By Ben Whitford
Posted Sunday, Sept. 23, 2007, at 3:31 AM ET
The New York Times leads with a report on profiteering at nursing homes; thousands of institutions have been bought up by private investment companies, often to the detriment of care standards. The Washington Post leads with news that the Bush administration’s $150 million campaign to tackle human trafficking has produced remarkably few arrests, suggesting that the extent of the problem—at least in the United States—may have been significantly overestimated. The Los Angeles Times leads local, with a look at the financial troubles plaguing many L.A.-area hospitals.
In recent years, Wall Street investors have snapped up thousands of nursing homes across the United States, cutting costs and slashing staffing levels in the hope of reselling at a hefty markup. That’s led to plummeting standards, according to government data, with elderly residents receiving less care than they need and increasingly suffering from bedsores and preventable infections. Worse still, the companies’ Byzantine corporate structures make it hard for disgruntled residents to sue—or for regulators to impose meaningful fines.