Week Adjourned: 10.02.09

Some elderly folks wondered if it really is so great to be in FloridaIt was a busy week for settlements…

Top Settlements

Cloudy Day for the Sunshine State? About 8,500 elderly and disabled Medicaid recipients have been awarded a settlement of $27 million in their class action against the state of Florida. 

The lawsuit, filed in 2008, alleged that the state’s Medicaid program forced the plaintiffs into nursing homes, by making it almost impossible to get funding for home or community-based care. Is this what is meant by “proactive health care?” 

The lawyers for the plaintiffs argued that Florida violated principles of the Olmstead decision, the 1999 U.S. Supreme Court ruling which indicated that the unjustified institutional isolation of people with disabilities is a form of unlawful discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act. And they won. I should think so! 

Wrong Place, Wrong Time, Right Settlement. A college student who was injured in 2007, when Continue reading “Week Adjourned: 10.02.09”