Latest news with #SenateBill134
American Press
6 days ago
- Health
- American Press
At the session: See how SW La. lawmakers are voting
(Special to the American Press) Southwest Louisiana legislators, for the most part, have supported the more controversial measures of the current regular session. Rodney Schamerhorn, R-Hornbeck, for example, was the only one of the area's 4 senators and 9 representatives to vote against a bill shielding the state's nursing homes from large lawsuit penalties. Senate Bill 134 from Sen. Thomas Pressly, R-Shreveport, will require lawsuits against nursing home management companies to go through the state's Medical Malpractice Act, which caps the payout that a company could be on the hook for. The cap is $500,000, but the individual owner or provider would pay only $100,000, while the state's Patient's Compensation Trust Fund would make up the rest. Pressly's bill passed the Senate 26-11 and the House 58-37. Voting for the bill were Republican Sens. Mark Abraham of Lake Charles, Heather Cloud of Turkey Creek, Mike Reese of Leesville and Jeremy Stine of Lake Charles and GOP Reps. Ryan Bourriaque of Grand Lake, Dewith Carrier of Oakdale, Les Farnum of Sulphur, Brett Geymann of Moss Bluff, Chuck Owen of Rosepine and Troy Romero of Jennings. Reps. Wilford Carter, D-Lake Charles, and Phillip Tarver, R-Lake Charles, were recorded as absent. Abraham, Cloud, Reese and Stine voted for SB 19 by Sen. Michael 'Big Mike' Fesi, R-Houma. The legislation would authorize Louisiana to dispense the controversial ivermectin drug without requiring a prescription from a patient's physician. The bill passed the Senate 28-8 and the House 67-26. Reps. Bourriaque, Carrier, Farnum, Owen, Romero and Schamerhorn voted for the bill. Carter, Geymann and Tarver were recorded as absent. House Bill 148 by Rep. Jeffery 'Jeff' Wiley, R-Maurepas, was a measure strongly pushed by Gov. Jeff Landry. It will allow the state insurance commissioner to reject auto insurance increases even when they are justified by factual information. Opponents, including Commissioner Tim Temple, said it would cause insurance companies to not want to do business in Louisiana. The bill passed the House 68-34 and the Senate 26-9. Reps. Bourriaque, Carter, Farnum, and Romero voted for it. Reps. Carrier, Geymann, Owen, Schamerhorn and Tarver voted against the bill. Abraham, Cloud, Reese and Stine voted for the bill. The vote on HB 674, an ethics bill, was unanimous in the House and 34-2 in the Senate. Twelve of the 13 Southwest Louisiana lawmakers voted for the bill that would limit the investigatory powers of the state Board of Ethics and make investigations more difficult. Carter was reported as absent. The Advocate in an editorial on the bill said there was a lot packed into it, 'so you would expect it to have sparked spirited debate on the House floor. Yet not a single Republican or Democrat raised any questions.' HB 693 that is described as 'a sprawling revision of Louisiana's campaign finance laws and disclosure' passed the House 77-16. Bourriaque, Carrier, Farnum, Owen, Romero, Schamerhorn and Tarver voted for the bill. Carter and Geymann were recorded as absent. The Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee made some amendments to the bill Wednesday. SB 2 by Sen. Fesi that was designed to take fluoride out of public drinking water cleared the upper chamber 24-10. Abraham, Cloud, Reese and Stine voted for the bill. However, the House Health and Welfare Committee with a 5-10 vote killed the bill. Dentists and doctors who testified in committee said if fluoride were taken out of water, 'We're going to see a significant amount of decay.' SB 101 by Sen. Blake Miguez, R-New Iberia, would allow those 18 and older who can carry a gun without obtaining a permit and those with permits to carry it up to a school's property line. Current law says a concealed carry permit is needed to have a firearm within 1,000 feet of a school. The bill passed the Senate 28-11 and the House 72-23. Abraham, Cloud, Reese and Stine voted for the bill. Bourriaque, Carrier, Farnum, Geymann, Owen, Romero and Schamerhorn voted for the bill. Carter and Tarver were recorded as absent. The bill went back to the Senate with amendments with which the House must approve.
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Louisiana senators face wrongful death lawsuit against nursing home they co-own
Louisiana Senate President Cameron Henry, R-Metairie, is a partial owner of a nursing home that is being sued for wrongful death. He owns the nursing home with Sen. Bob Hensgens, R-Abbeville, among others. (Hilary Scheinuk/The Advocate-Pool) One of Louisiana's most powerful legislators and his colleague are co-owners of a nursing home that faces a wrongful death lawsuit from the family of a former resident. The case against their facility is playing out as both lawmakers and the rest of the Louisiana Legislature consider controversial legislation to undercut similar legal challenges. Senate President Cameron Henry, R-Metairie, and Sen. Bob Hensgens, R-Abbeville, are part of a 10-person ownership group for the Acadia St. Landry Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Church Point. Hensgens is also the administrator of the nursing home. Two other members of his family are also part of the ownership group, according to state business records. The children of Cynthia Stewart filed a lawsuit and medical malpractice claim against Hensgens and Henry's nursing home in April 2024, less than two months after Stewart died at age 74. She had spent almost 15 months as a resident at Acadia St. Landry when she developed a severe bed sore at the base of her spine in November 2023, according to the lawsuit her family filed in Louisiana's 8th Judicial District Court in Winn Parish. The amount of damages the Stewart family is seeking is not listed in court documents. Senate Bill 134 by Sen. Thomas Pressly, R-Shreveport, seeks to reduce the liability from wrongful death and personal injury lawsuits for dozens of Louisiana nursing homes – from potentially millions of dollars per institution to just $100,000. Henry and Hensgens say the legislation wouldn't affect Acadia St. Landry because it has a different organizational structure than the facilities the bill is meant to shield. 'We don't have a management company, and that bill is exclusive for management companies,' Hensgens said Tuesday in an interview. 'There is no management company associated with Acadia St. Landry,' Henry said Tuesday in response to a question about the legislation. 'The bill deals with management companies.' While Hensgens and Henry say the legislation won't protect their business, nursing home lobbyists suggested in public testimony last week that the attorneys who filed the lawsuit against Acadia St. Landry are targets of the bill. Garcia & Artigliere, which describes itself as a 'nursing home neglect and abuse' law firm with offices in California, Arizona, Kentucky and Louisiana. It has 66 lawsuits pending against facilities in Louisiana, including Acadia St. Landry. The Louisiana Nursing Home Association claims the litigation threatens to put their industry out of business. 'We're going to have those health care facilities turning in their keys because they can't do business in this state anymore' if these lawsuits continue, Wes Hattaway, policy director for the nursing home association, said at a legislative hearing last week. Also pushing the bill to protect nursing homes is Teddy Ray Price, part of the Acadia St. Landry ownership group with Henry and Hensgens. Price, who is also president of the Louisiana Nursing Home Association, and his family own two dozen nursing homes in Louisiana and a nursing home management company. Garcia & Artigliere has sued five of his facilities and Central Management Co., the nursing home management business he owns. Price could not be reached at his office or on his personal cellphone this week. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE 'You got to turn your mother' According to the lawsuit, Stewart's wound was only discovered when she was transferred from Acadia St. Landry to Maison de Lafayette Nursing Home. But by that time, it had grown so severe that her bone was exposed and she had contracted sepsis. She then had to be immediately moved to a hospital for treatment, according to the lawsuit. The family alleges the wound developed because Acadia St. Landry failed to provide proper medical supervision to Stewart while she was a resident. Her survivors claim Central Management Co. intentionally understaffed the nursing home to turn a higher profit. Acadia St. Landry ranks poorly, with only one out of five stars, on the widely accepted rating scale the federal Medicare program uses. A one-star rating describes a 'much below average' facility, according to the Medicare website. The ratings are calculated based on the results of health inspections, staffing and other quality control measures government inspectors conduct. Registered nurses at Acadia St. Landry spent an average of nine minutes with each patient per day, compared with the national average of 40 minutes and a Louisiana average of 18 minutes, according to the federal data. The facility's patient time with licensed professional nurses and licensed vocational nurses – who require less training and are paid far less than registered nurses – was higher than the national and state averages. Geoffrey Stewart, Cynthia Stewart's son, expanded on accusations in the lawsuit at a legislative committee hearing last week, though he didn't identify the nursing home by name. He also didn't mention that lawmakers own the facility. 'The question that I have for you is: How difficult is it to turn a patient every two hours? Apparently, it's really hard,' Stewart told legislators. 'So hard that whenever I visited, I had to go search for employees to come and turn my mother. I had to bring cash with me every time I went to give money to [staff members to] come and turn my mother.' 'I was there. I went to that place. I visited her, knowing the fear that she was in. I went,' Stewart said. 'But the message here tonight is, you can't just go. You got to pull back sheets. You got to turn your mother.' Henry declined to respond to the specifics of the Stewart case because of the pending litigation but said Acadia St. Landry meets state and federal staffing requirements. Lawsuit and legislation limits Henry and Hensgens also insist that even though Price's Central Management Co. is named in the Stewart lawsuit, it is not working with or for Acadia St. Landry. The distinction over whether Central Management Co. or another management company has a hand in operations in Acadia St. Landry could be essential to the outcome of the lawsuit they face. Nursing homes are, in general, protected from large jury awards by Louisiana's medical malpractice act, which caps damages against health care providers for unintentional injury at $500,000. Of that $500,000, a nursing home found to be negligent pays no more than $100,000. The rest of the money comes from a state pool fund that several types of health care providers contribute to for covering such claims. Over the past year, Garcia & Artigliere has circumvented that cap by arguing that nursing home management companies like Central Management aren't health care providers and shouldn't be subjected to the medical malpractice law. Instead, they should be considered administrators that can be held responsible for larger jury awards. Garcia & Artigliere have been successful in two such cases against Louisiana nursing homes so far. Its clients have received a $3.5 million verdict against Chateau St. James Rehab and Retirement in Lutcher and $2.1 million from Heritage Manor West in Shreveport. The purpose of Senate Bill 134 is to shut down this legal route to larger awards. Hattaway, with Louisiana Nursing Home Association, and others argue the state's medical malpractice act was always meant to cover these types of negligence cases. The legislation would bring management companies for health care providers, including nursing homes and hospitals, under that legal cap. But if Acadia St. Landry is not using a management company, Hensgens said the medical malpractice law applies to their lawsuit whether the Pressly bill passes or not. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Big politics Louisiana nursing home owners, some of the largest donor to candidates for the legislature and governor every election cycle, is the main supporter of the legislation. Price, as president of that powerful organization, attended last week's hearing on Pressly's bill in person but didn't speak publicly. One of the few people who did testify in favor of the proposal was Troy Broussard, an attorney representing Hensgens, Henry, Price and other owners of Acadia St. Landry. Matt Coman, a New Orleans-based attorney with Garcia & Artigliere who represents the Stewart family, provided testimony in opposition to the legislation. AARP Louisiana, the state's largest advocacy organization for seniors, also opposes the bill, saying it would put more elderly people at risk for abuse. 'We've always maintained that our legislators should put their constituents ahead of any financial interests related to the outcome of the bill,' Andrew Muhl, AARP's state director of advocacy, said in a statement this week. 'If the supporters of this bill are successful, it means there will be a complete lack of due process for abuse and neglect due to perpetually poor and unsafe levels of basic care for our most vulnerable seniors,' Muhl said. The committee sided overwhelmingly with the nursing home industry. Hensgens, as a committee member, voted with the 6-1 majority to move the legislation to the Senate floor. Neither Hensgens nor Henry had been part of a nursing home ownership group until 2022, when they bought Acadia St. Landry with Price and others. At the time, Henry was not in legislative leadership. Hensgens, who has worked in the nursing home industry for three decades, said he and his brother were responsible for putting together the buyers' group. 'My younger brother ran it for about 15 years for previous owners, and the gentleman got to be 85 years old. No one in the family wanted it, so he came to us and said, 'Would you like to buy it?'' Hensgens said. 'And we put together the investment group so we could afford it.' Nursing homes in Louisiana aren't sold frequently, and there is state prohibition on any new homes opening. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
22-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Louisiana lawmaker who works as nursing home attorney revives bill to protect them from lawsuits
Louisiana legislators will take up legislation to shield nursing homes from lawsuit damages. (Getty Images) Louisiana lawmakers will take up legislation for the second year in a row that would limit the amount of money nursing home residents and their families receive from lawsuits over injuries, neglect and wrongful deaths. Sens. Thomas Pressly and Alan Seabaugh, Republicans from Shreveport, sponsored Senate Bill 134, which would make it more difficult to sue nursing home management companies and obtain large monetary judgments for negligence and inadequate staffing. The legislation is a response to a flurry of lawsuits brought against Louisiana nursing homes, whose owners are prolific donors to legislators and other state elected officials, over the last two years. Just one California-based law firm, Garcia & Artigliere, has 66 lawsuits pending against nursing homes across the state. They would be curbed if the legislation becomes law, said Matthew Coman, the firm's attorney in New Orleans who handles its local cases. In addition to sponsoring the bill, Seabaugh was hired as an attorney to defend a Bossier Parish nursing home operator against a Garcia & Artigliere lawsuit the legislation could restrict. 'The fact is, unlike trial lawyers, I actually try to pass bills that cost me business,' Seabaugh said when asked to comment on his involvement in one of the lawsuits. 'If the bill passes, people in the future don't hire me,' he said. 'I'm perfectly happy to pass bills that cost me business.' Advocates for senior citizens are opposed to the legislation, saying it will prevent improvements to Louisiana's already poorly-rated nursing home industry. 'What this means is, if your loved one is in a nursing home and is injured due to abuse or neglect, you and your family might be paying for their injuries instead of being able to properly seek legal restitution,' said Andrew Muhl, state advocacy director for AARP Louisiana. The Louisiana Nursing Home Association, a trade group that represents nursing home owners, did not respond to multiple calls and emails with questions for this report. Medical malpractice Pressly, the co-author of the bill, said the state needs to rein in health care lawsuits that are circumventing the state's existing medical malpractice restrictions. In Louisiana, most lawsuits brought against a health care provider for injury or death have an award cap of $500,000 outside of costs related to future medical care. Of the $500,000, only $100,000 has to come directly from the health care provider. The remaining $400,000 comes from a state fund set up to cover those expenses. Coman and his law firm get around this medical malpractice cap and have won multimillion dollar verdicts for their clients by suing nursing homes management companies alongiside the nursing homes themselves. Coman contends the management companies are not direct health care providers and therefore not covered by the medical malpractice cap. The Pressly and Seabaugh legislation would make it explicit in the law that management organizations are health care providers covered by malpractice limits. 'I think it's important that we shore up the medical malpractice act,' Pressly said. Bob Dean Protection Act A similar bill was derailed in the legislature last year after it became known as the 'Bob Dean Protection Act,' a reference to the disgraced nursing home owner who moved approximately 840 residents from his nursing homes to an ill-equipped, former pesticide warehouse for shelter during Hurricane Ida in 2021. Dean's shelter in Tangipahoa Parish was without air conditioning and unsanitary. Residents were not provided with adequate food, toilets, bedding and showers, according to the Louisiana Department of Health, which performed an emergency evacuation from the warehouse. Some of the residents' deaths and declines in health have been attributed to the site's atrocious conditions. About half of the residents sent to the warehouse joined a class-action lawsuit to obtain financial damages from Dean. Coman, who worked on the lawsuit from Dean's residents, maintains this year's legislation, like last year's version, would make such court actions impossible. Dean's residents and their surviving family members, who are already upset about the sizes of their awards, would have seen far less compensation, he said. 'It would eviscerate a cause of action and an ability to sue for a claim of damages across the board,' Coman said of the Pressly and Seabaugh bill. Pressly disagrees. The limits his legislation would place on nursing home lawsuits would not have applied in the Dean case because Dean's behavior was so egregious, it is considered 'intentional' and 'criminal,' he said. Bed sore lawsuits Since last year's legislation was scuttled, Coman's clients have won two verdicts from Louisiana juries against nursing homes. One awarded $3.5 million to the surviving relatives of nursing home patients who died after living at Chateau St. James Rehab and Retirement in Lutcher. A separate $2.1 million award was given to Bonnie Bennett, whose father, Raymond Davidson, died after living at Heritage Manor West in Shreveport. Bennett's lawsuit and the one that Seabaugh is defending against a nursing home are similar. Bennett alleged her father developed bed sores on lower back, buttocks and groin because his Shreveport nursing home did not have enough nurses on staff at the facility. Those conditions allegedly led to his death, according to her lawsuit. Seabaugh is one of a handful of lawyers defending the Old Brownlee Community Care Center in Bossier City against another lawsuit from Kimberly Remedies. Remedies' father, Frank Hooper, was transferred to a hospital after a two-week stay at the nursing home. She alleges he developed bed sores and 'severe sepsis' during his time at the home, which contributed to his death a few months later, according to her lawsuit. The care center has denied the accusations. Seabaugh has said there is a risk of several nursing homes in Louisiana closing if the state doesn't try to limit damages from such lawsuits. The facilities don't have adequate insurance to fight these types of legal actions, he said. 'It will bankrupt every nursing home in the state,' Seabaugh said. Strong political connections Nursing home owners are largely dependent on public the state Medicaid program, which is overseen by the Louisiana Department of Health. As a result, the owners are very active in politics and among the most generous political donors to legislators and governors alike. A WVUE-TV Fox 8 investigation found the nursing home industry spent $3.2 million on political contributions to state elected officials over four years from 2017-20. Facility owners are also paying lobbyists who work during the legislative session more than $375,000 this year, according to state records. The Bossier City nursing home Seabaugh is defending is also part of CommCare Corp., a statewide nursing home network former Louisiana House Speaker Jim Tucker leads. Coman's law firm is pushing back, however. State records show Garcia & Artigliere donated $25,000 to Cajun PAC II, a political committee benefitting Gov. Jeff Landry. The contribution came on June 25, 2024, less than a month after the legislature adjourned its regular session last year without passing the nursing home protection legislation. The California law firm also hired four Louisiana-based lobbyists ahead of the legislative session this year. They include Alton Ashy, who is close to the governor, for at least $100,000, and former state Sen. Rick Ward for at least $25,000, according to state records.
Yahoo
12-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Republicans push Medicaid work requirements through the New Hampshire Senate
Senate Bill 134 seeks to require that New Hampshire Medicaid recipients work in order to receive health care through the program. (Photo by Getty Images) The New Hampshire Senate voted on party lines, 16-8, Thursday to approve a Republican-backed work requirement plan for Medicaid — the latest in a series of proposals that could dramatically alter the Medicaid landscape in the Granite State. Senate Bill 134 seeks to require that New Hampshire Medicaid recipients work in order to receive health care through the program. Because Medicaid is a program jointly run by the state and federal government, any work requirements would need to be submitted by the state to the federal government. This bill would instruct the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services to draft and submit a request — known as a Section 115 demonstration waiver — to the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. That request would have to be approved by the Joint Legislative Fiscal Committee, a financial committee composed of members of both the state Senate and House. In addition to providing health care coverage for 183,000 low-income and high-need New Hampshire residents, Medicaid finances the medical costs of over 1 in 5 births and care for about 2 of every 3 nursing home patients in the state, according to CMS. Approximately 65% of Medicaid recipients are currently working, according to DHHS. Republicans framed the proposal as a way to help Medicaid recipients get out of poverty. 'We are a state that prides itself on work to support our families, independence, and self-sufficiency,' Sen. Howard Pearl, a Loudon Republican, said on the Senate floor Thursday. 'Medicaid and other welfare programs should be a bridge for non-aged, non-disabled adults, not a destination.' He pointed out that other programs like the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program — also known as SNAP or food stamps — have work requirements. Democrats pushed back, arguing that taking away people's health care when they're out of work does not help them find work, but rather it makes it more difficult for them to find work. 'When Granite Staters have access to health care, then they are healthy and when they are healthy, we have a healthy workforce,' Sen. Suzanne Prentiss, a West Lebanon Democrat, said. 'We have heard this from the hospitals, we have heard this from the businesses, and we've heard it from the people themselves.' Indeed, research compiled by the Brookings Institution suggests that work requirements for programs like SNAP and Medicaid do not increase employment and often strip benefits from people. For Medicaid specifically, the research found that in states with work requirements, many people lost their health care coverage not because they didn't meet the work requirement, but because they struggled with complex reporting systems these states implemented to enforce the work requirements. This bill will need to be reviewed by the Senate Finance Committee before the House of Representatives considers it. New Hampshire has attempted Medicaid work requirements before, but failed upon implementation. The state added Medicaid work requirements through legislation that went into effect in 2019. This required Medicaid recipients to work 100 hours a month to receive coverage. However, just one month into the new system, the state reversed course. Only about 8,000 of the 25,000 people subject to the requirement complied and documented their hours. Before the remaining roughly 17,000 people lost coverage, then-Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican, halted the requirement. The state had already spent more than $130,000 sending letters and text messages, making phone calls, holding public information sessions, and setting up information tables outside grocery stores and other locations in an effort to inform recipients of the requirements. They also sent state employees to go door-to-door in high-enrollment neighborhoods in Manchester, Nashua, and Laconia. New Hampshire's botched work requirements came after Arkansas, the first in the nation to attempt Medicaid work requirements, failed to implement a similar system in 2018. There, the system revoked Medicaid coverage from more than 18,000 people — nearly 1 in 4 of those subject to work requirements — in just seven months. Evidence suggests many of those who lost coverage did so not because they didn't meet the 80-hour-per-month requirements but because of bureaucratic dysfunction. This is one of several changes being proposed to Medicaid in New Hampshire. Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte is attempting to cut down the costs of the program in a tight budget year for the state. Ayotte's proposed budget, and the accompanying policy-related 'trailer bill,' would charge some recipients premiums, increase pharmacy cost-sharing, and end the already winding down continuous eligibility system. If Ayotte's proposals are enacted, Medicaid recipients, with children, who earn 255% of the federal poverty level and those without children who earn between 100% and 138% of the poverty level, would have to make payments of up to 5% of their household income in order to receive coverage. Additionally, the amount Medicaid recipients pay for their prescriptions would rise from $1 or $2 to $4 per prescription (unless that exceeds 5% of household income). Lastly, Ayotte is attempting to end continuous enrollment, a system that began during the COVID-19 pandemic and allowed people to keep their Medicaid coverage even after they no longer met the requirements. (That system already ended, but the state needed time to disenroll recipients.) At the same time, Medicaid recipients and advocates are bracing for potential cuts at the federal level. Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution last month that instructed congressional committees to impose a series of cuts to the federal budget. In order to make these cuts happen, experts believe the government would need to slash an estimated $800 billion from Medicaid nationwide. In New Hampshire, the concern is particularly acute due to a so-called trigger law the state passed in 2018. That law would cut state funding for New Hampshire's Medicaid expansion program — which is funded jointly by the state and federal government — if federal funding falls below 90% of the cost of the program.
