John Oliver explains the industry behind nursing homes and assisted living facilities, and why long-term care needs fixing.
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Showing posts with label John Oliver. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Oliver. Show all posts
Saturday, April 17, 2021
Thursday, June 14, 2018
There's Nothing Funny About Guardianship
There is nothing funny about guardianship. But that didn't stop John Oliver from tackling a subject, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, that is fast becoming a problem for older Americans -- court-appointed professional guardians who have been granted legal authority to control an individual's life and finances.
Now, according to Oliver, when the system works, it's great. But when it doesn't work, well, it doesn't work at all.
Indeed, during the program, there's a video clip of Steve King, a judge in Tarrant County, Texas, saying the following: "Guardianship is a massive intrusion into a person's life... they lose more rights than someone who goes to prison."
And where things get problematic, according to Oliver, is where guardians gain control of their ward's finances. That's because, according to Oliver, private guardians can bill for each individual service they provide, from leaving voicemail messages to just opening the mail, and they can take payment directly from their ward's estate. "And those charges can accumulate fast and sometimes seem ridiculous," said Oliver, who then went on to show video clips of a guardian who charged his ward $1,027 to take go to a Phoenix Suns basketball game and to evaluate, among other things the effect the game had on the ward's mood.
Oliver also noted how guardians sometimes don't even know if their ward is alive or dead and how just 12 states require professional guardians be certified at all. "So just about anyone can become one," said Oliver, pointing to this Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, The Extent of Abuse by Guardians Is Unknown, but Some Measures Exist to Help Protect Older Adults.
And that means they, the professional guardians, are going to steal money according to Greg Kutz, a GAO investigator.
According to Oliver, the lack of oversight is worrisome given how easy it is to have a professional guardian appointed by a court and how long it takes to get out from under that guardianship. To be fair, Oliver said guardianship isn't inherently bad -- there are people who need it. But the checks and balances of court-appointed professional guardians needs, given the silver tsunami that's coming, to be improved -- from greater regulation to more funding for oversight.
What He Got Right, and Wrong
So, what did Oliver get right about guardianship, what did he get wrong, and what did he fail to include but should have? We asked experts for their thoughts.
As a general matter, Oliver did a good job providing an accessible overview of guardianship, some of the problems that can occur, and steps that can be taken to reduce problems, says Nina Kohn, the associate dean for research and online education and a law professor at Syracuse University College of Law.
"However, it's important to recognize that much of the behavior Oliver described in the segment is not only immoral, it's illegal," says Kohn, who testified before the Senate Aging Committee earlier this year. "Guardians have a fiduciary duty to the individuals for whom they serve. The types of fees Oliver describes guardians charging violate this most basic legal duty."
In good news, Kohn reports that the Uniform Law Commission recently released model legislation for the states that, if adopted by the states (and Maine has already adopted it), would help prevent such fees from being paid in the first place.
"As I noted in my Senate testimony, the act limits the ability of unscrupulous guardians to drain assets by charging unreasonable fees," says Kohn. "For example, it requires courts to consider the market value of services provided by guardians before approving fees. After all, attorneys serving as guardians should not generally be paid their hourly rate to do non-legal tasks like grocery shopping."
Full Article and Source:
There's Nothing Funny About Guardianship
Indeed, during the program, there's a video clip of Steve King, a judge in Tarrant County, Texas, saying the following: "Guardianship is a massive intrusion into a person's life... they lose more rights than someone who goes to prison."
And where things get problematic, according to Oliver, is where guardians gain control of their ward's finances. That's because, according to Oliver, private guardians can bill for each individual service they provide, from leaving voicemail messages to just opening the mail, and they can take payment directly from their ward's estate. "And those charges can accumulate fast and sometimes seem ridiculous," said Oliver, who then went on to show video clips of a guardian who charged his ward $1,027 to take go to a Phoenix Suns basketball game and to evaluate, among other things the effect the game had on the ward's mood.
Oliver also noted how guardians sometimes don't even know if their ward is alive or dead and how just 12 states require professional guardians be certified at all. "So just about anyone can become one," said Oliver, pointing to this Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, The Extent of Abuse by Guardians Is Unknown, but Some Measures Exist to Help Protect Older Adults.
And that means they, the professional guardians, are going to steal money according to Greg Kutz, a GAO investigator.
According to Oliver, the lack of oversight is worrisome given how easy it is to have a professional guardian appointed by a court and how long it takes to get out from under that guardianship. To be fair, Oliver said guardianship isn't inherently bad -- there are people who need it. But the checks and balances of court-appointed professional guardians needs, given the silver tsunami that's coming, to be improved -- from greater regulation to more funding for oversight.
What He Got Right, and Wrong
So, what did Oliver get right about guardianship, what did he get wrong, and what did he fail to include but should have? We asked experts for their thoughts.
As a general matter, Oliver did a good job providing an accessible overview of guardianship, some of the problems that can occur, and steps that can be taken to reduce problems, says Nina Kohn, the associate dean for research and online education and a law professor at Syracuse University College of Law.
In good news, Kohn reports that the Uniform Law Commission recently released model legislation for the states that, if adopted by the states (and Maine has already adopted it), would help prevent such fees from being paid in the first place.
"As I noted in my Senate testimony, the act limits the ability of unscrupulous guardians to drain assets by charging unreasonable fees," says Kohn. "For example, it requires courts to consider the market value of services provided by guardians before approving fees. After all, attorneys serving as guardians should not generally be paid their hourly rate to do non-legal tasks like grocery shopping."
Full Article and Source:
There's Nothing Funny About Guardianship
Tuesday, June 5, 2018
John Oliver Explains How Legal Guardians Abuse Their Power
John Oliver exposed the troubling flaws of the guardianship system on Sunday's Last Week Tonight, detailing how court-appointed individuals often abuse their power while assisting people with mental or physical disabilities, particularly the elderly, who can't make responsible decisions about their health or finances.
The comedian opened the exhaustive segment with some startling statistics. There are currently 49.2 million Americans aged 65 or older, and that figure is expected to surge in what some experts have dubbed the "Silver Tsunami." As ages rise, so does the need for guardianship, and 1.3 million people currently require such services.
Guardians wield major power over the people under their care, or "wards" – since they're making important decisions about health and finances, they have access to people's bank accounts and health records.
"Guardians can bill for each individual service they provide, from leaving voice messages to opening the mail. And they can take payment directly out of their ward's estate," Oliver said, exploring how the system often leads to absurd charges that can cripple a person's finances. In one egregious example, a guardian charged a woman for Phoenix Suns basketball tickets, tacking on $228 for determining the game's "effect on [her] mood." Another billed for 100 hours of services in a single day – a mathematic impossibility that Oliver anchored home with a science joke.
"One hundred hours a day is not physically possible, unless she was working on the planet Mercury, where, as we all know, each day lasts 1,407 Earth hours," he said. "I'll be honest: That's a joke designed specifically for Neil deGrasse Tyson, so I do hope you enjoyed it, Dr. Tyson, because absolutely nobody else did."
Dr. Tyson, in a pre-recorded response, interjected to question the definition of a "day" on Mercury, irritating Oliver. "Shut up, Neil! Shut up! Why do you have to ruin everything?" the host fumed, later throwing in a half-reference to Samantha Bee's Full Frontal "feckless cunt" controversy. "Just enjoy something for once in your fucking life! What is wrong with you, you feckless – oh, nevermind. It's not worth it."
Oliver clarified that guardianship is the responsibility of state and local courts, "meaning in most places everything about it – from who becomes one to who they oversee to what they can charge is up to local charges, who may be elected and may have no legal training." In Texas, for example, county judges handle guardianship decisions, and only 29 of them are lawyers. Equally shocking, only 12 states require professional guardians to be certified at all.
With the "Silver Tsunami" approaching, Oliver said, it's crucial to outline with your family how your care and finances should be handled in such a scenario. To iron home that point, Last Week Tonight recruited a group of famous seniors – William Shatner, Cloris Leachman, Lily Tomlin, Fred Willard and Rita Moreno – to offer some pointers about aging, or not. "You may not age at all," they said. "You may die tonight, young, by getting hit by lightning or eating too many Tide pods or getting killed by a hippo. That's actually a lot more likely than you think."
The celebrities recommended selecting someone to serve as a health care representative and "durable power-of-attorney" should the need arise. Their suggestion? National treasure Tom Hanks.
Full Article & Source:
John Oliver Explains How Legal Guardians Abuse Their Power
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