In their own words—The Truth About Nursing Home Arbitration  

“The emotional toll and the sense of vulnerability when moving a loved one into the care of strangers at a nursing home is something that I am all too familiar with. My father, who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's, was recently placed into a nursing home, and one of the last things I wanted to worry about when searching for that perfect placement was whether he was foregoing his legal rights. Instead, I wanted to focus solely on the quality and range of services the facility would provide him…As it turned out, my family chose a facility that met our requirements, but also had a mandatory arbitration clause in its contract.” –Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-CA)

Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-CA) Chair of House Judiciary Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law

“People seeking nursing home admission are among the frailest of Americans. In 2006, nearly half of all nursing home residents were diagnosed with dementia. In 2004, nearly 80 percent of residents needed help in four or five of the customary activities of daily life… It's often in this context of crisis and vulnerability that prospective residents and their families face the nursing home admissions process, where they are typically given a lengthy, complicated contract. Many facilities include provisions in these contracts requiring that residents and their families agree to forego the use of the court system to resolve future disputes. Instead, they must agree to submit their cases to arbitration.”-Dr. William Hall

Dr. William Hall of Rochester, New York, is a member of the AARP board of directors. Dr. Hall is director of the Center for Healthy Aging and previously served as chief of geriatrics at the University of Rochester School of Medicine, where he is a Paul Fine professor of medicine.

“I have seen the nursing home industry from the perspective of a family member and also as a director of nursing at a nursing home. Knowing about the quality of care -- or lack of quality of care -- it seems just unimaginable to me that corporations that own these homes are allowed to abuse residents and not be held accountable in a court of law for their actions…I think sometimes when people say they're 90 years old you think that they're not responsible, but my grandmother was actually still cooking. And so when we took her to the nursing home, and within three weeks they took her from a viable adult to amputating her leg. So I think we shouldn't have had a one size fit all sort of litigation here.” -Linda Stewart

Linda Stewart, a Houston, Texas resident. Ms. Stewart has been in the nursing profession for 28 years, including 10 years as a captain in the United States Air Force. Ms. Stewart's grandmother, Hattie Miller, was a victim of nursing home negligence.
 
“In any other setting, if someone were to prey upon a frail, weak, vulnerable person whose eyes were dim and whose hearing was bad, and whose competency was in question, and who might be on medication that impaired their judgment, and deprive them of their money or substantial legal rights, we'd be prosecuting. But thanks to the shelter of the Federal Arbitration Act and the case law that's been construing that act, we are allowing nursing homes pre-dispute to take advantage of the frailest and weakest members of our society. It's an outrage, and Congress ought not to permit that practice to exist anymore. “- Mr. Ken Conner

Mr. Ken Conner co-founded the Center for a Just Society in 2005, and serves as the organization's chairman and on of its principal spokesmen. Affiliated with the law firm of Wilkes & McHugh, P.A., Mr. Conner recently served as counsel to Governor Jeb Bush in Bush v. Schiavo, the matter involving Terry Schiavo and the court order to remove her feeding tube.