State of the Law: Nursing Homes

Abstract

Health care for the elderly, already a major social concern in the United States, is fated to become even more dominant on our social, political, and legal agendas. The effect on the nursing home industry and nursing home law will border on the revolutionary.In a review of the “prospects for an ageing population,” Jacob Brody observed that:In 1900, only a quarter of the U.S. population survived to the age of 65. Now almost 70 per cent achieve this age, and the proportion of those aged 80 and over is 30 per cent and increasing. Within a very few years, about half the population will live more than 80 years.A report of the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) notes the same trend and gives a sense of the numbers involved:The elderly population has grown from 4.0 percent of the total in 1900 to more than 11.5 percent in 1983. The number of those over 65 is projected to grow from today's 27 million to an estimated 39.3 million by 2010, when they will constitute almost 14 percent of the Nation's population. More significantly, between 2010 and 2020 the older population is expected to increase by more than 12 million….