In which Ron Kim became a champion for elders

For those of us not from New York State, mention of disgraced former Governor Andrew Cuomo brings to mind a bully and an empowered lech. But it was not only those who chose (in return for a measure of power?) to work in proximity to this very bad boss who suffered.

New York Times opinion writer Jay Caspian Kang has conducted a substantial interview with Assemblyman Ron Kim who blew the whistle on Cuomo's murderous misadministration of his state's nursing home business during the pandemic. Cuomo propped up his donor cronies by requiring nursing homes to house COVID patients released from hospitals who could be labeled "stable." Thousands died and nursing homes, where staff were often under-trained and short term as well as poorly paid, became centers of transmission for the virus. And then Cuomo used his pandemic emergency powers to protect nursing home owners from wrongful death lawsuits.

Having successfully raised the issue of mismanagement and malfeasance in private nursing homes, Assemblyman Kim has found greater understanding of elders and a passion for more .

Nursing homes and elder care aren’t really things that generally make somebody’s political career. What caused you to get involved so heavily in this one issue? 

Kim: It’s deeply personal for me. We had constituents at the peak of the pandemic that came to us desperately crying that their loved ones were dying in these facilities. The language that they used was out of this world. Half of my staff was like: “Don’t talk to this person, they seem crazy. How could these facilities be committing murder?” 

My gut feeling was that I should talk to them. And after I understood what was going on, because I also had an uncle in a nursing home, things started to connect very quickly for me. ... I think there are way too many powerful individuals and groups implicated in this scandal, which goes back many decades. 

... I think we’ve culturally accepted and normalized ageism. Because when it comes to corporate and establishment Democrats involving racism or sexism, we are so quick to police each other and call each other out, because we want to keep that moral standard. But when it comes to older people dying thousands at a time, we’re out eating brunch, looking the other way. 

There is no return on investment for policing ageism. I think that’s the status that we’re in, and unless we’re completely honest about where we are, we’re not going to move forward.

Assemblyman Kim thinks the state needs to create a public nursing home program that competes with, and outshines, the private businesses in both efficiency and human decency. Who knows whether New York politics will enable him to succeed.

Kang reports that he came to his attention to Kim's reform effort by observing what happened during the pandemic at San Francisco's Laguna Honda.

It was a public facility in San Francisco that offered a good example of how to battle the pandemic inside a nursing home. Laguna Honda, one of the largest county-run nursing homes in the country, houses a significant portion of the city’s indigent elderly. Under normal conditions, an outbreak there would have almost certainly led to extensive loss of life as understaffed and poorly run facilities scrambled to deal with the crisis. That didn’t happen, in no small part, because Laguna Honda and its staff are run by the local government. Not only did the facility have much better staffing numbers than many of the for-profit nursing homes in the area; the direct link to public health officials also allowed for direct and decisive action. 

It’s true that outbreaks can happen at even the best-run facilities, but the for-profit industry can almost entirely be blamed for the scope of the American nursing home tragedy.

Kang doesn't mention that our mayor's grandmother had once lived at Laguna Honda; that certainly helped get the city's attention. As soon as it became feasible, residents and staff were frequently tested and quarantined. It undoubtedly also helped that the strong union of city employees insisted on protective measures. And when vaccines became available, Laguna Honda residents were first in line.

In the early months of the pandemic, my Walking San Francisco project took me to the perimeter of Laguna Honda. I looked at the huge facility with foreboding. Was the virus going to crash through those huge buildings, wiping out helpless inmates?

San Francisco's obsessive attention to a plethora of injustices can often make us a national laughstock. But there's a residue of broad, informed, applied compassion around here which we should treasure.