Some More News - Some More News: The Terrible, For-Profit Elder Care Industry

Episode Date: March 12, 2025

Hi. Today we're looking at how we treat our olds. It turns out, poorly! America's network of assisted living and nursing home facilities are largely more concerned with squeezing out profits than taking care of seniors. Get the world's news at https://ground.news/SMN to compare coverage and see through biased coverage. Subscribe for 40% off unlimited access through our link. Hosted by Cody Johnston Executive Producer - Katy Stoll Directed by Will Gordh Written by Shawn DePasquale Produced by Jonathan Harris Edited by John Conway Post-Production Supervisor / Motion Graphics & VFX - John Conway Researcher - Marco Siler-Gonzales Graphics by Clint DeNisco Head Writer - David Christopher Bell For a limited time get 40% off your first box PLUS get a free item in every box for life at https://hungryroot.com/smn and use code smn. Pretty Litter helps keep your house smelling fresh and clean. Try and you’ll love it! Go to https://PrettyLitter.com/morenews to save 20% on your FIRST order and get a free cat toy. Join thousands of small business owners who have streamlined their finances with Found. Open a Found account for FREE at https://found.com/morenews – Found is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services are provided by Piermont Bank, Member FDIC. Nobody does selling better than Shopify. Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial period at https://shopify.com/morenews ALL LOWERCASE PATREON: https://patreon.com/somemorenews MERCH: https://shop.somemorenews.com

Old people. We all know one or love one or will become one. Gross. Usually the president is one. Also hi, welcome to Video Show. And here's some more news. Let's talk about nursing homes. You know, that bad thing where we joke about how terrible they are and threaten our turd parents with, but thank goodness, we'll never personally have to experience. Phew, we're gonna die on our motorcycles when we're 53, beheaded by a cement truck, just like that old lady the circus said.

Damn that old lady and her haunting glowing eyes. Should have put her in a nursing home. Hey, that reminds me, nursing homes are terrible. NURSING HOMES Nursing homes, prophets thrive while grandpa dies. Oh man, I bet this is gonna be a really fun episode. I can feel it. So yeah, there's this weird cognitive dissonance between joking about how bad nursing homes are and the sobering reality

that we or someone we love will eventually end up in one. To be specific, 70% of adults who live over the age of 65 end up needing long-term care. But we don't think about it, do we? And honestly, that's probably because most of us don't feel like we have much of a choice. Nursing homes, at least in America, feel as inevitable as death itself.

That's probably why we'd rather make jokes about it. Knock, knock, who's there? Death for everyone, eventually. And just like death itself, nursing homes come in a lot of depressing flavors. But let's focus on the two main types. There's the bougie assisted living communities, complete with golf courses and swanky meemaw orgies.

And then you've got the other places. You know the ones, hospital-like, bleach-scented places where you're lucky if the nurse's call button works. The orgies there are terrible. But surprisingly, or maybe unsurprisingly, thanks to private equities involvement, both options are kind of whack. Whack is what your grandpa calls bad things, because Gen X is nearing 60. And you will too!

The US has roughly 30,600 assisted living communities, with about 1.2 million licensed beds. These are either individual or shared apartments with kitchens, bedrooms, and living spaces, typically for people who need some help but are mostly healthy. And 56% of them are chain-affiliated. It's like a Panera Bread, but their heart attack lemonade is just, you know, waiting. Although Panera Bread, which is apparently one of the eight cleanest fast food chains in America, would cringe at the disgusting levels of filth in many assisted living facilities and nursing home kitchens.

This factoid was brought to you by our new sponsor, Subway, for some reason. Okay. What I mean is that between 1998 and 2017, 230 foodborne illness outbreaks ravaged long-term care facilities, resulting in 54 deaths, 532 hospitalizations, and 7,648 very sick nanas. And I do mean nanas! Because of the 800,000 folks trapped in assisted living hell, around 70% of them are women. The men, those lucky bastards, shuffle off this mortal coil early, dodging the slow-motion train wreck that is end-of-life care in this country. So... Hooray for an early death, I guess. That's the motto of this show.

I'm starting to think the episode isn't gonna be fun at all. Was I being sarcastic earlier when I said it was gonna be fun? No. So these nursing homes are terrible, but hey, at least they're also extremely expensive. If you're going into one of those nicer assisted living facilities, you're on the

hook for about $64K a year. And if you're thinking, well wait, isn't that what Medicare is for? Don't they cover the costs? Then you're just adorable. Welcome to America. Medicare doesn't cover assisted living, and Medicaid, depending on which state you're in, will only help cover some of the costs. So most folks end up paying out of pocket or using long-term care insurance, or some

combination, if they can afford it. Often people will go broke on purpose so they can qualify for Medicaid. That's called a Medicaid spend down, and it's weirdly common and a clear sign that our system is just completely screwed up. The good question mark news is most people can't afford assisted living, which means they're on their own until their health declines so much they need a skilled nursing facility. SNFs, or SNFs as I'm told they like to be called,

are like those new Star Wars. Extremely frustrating, but no one cares because they make a lot of money. Also, both are filled with bitter old men who don't want to be there. And they're even more expensive than assisted living. SNFs cost 104K a year, unless you want a private room. That will run you closer to $117k annually.

Medicare covers 100% of the costs, but only for up to 20 days. Then you're stuck paying a copay of nearly $210 per day until you hit 100 days. Or die, whichever comes first, hopefully death, and also probably death, because skilled nursing facilities are, as you might imagine, also extremely terrible, like horror movies, and not the fun kind where a child predator fights a zombie. No, sniffs are more like saw if all the victims were as old as Jigsaw.

These aren't safe spaces where old folks argue about soup temperatures. They're terror factories where management looks the other way until a nurse's aide is literally caught in the act assaulting an 83-year-old woman. Management is so poor in these places that no one noticed a 29-year-old disabled woman in a vegetative state had been raped by a care worker until she gave birth. Or take the lady in Texas who was assaulted by a nurse three times.

These are not isolated incidents. Just within a three-year time span, more than 1,000 nursing homes have failed to stop or even investigate sexual abuse claims, and those are just the ones that got cited for it. And over five years, 226 nursing homes were cited for substantiated cases of rape, sexual assault, or abuse. Infuriatingly, only around 60% of the cited facilities were actually fined. Which frankly sucks turds and eats pee puddles, especially considering 50% of their victims die within a year of the assault.

My goodness, that was all harrowing just to say out loud, except the pea puddle thing. That was just kind of silly. But don't worry, we're going to convert that despair into rage, because as of 2020, roughly 70% of the 15,000 nursing homes in the United States were for profit. That is of course what we're actually here to talk about. We're not gonna just recount horror stories. I mean, you probably already suspected they exist.

Again, it's in our pop culture that these places are bad. But why? Why are they bad? And why can't we do anything about it? We're busy, I get it, we don't want to think about it. Which is, in my opinion, exactly why these specific institutions have been allowed to be devoured by money wolves. But perhaps we need to stop, take a moment,

and actually listen to our elders so that we can fix this problem. Hold on, I gotta get this. Might be my sham ketamine doctor. Hello, Dr. K. Hey there, champ. Remember me? I'm you from the future.

Oh, nevermind. Just some old idiot. What do you want, old idiot? Just looking to spend a little time with you? Or anyone, really? I'm so lonely and tired. Also, there's a super urgent warning about the future I need to tell you.

Look, old idiot, I'm young, dumb, and full of cum. Seriously, I'm lousy with this stuff. So I don't have time for whatever this is. The cum is literally clogging my ears and brain. It's disgusting and it hurts. I don't even know what I'm talking about. I should go to the hospital. Do you wanna come here and stick a stent in my brain

and drain the cum from it before I die? I didn't think so. What? I'm so confused and lonely. Yeah, that's what I thought, old idiot. Bye-bye. What an asshole. Where was I thought, old idiot. Bye-bye. What an asshole. Where was I?

Oh, right. Listening to our elders. Ketamine. Also, private equity. Capitalism. Nursing homes. And how they suck turds. Turd popsicles.

Or, pee puddle popsicles. Like wow, we didn't even mention COVID yet, and how many people died due to sick employees being forced to come into work. It's all very depressing, and we'd rather not think about it. But good news, does it perhaps make you feel a little better to learn that, in America at least, being old was never good?

No? You all feel worse now? Well, what I mean is that even before private equity, care for the elderly was still a delightful mix of, hope you've got family nearby, and here's a one-way ticket to the shittiest institution imaginable. Families originally used to keep their elders at home, because they didn't want to throw mom and dad into the 1800s equivalent of a haunted asylum, which at the time was just a regular asylum

before it got all haunted up. But as America expanded westward for cheap land, big cities, and to sell our screenplays, we threw all the old people into poor houses. Yup, literal poor houses, where the poor, the mentally ill, the elderly, and anyone else deemed big air quotes unproductive were shoved together in a building.

We just crammed them all together like cats in a suitcase. Conditions were, to put it mildly, bad. But that didn't stop them from exploding in size. Apparently we loved this system, at least until the mid 1800s, when several states began to investigate and re-examine the torture houses everyone agreed upon. And they discovered that perhaps,

and dare I say maybe, it was a bad idea to take everyone we didn't want to think about and throw them in the pit from the Dark Knight Rises. What followed were some reforms. In 1845, the government enacted a law that would separate the so-called criminally insane into exclusive asylums. Then, by the late 1800s, wealthy philanthropists started transforming poor houses into old-age homes

on sprawling estates, complete with farms and on-site hospitals. Hey! Better idea! But at the start of the 1900s, a new, let's call it a problem, emerged. People started to live longer. I don't know, maybe not cramming olds into torture asylums helped. But whatever the reason, life expectancy jumped about 10 years between 1900 and 1930. Combine this with the rise of urbanization, as well as the Social Security Act of 1935,

and we got a boom in old age homes. What's important to note here is that when originally created, the Social Security Act pumped federal aid to the states who would then disperse the money directly to the individual. But then in 1950, the act was tweaked so that this money would actually go directly to the facilities themselves. This was, it turns out, a bad idea.

We basically made elder care a for-profit business dependent on federal funds, completely cutting out the actual human who would be receiving the care. So naturally, business boomed while quality did not improve. By 1975, nursing homes were so bad you could write a book about it. Oh, and someone did! It's called Tender Loving Greed, how the incredibly lucrative nursing home industry is exploiting America's old people and defrauding us all.

Not a very snappy title, but accurate. I'd have called it Seniors Greetings, the Omega Principle. To quote the book, bad nursing homes seem to be contagious. Basically, when one home in an area starts providing garbage tier care, soon the rest of the homes around it start circling the drain. And once that happens, there's zero incentive left for any nursing home to deliver decent care at a reasonable rate. Why would they?

What are people gonna do? Move? And if all the restaurants sold the same piss sandwich, people would eventually just assume that's as good as it gets. Free market, baby! Because for some reason, our government decided to create and encourage this for-profit system while completely cutting out the actual consumer.

It's all the worst parts of a free market with none of the perks. By funneling the money directly from the government to the care facilities, combined with no good oversight as to the quality of those facilities, we created an industry of old people farming. The 1965 introduction of Medicare and Medicaid sadly did not make this issue better either. Neither of those systems cover long-term care in your home, thus pushing for institutionalized, hospital-style care instead. To be clear, it's good that these programs exist.

It's good that Kamala Harris wanted to expand Medicare to include the long-term, at-home care we're talking about. It's bad what... the thing that happened, but that was good. And it's good that we wanted to take tax dollars and give them to people who can't care for themselves. But it doesn't really seem like we're actually doing that. Instead, we're giving it to other people who super-duper pinky promise to take care of our sick and elderly,

so long as they get to make a profit doing it. This would, as one suspects, just keep getting worse. All the way into the 90s, when private companies started buying nursing homes like they were little wrinkled beanie babies, or for our younger viewers, ugh, an NFT of an old person. During this era, these companies would figure out a fun little corporate scheme that would be later called the OPCO-PROPCO model. Basically, these nursing homes split into two entities, one that operated the facility and a second that owned the actual property. This allowed them to charge themselves, or rather the taxpayers, rent and interest,

essentially creating a new operating big quote, cost to double dip, like an Ouroboros of financial exploitation. They would just trade real estate to themselves and get tax breaks. And this folks is why for the millionth time, you can't trust corporations. They aren't your friend. You can't trust corporations. They aren't your friend.

They aren't people mitt. They're greedy little worms. And if you leave the bag of worm food open for just a second, they will gorge themselves. Except that's being unfair to worms. Folks at home, if you turn into a worm, we would still love and support you. And after the break, we're gonna talk about

exactly what happens when these non-worms start to prioritize profits over people. And hey, speaking of prioritizing profit. Cody in the house. Listeners, the one thing about drywall is you can poke a ton of holes in it before the landlord finds out you're trying to hide your precious marble collection in the walls. And another thing it's easy to poke holes in is the freaking news, am I right?

A tool I use that makes it even easier is Ground News, which you can find at ground.news slash smn. They're a website and app we sought out to sponsor us that gathers news from left, right, and center so you can keep everything straight and not lose your marbles. They've got great features like reliable factuality analysis that tells you which outlets are on the level and which are full of horse pucky, much like my walls. They're just full of it. So if you want to get all the headlines,

context, and analytical features, head over to ground.news slash smn. With that link, you can save 40% off unlimited access. And with that money you've saved, you can buy a drywall patching kit and keep your valuables hidden from prying eyes. Again, that's ground.news slashsmn for 40% off unlimited access. The link is in the description. The sentence is over.

When it comes to grocery shopping and meal planning, I've got this problem. The burbs! You know, the 1989 dark comedy The Burbs starring Tom Hanks as a suburban yuppie who becomes suspicious of his weird new neighbors. I just can't get it out of my brain these days. But turning my focus back to food is not a problem any longer thanks to Hungry Root, which makes it easy to eat delicious meals using high quality ingredients that fit basically any nutrition plan and all of their recipes can be made in 15 minutes or less. It is totally open to space in my brain to think about how Bruce Dern is in that movie playing a Vietnam War veteran named Rumsfield.

Curious. There's no high fructose corn syrup, artificial sweeteners, preservatives, antibiotics, or hormones in any ingredients that you'll get and I think you're going to love Hungry Root as much as I do because I do. I really love Hungry Root. I look forward to my Hungry Root delivery day. You're probably gonna look forward to it as much as Henry Gibson probably loved playing the role of Dr. Werner Klopeck, who, spoiler alert, ended up being up to no good.

Huh, how about that? So take advantage of this exclusive offer. For a limited time, get 40% off your first box, plus get a free item in every box for life of the subscription. Just go to hungryroot.com slash SMN and use code SMN. That's hungryroot.com slash SMN, code SMN to get 40% off your first box

and a free item of your choice for life again of the subscription. Hungryroot.com slash SMN code SMN directed by Joe Dante. The movie The Burbs. I'm of course speaking of The Burbs not Hungryroot. Woohoo! Spring is in the air and in in my home, and in my step. But you know what's not in the air of my home? The smell of my cat's bodily functions. And that's thanks to Pretty Litter, a non-clumping formula that traps odor and moisture so I can keep the air and my steps full of spring, like Gene Kelly in Singin' in the Rain, like a winged cherub descending from the clouds, clacking his little angelic hooves.

Pretty Litter is ultra absorbent, lightweight, low dust, and one six pound bag works for up to a month. Even my cat is springing around on his hind legs, something I will not have checked out. Sorry, buddy. Pretty Litter helps keep the house smelling fresh and clean. Try and you'll love it. Go to prettylitter.com slash more news

to save 20% on your first order and get a free cat toy. That's prettylitter.com slash more news to save 20% on your first order and get a free cat toy. One more time since I'm feeling extra buoyant. Prettylitter.com slash more news. Also cat toy. Terms and conditions apply. See Cypher details. My cat is walking around with a top hat

and Kane doing a hello my baby, hello my honey over there. You can see it. Listen. Meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow. Meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow, meow. Meow. Well, well, well. look who came crawling back. Okay, shnookums.

I am not calling them that, sorry, sorry. Okay, shmupis, so we've given you the timeline of how nursing homes went from bad to more bad, mainly thanks to a for-profit system siphoning government money that should have gone to real human people instead of private facilities charging themselves for rent. But since nobody wants to think about it,

they can get away with this while we ignore the problem, just like we ignore a lot- Oh my god. What? What? What? Fucking what? Please, young Cody, you really need to listen to me It's important you have five seconds, and then I'm exploding with calm I'm calling to warn you to take care of yourself of us. I'm you you mean like the royal us I don't think there is a royal us then why are you wasting my time?

Ha flush wait. Nope guys boring hate him Why are you wasting my time? Ha! Flush! Wait, no! God, he's boring. Hate him. Anyway, our timeline is entering the aughts as private equity sunk its claws in and investments in nursing homes skyrocketed from $5 billion in 2000 to more than $100 billion by 2018. Now, if you're an ignorant little schmupis, you might think that an industry making way more money

like that would improve the conditions of the product. So adorable. But, you know, no, they fired staff, lowered wages and cut down on basic care for their residents. Meanwhile, nonprofit nursing homes tend to have more staff, fewer violations, and don't treat our grand people like walking money bags. Alas, there's been a severe decline in nonprofits

over the last decade, as for-profit facilities tend to have greater financial resources. After all, thanks to, you know, cutting corners, these private companies are 41% more profitable than other nursing homes. Because you can make more profit, you see, when you stop paying for resident luxuries like nurses or supplies. Also, these for-profits continued to fracture into mirror entities like one of those annihilation

aliens. I believe the term is shell companies. Along with charging themselves rent, they would also do stuff like lease medical supplies to themselves, all while still being owned by the same person or umbrella company. For example, Genesis Healthcare, which provides both long and short-term care,

has over 700, seven, zero, zero corporate entities, most of which exists simply to own little pieces of other Genesis entities. I mean, look at this image. It is so convoluted. Even Rube Goldberg would be like, hey guys, that sounds complicated. It's exactly what he sounds like, look it up.

And if you think the fact that we know they are doing this could help, it doesn't actually help that we know that they're doing this. Like most giant corporations, lawsuits are meaningless when you have the resources to mitigate them. Probably the most insidious example is Breas Healthcare, California's largest nursing home company,

which controls one in 14 nursing home beds in California. And as of 2014, Brias' homes had over double the rate of violations of other facilities. For example, here's a case where an 84-year-old marathon runner fell 10 freaking times at Brias' country villa, Wilshire, breaking bones and leaving her permanently disabled. As in forever. The jury found her rights violated 132 times and awarded her $2.3 million, which sounds like a lot, unless you're a billionaire,

like the billionaire owner of Brias, who has been accused in one case of threatening witnesses with prolonged court battles. And in a different case, testimony claimed he called a witness at home the night before court and harassed them with thinly veiled threats about being very well connected with the Los Angeles Police Department and Kamala Harris.

Oof. Sorry, I don't think she has as much pull as she used to. Give it four years? God no! Please no! Just fucking no! Biden or bust? Where was I? Oh right, taking advantage of the elderly. Much like Genesis Healthcare, Bria's Healthcare also built a nearly 80 company shell game to dodge liability. Remember how these places charge themselves for equipment and property? I said it very recently.

Well, in 2018 alone, Brias-owned homes paid themselves $13 million for supplies, $16 million for a worker's comp, and a staggering $64 million in rent. That is 40% more than other nursing homes pay for the same stuff. This money just vanishes into a maze of shell companies hidden from view, making it nearly impossible to track. But we sort of know where it all goes, right?

For example, Sun Mar Management Services also owns a whole lot of nursing homes in California. In 2021, their CEO, Frank Johnson, who owns 75% of the company, was accused of exercising total control over their finances. Lawyers on behalf of Johnson's former business partners accused him of treating Sunmar as, quote, his own personal piggy bank.

They also accused him and his son, David, of using money from Sunmar as quote, his own personal piggy bank. They also accused him and his son David of using money from Sunmar to buy three private jets, a yacht, several multimillion dollar homes and Bentley and Rolls Royce automobiles. But hey, you know, maybe that's a business Rolls Royce for storing all the grandparent corpses. You don't know. Oh, this guy David was also caught harassing

a former business partner. His message included gems like, quote, greed, stupidity and negligence has been your legacy. Bang, bang. And I have way more money and firepower than you can imagine. And this is a fun one. Do not contact my father further

or I will release holy hell on your shitty pack of morons. Excellent. By the way, I know we're focused on California here, but that's just because we had to pick a state and California is where all my stuff and pets are. This is, as you can imagine, happening everywhere. Here's a New York attorney general lawsuit accusing centers healthcare

of siphoning $83 million in rent hikes and phony fees. Here's another from the villages of Orleans in New York, where the owners shoved $10 million in their designer pockets while residents stewed in filth and unfit conditions. According to a 2024 industry analysis, the worst states for elder care are West Virginia, Alabama, Delaware, Oklahoma,

North Carolina and Mississippi. If you're curious, here's a depressing chart that shows the nursing home operators around the country with the most costly penalties per facility. Arcadia Care leads the pack with an eye-watering $258,181 per facility. Arcadia Care leads the pack with an eye-watering $258,181 per facility. That's seven times the national average. Good job, Arcadia, but watch out!

Appurion and Infinity Healthcare Management aren't far behind. They'll get there. We're rooting for you. Because thankfully for these professional sadists, there isn't much oversight on a federal level for tracking these abuses. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the agency supposedly overseeing this clown

show, is about as effective as asking your dog to explain a David Lynch film. CMS requires states to refer suspected cases of abuse to law enforcement, but those referrals are often delayed. Nor are those requirements clear on what information to include and don't require information on the type of abuse or details about the perpetrator. But you know, I'm sure this will all get better now that Big Balls is making the system more efficient. Then we get the lawsuit caps. That's an infuriatingly ghoulish thing where states set arbitrary limits on how much victims of elder abuse can receive for non-economic damages. You know, little nitpicks like suffering and disfigurement, which are capped at a pathetic

$350,000 in California. That's it. That's how much your suffering is worth. I'm so sorry Granny! Shoulda made tastier cookies or something. A total of 32 states slap these price tags on human life. Because, shocking twist, this country really seems to care more about money than people. Mmmmm maximizing profits! Minimizing grandma's polls? I mean, we knew this.

We knew this the moment COVID hit. Speaking of that, we should probably note that a lot of these problems aren't necessarily due to the actual employees of these places. Like sure, a lot of the horror stories do involve an employee doing some messed up stuff. But on average, most of them are also victims of the broken system. Also victims of the patients. We didn't mention this much, but some old people are terrible. But even terrible people deserve quality care. Some old people are just sick and confused. They might lash out. And that all comes down on the nurses. These workers are drowning

in the gooey consequences of all this cost cutting. Nursing facilities have been found to run dangerously thin staffing levels, with nurses expected to juggle impossible patient ratios, like 60 to 1 in Nebraska. And often, these workers are sent in without even being provided with the basic resources. During COVID, some facilities were resorting to makeshift PPE gear. Because, of course, the pandemic made everything worse. There have been more than 2 million cases in nursing homes, just for residents alone. As of 2022, over 200,000 residents and staff had died. These facilities are ground zero for outbreaks. And while the federal vaccine mandate offered protection

for a hot second, only 40% of residents are up to date on their shots. The result is that a bunch of sick people with homemade masks are forced to work in one of the most vulnerable environments, like tourists visiting Chernobyl wearing fish bowls on their heads. These people are getting worked to death. In many

cases, the literal death of the people in their care is just one more piece of this jigsaw puzzle forming the image of Jigsaw cutting your grandma up into a jigsaw puzzle. Because, much like healthcare in general, none of this is going to really improve unless we build a system where helping people is no longer a for-profit industry. And we know this because other countries have figured this out, which is exactly what we're gonna talk about after these ads, surprise ads! Hello, friends.

I've started a new business. It's like Chipotle, but for birdcages. You pick your material, your size, and type of perch, and I'll build the thing right in front of you! That makes perfect sense, doesn't it? It does, right? Okay. BUT!

As a small business owner, I really relate to the struggle of managing your finances while also trying to grow your business. After all, who's got time to balance your books and track expenses while you're twisting 7 eighths inch copper wire into a makeshift aviary and then dumping sour cream all over it? I mean, who amongst us could handle all that? And that's why I started using Found. Found is a business banking platform that has made everything about managing my business's finances easy. I used to use 6 different apps to handle invoices and manage tax write-offs, but found has saved

me so much time and allows me to focus on what's really important. Letting people know that guac is extra. Cha-ching, amirite? If you want guac in your bird cage, it's extra. You gotta pay for it, buddy. No freebies around here. No way. And by the way, other small businesses are also loving Found. This Found user said, Found is going to save me so much headache. It makes everything so much easier. Expenses, income, profits, taxes, invoices even! And Found has 30,000 5-star reviews just like this. So open a Found account

for free at F-O-U-N-D dot com slash more news. Found is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services are provided by Pyrmont Bank member FDIC. Don't put this one off my little cage fiends. Join thousands of small business owners who have streamlined their finances with Found. Hello, sellers of merchandise. You know, when I think of a top tier business in terms of having merchandise and then distributing it, I think of beefcake swimwear, which is obviously a line of literal beefcakes with images of swim trunks painted on them. And believe me, when I say that those beefcakes wouldn't fly off the shelves nearly as smoothly

if it wasn't for Shopify. Howdy doody! Nobody does shelling better than Shopify. They leave an accelerated checkout called ShopPay that boosts conversions by up to 50%. No more empty carts of ground chuck. Great. So look, businesses that sell more. Sell on Shopify if you're a business that's just starting out or an established meat conveyor with pictures of one-piece swimwear on them.

You should check them out. Upgrade your business and get the same checkout beefcake swimwear uses. Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash more news. All lowercase, go to shopify.com slash more news to upgrade your selling today. Shopify.com slash, you guessed it, more news. Surprise, no more ads. Hi.

So America fucking sucks. Specifically when it comes to elder care, but also, you know, other stuff too. It is now time we discuss how other countries take care of their olds. Like, here's a name of a place, Japan. They've got one of the oldest populations in the world, with 28.4% of them 65 or over as of 2019.

They offer mandatory long-term care insurance for citizens 40 and up, funded half by tax revenues and half by capped premiums. They're also working on a community-based integrated care system to ensure older people receive everything from preventive care to housing. They even assign a care manager to assist every person using their services.

How do they pull it off? We'll probably never know. It's one of life's greatest mysteries. Like Loch Ness or the, but, but, what? What? Speak up. We do know. Thanks, Finger.

It's because they spend 67% more of their GDP on long-term care compared to America. So yeah, Japan appears to give at least two shits. Way more than the shits we give, which is no shits. We give no shits for turds. Meanwhile, in countries like Denmark and Sweden, elder care is primarily handled by the state, meaning it's funded mostly through taxes instead of out of pocket like we do here. Imagine that!

Imagine this weird Wario version of a country, let's call it Denmark, where instead of bankrupting your entire family, the government actually takes care of its citizens. Oh, and in this wondrous land of pure imagination, anyone who can't live independently is given free home care services. Geez, I wonder if that's why they have

a high life expectancy, these bizarro monsters. Also, these freaks have senior citizen councils run by folks over 60 who work to ensure the healthcare rights of all senior citizens are protected. Assholes. Even those moose-riding wizards to the north fund long-term care through taxes. Hell, they even offer tax credits to folks caring for physically or mentally impaired partners or dependents.

Those hockey-worshipping Satanists are lousy with universal healthcare. And in Britain, local taxes and government grants fund elder care, and they still manage to offer financial assistance to anyone with under 30k to their name. Their older population is also eligible for tax refunds, utility payment plans, housing benefits, and more. Singapore is another country with a name, and their elder care plans also make America look like a deadbeat dad except for that one kid he needs for a human shield.

They've spent $3 billion in five years to improve elder care, with an additional $14.1 billion earmarked to expand health care benefits and outpatient subsidies. So yeah, it turns out there are countries that try to treat their citizens like people. I mean, I have some notes for Singapore, but my point is that we could be one of those countries too, the kind that cares about their olds. And the majority of Americans agree with me here. They love Cody.

We just have to elect the people who will do that. Cringe emoji. Oh, that's right. I just remembered. That is a shame. So yeah, Biden and the Democrats sorta kinda did some stuff to help with this. Like for the first time ever, we have national minimum staffing standards. Also a registered nurse has to be on-site 24-7. Which I guess we didn't have before?

Jesus Christ of Nazareth. They were also pushing new standards to ensure people get timely care under Medicaid. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services were also putting $75 million into hiring more nurses. But now… I don't know, man. As we recorded this, the GOP was gunning to gut Medicaid. DOJ is no doubt hate-fucking whatever agencies that were supposed to protect seniors, because

currently the presidents would like to reduce waste and fraud and abuse in all agencies and departments of government and are blaming alleged 150-year-old people, even though it's just Doge's misinterpretation of an old coding language. Meanwhile, one of the presidents is pretending to Joe Rogan's innocent, cherub face that Social Security is the world's biggest Ponzi scheme. They want to cut all of this stuff and blame individuals for it

instead of the providers doing the fraud. And so that's all to say that, if you or a loved one needs elder care, it's kind of up to us to navigate that right now. So if you're still in the research phase, start by looking at non-profit facilities, which you can find through local advocacy groups or directories like Leading Age. You can also use Medicare's Compare website for For now, to compare nursing homes based on staffing, health inspections, and overall quality. There's a star rating system,

but as one lawyer told us, don't rely on that alone. Yeah, we talked to lawyers. Big deal. Another essential resource is the National Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care, which offers guides to help you ask the right questions and know your rights when choosing a facility. However, it's important to remember that when the time comes to make the decision, it's usually fast and unexpected, just like sex, and you don't always have a choice of location, just like sex.

And when you're done, I'm not going to continue the bit, actually, if someone you know has already been harmed in a nursing home, contact an elder care attorney immediately. Many of them work on contingency, so don't stress about not having enough money up front. Just like sex! Trick ya, ha! And if you're hoping to protect your parents or grandparents from harm, check out Justice in Aging, which has a downloadable guide to spotting and resolving common problems in

nursing homes. Similarly, California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform provides fact sheets to better educate yourself on your rights and can help you find an attorney. However, the best defense is frequent visits to the facility. Unfortunately, you are the best advocate for your loved one, which means it's on you to check in on them and take note of their surroundings. An attorney at eldercare law firm Landzone Morgan advised, staggering your visits to catch them off guard. Many times, the staff will learn about your schedule and keep up appearances only when

you pop in. For more information, check out the elderly care advocate film Happy Gilmore on how to deal with these situations. But man, I get it. Unless you're stupid rich, it's hard to balance everything on top of making sure your parents are safe. It's hard enough to just afford it. And that's exactly what this for-profit system hopes for. They hope you're tired. They

hope you're broke. They hope you're not paying attention so they can squeeze your gam-gam like a gold-soaked rag. It's no surprise we have one of the worst and most expensive elder care systems in the world. It's one of the many things we shouldn't have to worry about, but we do. And so the only way to mitigate this problem, at least right now, is to advocate for a better path. Pay attention, and actually listen to our elders when they speak up about this stuff. Not all of them, some of them are awful monsters.

But generally, listen to them a bit. Because one day, they'll be us. We'll be the elders. I wish there was some kind of visual or narrative metaphor to convey that, but this is going to affect everyone. I mean, not me, because of the motorcycle accident. Cody, please, you must listen to me. Nah, nah, dawg. Nope, nobody answered that, nobody picked that up. That strange man is a bummer. ["The Star-Spangled Banner"]

I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go.

I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go.

I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna back, that'd be great. I really, really need some money.

Do you have ex-banking yet? It replaced all the banks. You can only access it by laughing at a specific person's jokes. But if you could do that, it'd really help me out. I had a little bit of a fall, fell off my motorcycle. I was doing a sick, sick jump. It was awesome, but it hurt too.

So call me back. It was awesome. But it hurt too, so call me back. It's Cody! You. I'm you from it's from the future. It's Cody from the future. I don't know if I've explained that. Well, but I'm you from the future. About ten years, we did not age well, but we're still kicking, if you could just send me some money. I love you, me, though. Bye. Hey, folks at home, and wherever you are, work? Get back to work.

Don't watch this, come on. But thanks for watching. Anyway, make sure to like and subscribe. If you would please like the video and subscribe to the channel and leave a comment that says something, A-okay. We've got a podcast called Even More News. You can listen to it or you can watch it on this channel.

And if you're interested in watching this podcast, and leave a comment that says something, A-okay. We've got a podcast called Even More News. You can listen to it or you can watch it on this YouTube channel. We've got a patreon.com slash some more news. You can actually listen to this show, some more news as a podcast if you'd prefer that instead of what you just did, which was watch it on YouTube and listen to it on YouTube.

So do that and hey, did you like the part of the video where I talked about how it's full of cum? We got merch, we got a merch store. Check it out, it's got Wormbow on it. No dirty stuff, although I think there is actually some like character, like the cum eater man, like what's it called? Wolf, wolf, wolfo man, the cum guy, the worm comer,

the interdimensional wolfie, the interdimensional worm comer. I remembered. That's not the only thing that is available there though. So in conclusion, some more news is a land of contrasts.