Nursing Home Vote Split 3-3

Today the Civil Practice subcomittee of the House split its vote down the middle on the "Kill Old People Cheap" bill.  This has effectively killed the bill this year.

During the hearing we got to hear some great testimony from Patrick Willard of the AARP about the study they commissioned which showed that there was no positive correlation between caps on damages and quality of care in nursing homes.

We also heard from Floyd Stewart at the Center for Independent Living who shared some of his personal experiences of living in nursing homes. Daniel Clayton, president of the Tennessee Association for Justice also spoke. He pointed out how a similar bill in Texas had actually caused nursing home complaints to go up and staffing levels to go down, even though the corporations had witnessed a 80 percent savings in litigation costs.

Tennessee Citizen Action would like to thank all of those who testified against this bill as well as our supporters who called and wrote to their legislators telling them to oppose this bill. We ask that you continue to support our efforts to make sure we protect our most vulnerable citizens