Governor Whitmer’s Nursing Home Policy Makes National News
One thing we know that Governor Whitmer loves is the attention of the press, especially the national press. Many know the story of Whitmer and her Executive Order that many believed caused the deaths of thousands of elderly people who lived in Medicaid funded nursing homes.
The Executive Order (EO) in question was 2020-50: “Enhanced protections for residents and staff of long-term care facilities during the COVID-19 pandemic”. In that Executive Order she stated:
“A long-term care facility must not prohibit admission or readmission of a resident based on COVID-19 testing requirements or results in a manner that is inconsistent with relevant guidance issued by the Department of Health and Human Services (“DHHS”).”
And
“The long-term care facility of origin must accept the return of the resident, provided it can meet the medical needs of the resident and there are no statutory grounds to refuse the return, as soon as capacity allows.”
A lot of attention these days has been on New York’s Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his policies that forced nursing homes to take Covid-19 infected residents back to their rooms. The Washington Examiner, a national news site, has reported he was not the only Governor to make such life-threatening decisions to direct nursing homes in their states to admit patients who had been hospitalized for COVID-19. As I have been stating in my show there were 4 others and they are all Democrats like Cuomo. They are the Governor’s from:
- California (Gavin Newsom)
- New Jersey (Phil Murphy)
- Pennsylvania (Tom Wolf)
- And Michigan (Gretchen Whitmer)
The Washington Examiner stated the following concerning Michigan and Whitmer’s decision:
“Michigan: Gov. Gretchen Whitmer issued a similar order on April 15. The Whitmer administration ordered that a long-term care facility “must not prohibit admission or readmission of a resident based on COVID-19 testing requirements or results.” The policy was renewed three times until it was rescinded in July 2020.”
Three times Governor Whitmer!
The Governors say their reason/excuse for their decision was based on their fears that hospitals in their states would be “overwhelmed with new patients and too few healthcare providers”.
Do you ever wonder why the Governors from the other 45 states looking at the same data from the CDC did not make that same deadly mistake?
Governor Whitmer, you could have waited to see what the numbers turned out to be before making such a drastic decision. If the hospitals started to reach capacity at that point you could have then made that same decision.
Over a third of Michigan’s Covid-19 deaths are from those very same nursing homes.