Dems Once Again Approve Handing Money To States Under Investigation For Failing To Protect Nursing Home Residents

New Revelations Show Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s (D-NY) Aides Rewrote A New York Health Department Report On Nursing Home Deaths, Which Undercounted Deaths By Thousands

“New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s top advisers successfully pushed state health officials to strip a public report of data showing that more nursing-home residents had died of Covid-19 than the administration had acknowledged, according to people with knowledge of the report’s production. The July report, which examined the factors that led to the spread of the virus in nursing homes, focused only on residents who died inside long-term-care facilities, leaving out those who had died in hospitals after becoming sick in nursing homes. As a result, the report said 6,432 nursing-home residents had died—a significant undercount of the death toll attributed to the state’s most vulnerable population, the people said. The initial version of the report said nearly 10,000 nursing-home residents had died in New York by July last year, one of the people said.” (“Cuomo Advisers Altered Report on Covid-19 Nursing-Home Deaths,” The Wall Street Journal, 3/04/2021)

• “State officials now say more than 15,000 residents of nursing homes and other long-term-care facilities were confirmed or presumed to have died from Covid-19 since March of last year—counting both those who died in long-term-care facilities and those who died later in hospitals. That figure is about 50% higher than earlier official death tolls.” (“Cuomo Advisers Altered Report on Covid-19 Nursing-Home Deaths,” The Wall Street Journal, 3/04/2021)

“Top aides to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo were alarmed: A report written by state health officials had just landed, and it included a count of how many nursing home residents in New York had died in the pandemic. The number — more than 9,000 by that point in June — was not public, and the governor’s most senior aides wanted to keep it that way. They rewrote the report to take it out, according to interviews and documents reviewed by The New York Times.” (“Cuomo Aides Rewrote Nursing Home Report to Hide Higher Death Toll,” The New York Times, 3/04/2021)

• “After the state attorney general revealed earlier this year that thousands of deaths of nursing home residents had been undercounted, Mr. Cuomo finally released the complete data... But Mr. Cuomo and his aides actually began concealing the numbers months earlier, as his aides were battling their own top health officials, and well before requests for data arrived from federal authorities, according to documents and interviews with six people with direct knowledge of the discussions, who requested anonymity to describe the closed-door debates. The central role played by the governor’s top aides reflected the lengths to which Mr. Cuomo has gone in the middle of a deadly pandemic to control data, brush aside public health expertise and bolster his position as a national leader in the fight against the coronavirus.” (“Cuomo Aides Rewrote Nursing Home Report to Hide Higher Death Toll,” The New York Times, 3/04/2021)

• “As the nursing home report was being written, the New York State Health Department’s data — contained in a chart reviewed by The Times that was included in a draft — put the death toll roughly 50 percent higher than the figure then being cited publicly by the Cuomo administration.” (“Cuomo Aides Rewrote Nursing Home Report to Hide Higher Death Toll,” The New York Times, 3/04/2021)

The New York State Attorney General Is Investigating Deaths Related To Gov. Cuomo’s Decision To ‘Send Nursing Home Residents Who Had Been Hospitalized With The Coronavirus Back To The Nursing Homes’

“[T]he New York State attorney general, Letitia James, reported on Thursday morning that [New York Gov. Andrew] Cuomo’s administration had undercounted coronavirus-related deaths of state nursing home residents by the thousands. Just hours later, Ms. James was proved correct, as Health Department officials made public new data that added more than 3,800 deaths to their tally, representing nursing home residents who had died in hospitals and had not previously been counted by the state as nursing home deaths. The state’s acknowledgment increased the overall death toll related to those facilities by more than 40 percent. Ms. James’s report had suggested that the state’s previous tally could be off by as much as 50 percent.” (“N.Y. Severely Undercounted Virus Deaths in Nursing Homes, Report Says,” The New York Times, 1/28/2021)

• “But the report by Ms. James, a fellow Democrat, casts a renewed light on the state’s decision to send nursing home residents who had been hospitalized with the coronavirus back to the nursing homes, a policy that Mr. Cuomo has defended as following federal guidelines. At the same time, Ms. James’s assertion of an undercount of deaths gave credence to theories that the state may have intentionally played down the number of those deaths to avoid blame.” (“N.Y. Severely Undercounted Virus Deaths in Nursing Homes, Report Says,” The New York Times, 1/28/2021)

• “The attorney general’s report also scrutinized immunity provisions granted to health care providers codified by Mr. Cuomo in the state budget. The report said the protection of immunity may have prompted some nursing homes to make financially motivated decisions at the height of the pandemic, like admitting patients even when the facilities were facing staff shortages or were unequipped to care for them. Indeed, Ms. James’s office is still investigating and weighing legal action stemming from complaints made to her office about shortcomings and neglect that may have placed residents at risk. Those include allegations of nursing homes that failed to isolate Covid-19 patients, maintain stockpiles of personal protective equipment, properly screen employees for the virus or ensure adequate staffing levels even before the pandemic.” (“N.Y. Severely Undercounted Virus Deaths in Nursing Homes, Report Says,” The New York Times, 1/28/2021)

• “Ms. James said that her office was investigating those circumstances ‘where the discrepancies cannot reasonably be accounted for by error or the difference in the question posed.’ The attorney general said she was continuing to conduct investigations of more than 20 nursing homes across the state that ‘presented particular concern,’ noting that ‘other law enforcement agencies also have ongoing investigations relating to nursing homes.’ Under normal circumstances, the attorney general’s office ‘would issue a report with findings and recommendations after its investigations and enforcement activities are completed,’ Ms. James said in her report. ‘However, circumstances are far from normal.’” (“N.Y. Severely Undercounted Virus Deaths in Nursing Homes, Report Says,” The New York Times, 1/28/2021)