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71 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 1025 (2003)
Using RICO to Fight Understaffing in Nursing Homes: How Federal Prosecution Using RICO Can Reduce Abuse and Neglect of the Elderly

handle is hein.journals/gwlr71 and id is 1037 raw text is: Note Using RICO to Fight Understaffing in Nursing Homes: How Federal Prosecution Using RICO Can Reduce Abuse and Neglect of the Elderly Victoria Vron* Introduction Americans are increasingly in need of adequate long-term care services.1 Currently there are more than seventeen thousand nursing homes in the United States with more than 1.5 million residents admitted each year.2 In the year 2000, older persons, people that are over sixty-five years of age, represented 12.4% of the American population.3 By the year 2030, the num- ber of older persons will double to about 70 million and will grow to re- present 20% of the population.4 From 1997 to 2030, the number of individuals who will require long-term care the most, those that are eighty- five years of age or older, will more than double from 3.9 million to 8.5 mil- lion people.5 That number will double again by the year 2050.6 In addition, nursing-home residents of today are increasingly older upon entry into the * J.D. expected 2004, The George Washington University Law School. I See Jennifer Gimler Brady, Long-Term Care Under Fire: A Case for Rational Enforce- ment, 18 J. CONTEMP. HEALTH L. & POL'Y 1, 2 (2001). 2 Id.; Angela S. Quinn, Comment, Imposing Federal Criminal Liability on Nursing Homes: A Way of Deterring Inadequate Health Care and Improving the Quality of Care Deliv- ered?, 43 ST. Louis U. L.J. 653, 654 (1999). 3 Administration on Aging, A Profile of Older Americans: 2002, http://www.aoa.gov/prof/ statistics/profile/2002profile.pdf (last visited Nov. 14, 2003). 4 Id. at 3. 5 Brady, supra note 1, at 2. 6 Id. November 2003 Vol. 71 No. 6 1025