Category: Regulations, Gov’t Oversight
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Northam to 15,000 Sick Virginians: Keep Waiting
by James A. Bacon Here’s how I was tempted to headline this post: Northam to Sick Virginians: Drop Dead But that would have been unfair. In extending his ban on elective surgery by a weeks, the Governor doesn’t want people to literally drop dead. He’s just willing to prolong their misery and uncertainty. Not to…
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Northam to Virginians in Pain: Your Elective Surgery Can Wait
by Kerry Dougherty Bad news for those living on pain relievers and waiting for shoulder, hip or knee replacements. Gov. Ralph Northam has decided you can suffer a while longer. On Thursday he announced that he was extending the ban on elective surgery from today until May 1. He first prohibited such procedures on March…
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Who Is Tommy East?
James C. Sherlock Tommy East sits as the Nursing Home Industry representative on the Virginia Board of Health. He is the President & CEO of Heritage Hall Healthcare and Rehabilitation Centers, an operator of nursing homes headquartered in Roanoke. In 2014, he was appointed by Governor McAuliffe to serve on the Commonwealth of Virginia Board…
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Do Not Extend Ban on Elective Procedures, Hospitals Urge Governor
by James A. Bacon Citing ample hospital capacity and the deferral of 15,000 medical procedures each week, the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association is calling upon Governor Ralph Northam to allow hospitals to resume non-emergency procedures across Virginia. “Significant progress has been made in combating the COVID-19 pandemic and treating those afflicted with the virus,”…
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Notes from the Right Wing Echo Chamber
By Peter Galuszka On Wednesday, I was standing next to the Capitol grounds in Richmond watching brightly decorated cars and pickups drive on 9th Street, their horns blaring. I was attending the drive by protest rally on assignment for Style Weekly and happened to speak to Jason Roberge, a Spotsylvania County resident who is one…
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Northam Is Using the Wrong Metric to Guide Lock Down
by James A. Bacon Governor Ralph Northam says he won’t begin phasing out COVID-19 lockdown measures in Virginia until he sees a decrease in the number of coronavirus cases for two full weeks. “We are nowhere near 14 days,” he reminded everyone in a virtual town hall yesterday. Here’s the rub: The Governor has no…
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Looking for the Goldilocks Lockdown
by Chris Spencer Virginia has an opportunity to show the rest of the nation how to reopen and prepare for the next waves of COVID-19. We needed widespread mandatory restrictions in March to (a) flatten the curve to give the health system a chance to manage it and (b) impress upon people the seriousness of…
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Race, Injustice, the Northam Administration, and the Viral Inferno at Canterbury Rehabilitation
by James A. Bacon Virginia news outlets have published a spate of articles in recent days about the elevated rate of COVID-19 infection and mortality among African-Americans. Typical was this story in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, which highlighted the fact that in the City of Richmond, black people comprise less than half the city’s population but…
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Virginia Hospitals Have Capacity to Spare. Time to Rethink Elective-Surgery Restrictions.
Virginia is “pivoting away” from setting up field hospitals to handle the hospital overflow of COVID-19 patients, Danny Avula, director of the City of Richmond and Henrico County health departments, said in a Friday press conference. Although sites had been selected in Northern Virginia, Richmond and Hampton Roads, Avula said he saw less need to…
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Wyoming Is Not New York. Why Should their Social Distancing Measures Be the Same?
As the nation starts to roll back the social distancing measures that have dampened the spread of the COVID-19 virus, it is useful to remember that the United States is a big, diverse country, and measures that make sense in one place might not be suitable for another. This table, supplied by reader James Young,…
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Canterbury Needs a Federal Audit
by James C. Sherlock The patient population of the Canterbury Rehabilitation and Healthcare Center, site of nearly 50 COVID-19 deaths, consists primarily of Medicaid recipients. The facility recently changed ownership and was previously known as Lexington Court Rehabilitation and Healthcare Center. Nursing Home Compare Five-Star Quality Rating System A nursing home is a place for…
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VDH Responsibilities Regarding Nursing Homes
by James C. Sherlock I have been asked an excellent question: What are the Virginia Health Commissioner’s responsibilities under federal and state law to regulate nursing homes? I will provide what I hope is a sufficiently complete answer. The question is relevant because we need to ensure that episodes like the Canterbury Rehabilitation tragedy don’t…
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The Canterbury Tragedy and the Failed Virginia Department of Health
by James C. Sherlock One of the issues we are facing with the decline of regional newspapers is the decline of investigative reporting. The few reporters left in Virginia covering the Northam administration are printing press releases as stories and reporting press conferences for what is said, not what is unsaid or wrong. The national…
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Right Wing Uses Virus To Stifle Needed Reforms
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in Blogs and Blog Administration, Business and Economy, Civil Rights, Individual Liberties, Consumer Protection, Culture wars, Demographics, Economic development, Energy, Environment, Federal issues, General Assembly, Governance, Government Finance, Government Transparency, Gun rights, Health Care, Infrastructure, Labor and Workforce, Media, Money in politics, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Social Services and Entitlements, TaxesBy Peter Galuszka Right-wingers in Virginia have been apoplectic for months that Democrats finally captured the General Assembly after years of Republican control. They also were enraged that the legislature this winter passed a number of reforms that would draw Virginia into the 21st Century such raising the minimum wage, boosting collective bargaining, tightening rules…
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Why Can’t the Northam Administration Hit the Curveball?
by James C. Sherlock The question in the title is a proxy for nearly every question people ask on this blog. I will try to answer that here so that expectations for the Northam administration’s performance are not are impossible to meet. The key thing to know about the “Virginia Way” in healthcare is that…