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US House Republicans ask Nessel to investigate COVID-19 nursing home policy
Detroit Free Press - 6/26/2020
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WASHINGTON -- U.S. House Minority Whip Steve Scalise and some other Republicans said Friday they've asked Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel to investigate policies allowing people testing positive for coronavirus to be admitted to and isolated in nursing homes.
The request was one of several Scalise, R-La., and other Republicans in the U.S. House sent to attorneys general in states with Democratic governors who set similar policies.
In a post on Twitter, Scalise said Republicans were calling for investigations in Michigan, California, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania of what he characterized as "deadly nursing home policies." There is no direct evidence that the policy resulted in any deaths in Michigan, though Republicans in the state Legislature, as well as in Congress, have continued to try to make it an issue.
<style>.oembed-frame { width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0; border: 0; }</style>?? Republicans are calling on attorneys general in NY, NJ, CA, PA, & MI to investigate their governors' deadly nursing home policies.No amount of stonewalling or blame-shifting will stop us from holding them accountable for these avoidable deaths.They won't get away with it. pic.twitter.com/x7mJ5xQ6HH
-- Steve Scalise (@SteveScalise) June 26, 2020
This week, the Michigan Senate passed legislation which would create dedicated facilities for people infected with coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, who are not sick enough to warrant hospitalization. Nursing homes would still be able to accept or retain residents who test positive as long as they have state-approved isolation areas and enough staffing and protective equipment to operate them.
<strong style="margin-right:3px;">More: Michigan Senate: Send patients to new facilities -- not nursing homes
<strong style="margin-right:3px;">More: Nursing home residents account for 34% of Michigan's COVID-19-related deaths
The state has argued that its decision to use 21 nursing homes as regional centers to receive coronavirus-positive residents was appropriate, especially when earlier in the outbreak this spring some medical facilities were at or over capacity.
The Free Press reported this month that some 1,900 coronavirus-related deaths involved nursing home residents and workers, about a third of the state's total, with the vast majority of those seen in Macomb, Oakland and Wayne counties. But it is not known if those deaths involved the transfer of new coronavirus-positive patients into assisted living facilities.
Contact Todd Spangler at tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @tsspangler. Read more on Michigan politics and sign up for our elections newsletter.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: US House Republicans ask Nessel to investigate COVID-19 nursing home policy
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