Physical abuse, over-medication, inappropriate patient population, and neglectful care to 300 mentally ill patients led the federal government to halt Medicaid funding from a for-profit nursing home. The courts, and the Department of Health and Human Services agree that the residents of Somerset Place in Chicago have have been ill served by the partially family-owned company.Writing for the Associated Press, Karla Johnson reports:
The American Civil Liberties Union also has filed a class-action lawsuit against Illinois, claiming the state is violating the residents' civil rights by housing them in institutions. The suit is based on a 1999 landmark ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, which found that the Americans with Disabilities Act requires community placement of the mentally disabled whenever appropriate, and that segregating the mentally ill amounted to "unjustified isolation."Johnson says 18,000 people live in Illinois nursing homes, more than other state, at a taxpayer cost of about $122 million. The Chicago Tribune reports Somerset's $2.3 million profits for 2008 were based on revenue of $15.5 million, "almost all of it from state and federal health care programs." Critics of the for-profit industry building in-patient units argue community-based programs are not only less costly but mostly more effective. A search of the data-base of the Joint Commission on Accreditation lists "long term care" as the only service. Somerset Place has appeared on watch lists of troubled nursing homes before, including a 2008 report from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
