expensive, doctors, nurses, and CNAs come and go without as much as a call to the families, patients fall all the time and break bones and hips as was the case for my mom for the last four years and most recently, UTIs are commonplace due to many reasons, one being lack of proper sanitation and slow diapering, not changing gloves between patients, not changing soiled sheets due to low CNAs to patient ratios, and lackadaisical cleaning of rooms.

HCR ManorCare is not the worst facility in the industry and not the best. There is a constant turnover of aides from African countries and new students come to learn on the job; there are employees and CNAs who really care about their patients and go above and beyond the call of duty; they tend to remain on the job long-term; and there are others who do not care at all for their patients.

It is a difficult and demanding job to care for human beings who are so sick that they can no longer fend for themselves and some are even helpless to feed themselves. Care givers must detach themselves from the pain and suffering and meet their patients’ needs. To make matters worse, some patients have dementia and are not cooperative with their CNAs.

Bureaucrats look at the business side of the operation. Due to financial reasons, social workers are often struggling to find transport for their handicapped patients to doctors and hospitals when families are physically unable to do so.

Occasionally nursing homes replace lost or stolen items, yet there is no plan in place for employees to watch for the dentures of the patients they care for. Consequently, dentures are constantly thrown away with the meal tray even though the nursing home must spend money to replace them.

Patients who no longer have families to insist that lost dentures be replaced, are left toothless and meals are chopped up for them every day. Mom’s nursing home lost four of her dentures, sometimes uppers, sometimes lowers. And it’s not just dentures and glasses that are lost, personal belongings are stolen constantly, and even food brought from the outside disappears.

I have watched new recruits who do not understand well or don’t care how disease spreads and the importance of sanitary conditions and gloved, gowned, and masked precautions for themselves and their patients.

Whether they are good or bad, nursing homes and other rehab facilities are a necessary “evil” that our society does not really understand well until they bother to visit their loved ones more than once a year or wind up themselves in one. Not everybody can afford to buy full-coverage private nursing home insurance in order to spend the last years of their lives in the posh five star private facilities, with care and dignity. But then, who is to say that they will be treated better?

Obamacare Socialized Medicine Rationing and the Elderly

Healthcare is not a right, it is a service provided by doctors and nurses who went to school to learn how to care for a sick human being. And they expect to be compensated for their services. Surely you would not expect your mechanic who learned how to fix your car, repair it for free, because it is your right to have a running vehicle.

Health insurance is not a right either, it is also a service. Can you control what an insurance company does and what pricing systems they use? Can you control what government does now that they are in charge of your socialized health insurance and healthcare, including the 15-member death panel?

We know the Senate does not care about Americans’ health insurance premiums and the quality of their healthcare. If they did, they would not have passed without reading and then failed to repeal the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), socialized medicine under government control. Passed by Democrats in the dead of night, and deemed by the Supreme Court a tax, ACA became a burden for Americans who were mostly satisfied with their previous premiums and their healthcare delivery. Sure, there were improvements necessary but not an entire overhaul worth trillions.

What good is having a shiny insurance card that says you are entitled to Obamacare but that care is denied to you when doctors are not taking your insurance, the quality of care is very poor, procedures are denied due to rationing and age, and your deductibles shot through the roof?

Like most Americans, who saw their health insurance premiums skyrocket and their care worsen since 2010, I am confused why politicians are forcing this monstrosity called Obamacare on us. Congressmen have exempted themselves from Obamacare and are protected by their own private plans but the rest of us will eventually have to suffer under the socialized medicine of the type that sentenced baby Gard to death in the U.K.

Seniors are already treated like "units" in hospitals. My mom was recently the victim of Obamacare in one of the alleged best hospitals in Northern Virginia. She was kept solely on IV fluids for three days, even though she is skin and bones, so that she would not throw up and force doctors to give her the upper GI and endoscopy tests she needed. Instead, they treated her for a bladder infection which was not the reason why she had been brought to the ER - she was vomiting blood and had stroke level BP.  She was crying for solid food!

Her doctor explained to me that they could not do the upper GI and endoscopy because the radiology group located in the hospital gave priority to outpatients, unless an inpatient was currently bleeding and/or vomiting. She vomited but they ignored her. Was it because she is 85 years old and an Obamacare "unit" and not worth spending the money on, or was it because she is a legal immigrant?

She was starved for three days and her important medicines for conditions like blood pressure and dementia were not administered, causing a serious relapse in her physical and mental condition. This is medical abuse when you tell a patient that comes into the ER with serious symptoms that they cannot have procedures except on an outpatient basis at a later date and withhold important meds that they are currently on.

No amount of protests, complaints, or inquiries on my part made a difference. This is what happens under socialized medicine when bureaucrats who know best make life and death decisions over us and our loved ones.

Mom lived under the boot of communism and escaped to this country in her late forties. The communists stripped her of everything she had ever earned, owned, and saved, including her pension after 30 years of work. She was not even given my dad’s pension. She lived here for over three decades under relative freedom. It is sad that now, in her twilight years, she is made to suffer again and will die under the neglect of socialized medicine that allocates funds to more productive individuals. Mom was productive too in her younger years.

Little Charlie Gard lost his battle with socialized medicine rationing in the U.K. Those who are unable to protect themselves, children and the elderly, are the first victims of socialized and rationed medical care because they cannot defend themselves. The way we treat seniors, the weak, and the most vulnerable speaks volumes of our lack of civilization and compassion. We should protect wildlife and our habitat but it seems that we care more for minnows and polar bears than we do human beings.

Mom lost five pounds she could not afford to lose while in hospital care for three days. They were more worried that she might fall than her actual survival. She was not fed anything for three days except water and IV antibiotics. She was lucky to have gotten out with her life.

It is bad enough that some elderly are physically abused in nursing homes and/or neglected by underpaid and understaffed medical personnel; they must now suffer the indignity of denied hospital medical care in the rationing environment of Medicare and Medicaid that were shortchanged in order to help fund Obamacare, and by the scarcity of doctors and nurses created by Obamacare.

So much for the unaffordable Affordable Care Act that provides substandard medical care and offers expensive insurance premiums to Americans who are now faced with huge deductibles each year, possible loss of insurance, and fines by the IRS for non-compliance.

"Enemies Within" Documentary Showing in Northern Virginia

Photo: Ileana Johnson 2017

Following Trevor Loudon’s appearance at CPAC 2017, a small group of activists organized a viewing of Loudon’s documentary, “Enemies Within,” on February 27, 2017.

More than 107 northern Virginians came to hear the introduction by Trevor Loudon and to watch the 89-minute film, highlighting well-documented evidence of the advance of communism in America, specific past and current members of Congress who are self-identified communists and Islamophiles, allegedly involved in anti-American activities whose end-goal is the targeted destruction of our country.

Among those present were special guests, Phil Haney, Jim Simpson, and Max Friedman, who appeared in the documentary.

Trevor Loudon, the producer and writer of the documentary, is an activist from Christ Church, New Zealand.  He started his political action in 1986 when he campaigned then against the Soviet Marxist subversion of his country, pursuing a halt to diplomatic and trade relations with the Soviet Union on the grounds that it is a “hostile totalitarian dictatorship seeking world domination.”

As Loudon was introduced, the audience learned that Accuracy in the Media brought Trevor Loudon’s political activism to the attention of the American public. Some Americans heard Loudon speak for the first time at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

Hailing from the “real south,” the south Pacific, Loudon introduced his friend, Max Friedman, who “used to get into the face of Bill Ayres, went to all of the commie meetings, looking just like any other long-haired hippie. He is a walking encyclopedia of the left. He understands how insidious these people are and how much damage they have done to this country.”

America, as the freest and richest country in the world, is populated by the world’s most generous, benevolent, kindly, and tolerant people, said Loudon. But a little bit of “naiveté and complacency” make it hard for Americans to understand “evil.” Loudon argued that it is difficult for Americans to understand that their own “Senators and Congressmen want to do this country harm.”

People who had lived under communism understand this kind of “evil” that had enslaved them, killing millions if they dared to protest or question the totalitarian dear leader. But Americans take the gift of freedom for granted, a gift their Founding Fathers had to pay for dearly, said Loudon.

Why would a New Zealander come to America and worry about this country’s future? Loudon explained that the first reason was gratitude. It was the American men, our fathers and grandfathers, who saved New Zealand from imminent Japanese occupation. Hopping from island to island, the Japanese were so sure of their victory, that they had already printed the currency which they were going to use in Australia and New Zealand. Your fathers, uncles, grandfathers took them on at Guadalcanal and Midway and stopped them “stone cold.” Every older New Zealander understands and is grateful for the sacrifice these American men had made.

The second reason is a bit more selfish, said Loudon. As Ronald Reagan had said, “this is the last hope for mankind,” If you lose your Constitution, your liberty, your economic dynamism, and your military superiority, all of which have been totally trashed for the last eight years,” the bad guys of the planet will take over.”

The entire globe owes Americans a huge debt of gratitude for having elected Donald Trump. If it was not for your activism, we would have Hillary Clinton sitting in the White House and the whole world would be in terror of what was coming next.”

And then there was divine intervention, not unlike the divine intervention during the Revolutionary War. This is a special country with a special destiny, said Loudon. “This country, with its farmers and settlers, took on the biggest world power at the time, the British Empire, and they beat them. How miraculous was that?”

“We have been given a four-year reprieve. Donald Trump is not a miracle cure-all. We have to do anything in our power to set this country back on its successful course, to be the leader of the free world once again.”

Brexit “was the warm-up act,” Donald Trump followed, and we must make sure that the success defeating the globalists will continue in the future, for many terms. It took one hundred years or more to get to where we are today, and we cannot reverse course overnight. The Western world depends on individual citizens’ activism. We must fight and defeat the hardened American-grown revolutionaries who have been working tirelessly for over a century to bring about global communism.

Loudon is preparing a series, America Under Siege, as a follow up to the documentary, Enemies Within. According to Loudon, “there are at least 100 members of Congress (such as Gerry Connolly) and 20 members of the Senate (such as Tim Kaine) who are so enmeshed in the Muslim Brotherhood, neo-communism, or both, they could not pass an FBI background check to sell you stamps at the post office.” There are zero background checks for our Congressmen and Senators yet they are serving on the Intelligence Committee, on the Armed Services Committee, and on many others of the sixteen key intelligence committees.

The evening ended with the viewing of the documentary and a short Q & E.

 

 

 

Is This Our New America?

Golden Eagle with Chopped Wing
Photo: Wikipedia commons

The young woman was shopping on the 75 percent off rack of children’s clothes. Our eyes met and she smiled; in these hard times we must shop wisely to make money stretch further, she said. I remember those years in the mid-twenties, with two babies, a mom to support, and at least three part-time jobs. I never complained, blamed rich people, rioted to burn down other people’s hard work, or demanded that they turn their accumulated wealth over to me. It was a time when law and order mattered. Effort and hard work eventually paid off when I made a huge and lengthy investment in human capital – my education.

Today the only luxury the young woman allowed herself was a first baby’s Christmas ornament for her newborn. One of the only two Caucasian associates in this department store, she earns a living standing eight hours a day, waiting on demanding and often rude customers who hail from two hundred plus different countries. It is always a United Nation’s zoo, a cacophony of nationalities and people who do not have much love for America, they just enjoy its opportunities and the new found Shangri La of better treatment than poor Americans and vets get.

She has to meet impossible sales numbers set by corporate management from another planet who do not care that the economy is bad, the result of eight years of destructive Democrat Marxist activism that weakened the economy and doubled the indebtedness for generations to come. People do not have a lot of disposable income, unemployment is high, and many save money by staying home and ordering online.

Few customers want to fight the crowds and the rude salespeople who are mostly Middle Eastern and treat shoppers with contempt and rudeness just like they did in their own countries. Who wants to be friendly in a country they resent with passion? They are not even nice to the few Americans who have to work with them; they treat them like pariahs and threaten them with bodily harm if they say or do anything that might offend their Muslim sensibilities. They scream racism and bigotry for every little thing to their bosses who always take sides with the Muslims for fear that they might be considered Islamophobes. Shopping in northern Virginia is an unpleasant experience that many try to avoid.

Most of the heavily made-up Middle Eastern associates are uneducated and have no skills, they cannot possibly work anywhere else except sell merchandise in stores. There are some who do wear hijabs and some burkas. It was an interesting experience one day to go to a local computer store and to be met by an IT associate wearing a complete black tent with slits for eyes. To say that it was uncomfortable being helped by this person is an understatement. How can you relax when you cannot really see who you are talking to? I’ve seen some driving on the busy and dangerous roads of northern Virginia. I wondered if their driver’s licenses concealed their identities as well. It was an eerie experience as if I’ve been transported back in time into the seventh century slave bazaars.

I don’t know about you but I like to have a temporary friendly relationship with the person helping me spend money and, if you are rude and I can’t see you, I have to move on to shop somewhere else. But there are not many "someplace elses" left that are different from this experience.

We are fast becoming strangers in our own country, being pushed aside by a theocracy that is alien to our nation. It has not caught up yet in other parts of America but it is moving fast in that direction. If the stunt the Starbucks CEO pulled the other day, saying that he will hire 10,000 refugees from Syria instead of Americans out of work, is any indication of what is to come in the near future, our services work force will be fast replaced by laborers from unskilled nations.

There is a growing workforce in the restaurant business and landscaping, mostly people coming from south of the border, hard and conscientious workers. But they have a large family at home that takes full advantage of the generous welfare benefits in this country. This south of the border workforce has replaced high school and college students who used to work part-time to supplement their income while in school.

Collegiate Americans, lovers of activism, Bolshevism, communism, and ardent Islamophiles seem to have found a niche in the paid-protest and paid-rioters business. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs), well-funded by billionaire elites, who know that global communism is best for us, remunerate these masked, black-clad agitators really well. Anti-Americanism, raised to a fever and violent pitch, has become quite lucrative. They seem to be untouched by law and order so the mayhem and destruction continues.

We are told non-stop by the main stream media that these refugees do the jobs Americans don’t want to do. Is that really true? Illegals work for lower wages, often under the table, so their employment depresses wages in general.

In between rioting, looting, burning, and physically beating people who disagree with them, Lefties keep screaming, “that’s not who we are as a nation, we are a nation of immigrants.” Yes, we are a nation of legal immigrants who assimilated into our culture, and we helped build it but we have reached our point of immigration saturation before we turn into the failed multicultural Europe that is being destroyed by the flotsam and jetsam of the welfare dependent third world.

Immigrants refuse to assimilate, we are told by the fanatical “experts” of the left, because it is “fascistic” to expect them to assimilate their “superior” and primitive culture into such an “awfully intolerant” country that took them in and supported them financially without any questions asked.

If liberals were not so “open-minded” that their brains fell out long time ago, they could perhaps answer the logical question, if we are such a racist, bigoted and intolerant place to live, why come here in the first place, why not stay in the country that is so much better than ours?

Spare us the indignity of having to support you and your extended families while you threaten us with lawsuits because we don’t accept Sharia Law over our Constitution. We are rolling out the red carpet for refugees while many of our veterans are sleeping in the streets. Is this our new America?

Smart Meters and Shopping

Samples of Smart Meters

I went shopping today for a pair of pants. I was hoping it would only take a few minutes. How difficult could that be in the land of plenty? As I entered the large department store, I was greeted by stifling heat and humidity. This particular department store chain uses smart meters, cycled and controlled by the power company from a remote location in order to “save” them money. Customers and employees suffer because a small group of elites have managed to convince and bribe bureaucrats and politicians into pushing the agenda of non-existent global warming.

Driving to the mall, I rolled my eyes as the radio announced that today is an all-day power cycling for those with smart meters who have signed up to reduce their electricity cost. This means no air conditioning when it’s 100 plus degrees Fahrenheit with the heat index.

Those who think they are saving electricity and suffer in the hot days of summer and cold days of winter to “save the planet” from some apocalyptic disaster are actually charged higher rates compared to those who use more electricity. Credulous individuals who have bought the global warming nonsense and Gaia worship are actually helping power companies. Utilities don’t have to buy or build facilities to store excess power during times of peak usage. It is all about making money, not about saving the planet.

The associates, a fancy euphemism for a salesperson, were milling about hot and sweaty, seemingly in a state of melting, totally uninterested in helping me. I made eye contact with several people, and nobody offered to help. Why would they? They are paid a basic salary whether they try very hard or not at all. It reminded me of the communist workers’ motto, “We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us.”

Salespeople in this area of northern Virginia are mostly foreigners who have immigrated to the United States, legally or illegally, for the opportunity of a better life. Sadly though, they’ve brought with them the customs and work ethic of their former third world dictatorships they’ve escaped. They are content with mall wages (previously the place for summer jobs of college students) because, by any comparison with their countries, working conditions and the hourly pay are far superior. Many of them qualify for and receive welfare and Obamacare subsidies and are none too shy to apply and accept them. If the crazy Gringos are passing out leaflets in Spanish teaching them how to do it, why not take advantage of free money?

I finally found someone who relented to help me but she was struggling with the cash register and the simple mathematical calculation. By now sweating profusely and feeling sorry for the frustrated salesclerk, I gave up and left without purchasing anything. I was in terrible need of a cold glass of water.

In a different department store where employees speak English well, are polite and eager to help because they are paid on commission, I am greeted friendly as soon as I set foot in the door and a sales associate guides me in the right direction immediately. The store is comfortably cool.

It is the difference between night and day, between a business run on the capitalist model and a business run and staffed on the socialist model where nobody cares if customers are helped, merchandise is snagged from your hands if you do not make up your mind quickly, and clothes cannot be tried on or returned for hygienic and sanitary reasons.

I understand the sanitary part. It may not be such a bad idea since we live in an area with a high population of illegal immigrants who were not checked for communicable diseases like scabies and parasites like lice and bed bugs when they invaded our border.