DECEMBER 6, 1999 VOLUME 7, NUMBER 23 In 1998, Gertrude Hoener signed a bank card giving Ronald Hoener power of attorney over her accounts at People’s Bank of Pratt, Kansas. By the time she died in 1995, he had written checks to himself for $140,000 and had liquidated over $250,000 in certificates of deposit held…
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NOVEMBER 29, 1999 VOLUME 7, NUMBER 22 Homer Cone suffered from dementia. As a result, he was placed in a nursing home in Missouri, run by national nursing home chain Beverly Enterprises. Apparently because of his confusion, he wandered out of the nursing home one winter day, got lost and died of hypothermia. Mr. Cone’s…
NOVEMBER 22, 1999 VOLUME 7, NUMBER 21 Kenneth A. Kaneb, like many northern retirees, spent his winters in Florida. Although he lived alone after his wife’s death, he owned the family home in Massachusetts and a second home, a condominium, in Florida. In 1993, at the age of eighty five, Mr. Kaneb found that he…
NOVEMBER 15, 1999 VOLUME 7, NUMBER 20 Ballard Creek Community, an assisted living facility in Huxley, Iowa, is operated by a religious organization called Madrid Home for the Aging. Ballard Creek is a new development, and its current residents are mostly financially secure. Can such a facility qualify for a property tax exemption as a…
NOVEMBER 8, 1999 VOLUME 7, NUMBER 19 Elisabeth Frudenfeld lives in California. In 1987, she established a revocable living trust. Nine years later, the California courts appointed a professional fiduciary as conservator to handle her affairs. Ms. Frudenfeld’s trust was primarily designed to avoid the probate process, and so she retained the power to revoke…
NOVEMBER 1, 1999 VOLUME 7, NUMBER 18 Two programs—Medicare and Medicaid—provide the majority of acute medical and long-term nursing care for America’s senior citizens. In fact, those two programs provide over one third of all medical care for Americans of all ages. With the total cost of those two programs approaching $400 billion per year,…
OCTOBER 25, 1999 VOLUME 7, NUMBER 17 In 1980, a non-profit group in Cleveland, Ohio, applied for federal funds to renovate a former Franciscan Monastery. Our Lady of Angels Apartments, Inc., used the money to turn the former monastery into housing for the elderly and disabled. A decade later, Our Lady of Angels was sued…
OCTOBER 18, 1999 VOLUME 7, NUMBER 16 In the absence of a detailed employment agreement spelling out the grounds for discharge, most employees can be fired for any reason at all. Sometimes, however, notions of public policy override the ability of an employer to discharge an employee. Jane Hausman worked for the St. Croix Care…
OCTOBER 11, 1999 VOLUME 7, NUMBER 15 Before undertaking any medical procedure, physicians are required to obtain the consent of the patient (except in some limited circumstances, such as medical emergencies). Under American law, it is not enough to simply get the patient’s consent, however. The consent must be “informed”—in other words, the patient must…
OCTOBER 4, 1999 VOLUME 7, NUMBER 14 Adequate control of pain, especially at the end of life, is a key issue in modern medical care. Increasingly doctors, nurses, patients, family members and advocates realize that death need not be physically painful. The most recent demonstration of that consensus among medical care providers comes from the…