[thatguymike]

Elder care is a difficult and painful topic, and change is clearly needed. I feel like I am missing something in the article's argument though. A quick google says that the profit margin of nursing homes is in the 5-10% range. If the profit motive is to blame for conditions, doesn't that mean that costs could be 10% lower if nobody was making profit?

I guess maybe that doesn't account for profits being made by any contractors providing medicines, food, etc, which maybe could be done more cheaply without the profit motive. But 10% just doesn't scream "evil nursing home executives getting fat off of the elderly" to me.

It's a labor-intensive and difficult service to provide. The article's suggestion to professionalize care work seems right, but will increase costs. The two areas of dissatisfaction (high cost and poor quality) seem fundamentally at odds to me, are there proposals which would address them both?