If the nursing home rule libs are so angry about was so important, why did Obama wait until Sept. 2016 to implement it?

Greg P. | 8:27 PM on August 06, 2017

There’s a ton of lefty outrage tonight over this story in The Hill on how the Trump administration hates old people in nursing homes, or something:

Trump admin to end Obama rule allowing nursing home residents to sue for mistreatment: https://t.co/f4V5EelF4f pic.twitter.com/l6AWD5zt3u

— The Hill (@thehill) August 6, 2017

Except this Obama rule, which allows patients and families to sue nursing homes in court rather than arbitration, was not even put in place until September 2016:

The Obama administration just quietly protected millions of seniors from abuse https://t.co/LMeAtuxEfz pic.twitter.com/MsMImGN0id

— ThinkProgress (@thinkprogress) September 29, 2016

Note the “quietly” part. Maybe that’s because Obama knew at the time that it wasn’t even legal? From The Hill:

The American Health Care Association (AHCA) and a group of nursing homes had sued CMS and the Department of Health and Human Services in October, claiming that the rule violated the Federal Arbitration Act, and that the agencies had overstepped their statutory authority in issuing the law. The AHCA said Congress has repeatedly rejected legislation to invalidate arbitration agreements.

The Trump administration didn’t so much as end the rule as it is currently working with the plaintiffs to come up with a compromise solution:

Under its proposed revisions, CMS said nursing homes would be required to write the arbitration agreements in plain language and explain the agreement to the prospective resident or his or her representative. Residents would also be required to acknowledge they understand the agreement.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is also backing the rule change. The nation’s leading business group fought back against the original rule, claiming that restricting arbitration would raise the cost of nursing home care and make it harder, and more costly, for residents to resolve disputes.

“For many individual disputes, litigation in court is simply impractical. Litigation in court is procedurally complex, which means that non-lawyers need legal representation to have any hope of successfully navigating the system,” the chamber said in 2015 comments to the agency it provided The Hill.