The year’s not even half over, but I doubt any public figure will surpass the brazen chutzpah former Vice President Dick Cheney displayed in television appearances on two consecutive days this week. Cheney asserted that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton should be “held accountable” for the terror attack in Benghazi, and that President Barack Obama has abused executive power. Look who’s talking! The guy who never faced any consequences for his central role in leading the country into war on false pretenses. The Iraq war killed nearly 4,500 U.S. military personnel in the theater, contributed to hundreds of veteran suicides in the past decade, and left thousands of Americans with life-altering physical injuries or PTSD (not to mention the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi casualties).  I don’t know why anyone would listen to anything Cheney has to say about anything, particularly about being held accountable.

A remarkable example of home-grown chutzpah came from Jerry Rhoads, who recently filed for bankruptcy protection for himself and two Iowa nursing homes he owns. One of the homes is on the federal government’s list of most troubled care facilities, according to Clark Kauffman’s piece in the Sunday Des Moines Register. But to hear Rhoads tell it, he’s an innocent victim of over-zealous inspectors:

“I don’t think I’m the bad guy,” Rhoads said Wednesday [May 14]. “I believe this is criminal, the way we have been treated. They have fined us over $100,000, and we lost another $1 million because of the hold they placed on new Medicaid admissions.” […]

“We’re not bad people, but the state has treated us like criminals.”

No, if the state were treating you like criminals, you’d be facing criminal charges and not just civil fines for substandard care that may have led to several deaths. After the jump I’ve posted some of the shocking details from Kauffman’s article.

Iowa has some outstanding nursing homes and skilled care facilities, but I would still recommend keeping a close eye on any loved ones receiving long-term care, given our state’s weak enforcement of violations and limited capacity for inspections.  

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to Bleeding Heartland readers who celebrate the occasion. This is an open thread; all topics are welcome. For a laugh, enjoy The Onion’s recent write-up of Iowa fashion week: “The big themes this season are ‘roomy,’ ‘loose,’ and ‘comfortable.'”

After the jump I’ve posted a few links about health and happiness, including details from Gallup’s 2012 report on well-being in the United States. Iowa ranked ninth on the “Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index” but was not one of the “elite five states” that have shown consistently high levels of resident well-being over five years.

This week New Jersey’s Chris Christie became the eighth Republican governor to recognize that only a chump would turn down 100 percent federal funding to provide Medicaid coverage to low-income constituents. But Governor Terry Branstad doubled down on his determination not to allow Medicaid to expand in Iowa.

While some advocates are hoping Republican legislators will help pass a Medicaid expansion bill by a veto-proof majority, that scenario appears extremely unlikely. A prolonged standoff between Branstad and Iowa Senate Democrats seems unavoidable.

Thank Gannett for small favors: the successive rounds of newsroom layoffs at the Des Moines Register have spared Clark Kauffman. He’s been tenacious in covering flawed oversight of Iowa’s nursing homes. On Thursday, Kauffman reported on a recent act by Governor Terry Branstad that worries national advocates for senior citizens.

Remember when Republicans were saying that Washington was going to pull the plug on grandma? Little did we know, they were on to something.

The newly released Republican budget does indeed threaten grandma – by dismantling Medicare and ending the guaranteed health care that so many seniors' lives depend on.

If House Republicans and Budget Chairman Paul Ryan get their way, they would privatize Medicare – getting rid of the government guarantee that makes the program accessible for all elderly Americans. Under this “brave” and “courageous” Republican plan, seniors would get a voucher to purchase insurance on the private market. This may sound like a reasonable plan until you consider that privatizing Medicare would cost seniors significantly more, almost doubling their out-of-pocket costs to more than $12,000 a year and leaving many unable to afford health care at all.

When Governor Chet Culver took final action on the last two dozen bills from the 2009 legislative session, my biggest disappointment was his decision to sign Senate File 433, a bill that “eliminates a broad range of fines against Iowa nursing homes that fail to meet minimum health and safety standards.”

Governors rarely veto bills that pass out of the state legislature unanimously, as this one did. However, when Culver didn’t sign Senate File 433 right away, I hoped he was seriously considering the advice of the Iowa Department of Elder Affairs and the Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals. Both of those state agencies opposed the bill.

Instead of listening to the public officials who have the most in-depth knowledge of nursing home regulations and violations, Culver sided with a corporate interest group:

Former state legislator John Tapscott, who now advocates for Iowa seniors, said the new law is an example of what the nursing home industry can buy with its campaign contributions.

“It only proves that our legislative leaders and governor are willing to sell out the most vulnerable of our citizens – the sick and elderly residing in nursing homes – for a few thousand campaign dollars,” he said.

Click “there’s more” to read about the substance of this bill and the winning strategy of the Iowa Health Care Association, which represents nursing homes. I couldn’t have written this post without an outstanding series of reports by Clark Kauffman of the Des Moines Register last November (see also here and here).