Senator Mark D. Obenshain recently responded to growing outrage over elder abuse in Virginia facilities by doing what politicians do best: tossing out a few recycled talking points and hoping we’d be too polite—or too exhausted—to question them.

In his March 28 Facebook post, Obenshain claimed he was “grateful” to those who raised concerns, and insisted that preventing abuse, neglect, and exploitation of elders is “very important” to him. So important, in fact, that since that post… he has done absolutely nothing.

No legislation. No public demands for accountability. No follow-up to the crisis.
Unless, of course, you count his legislative aide telling a concerned family member that addressing this in emergency session would be “too difficult.”

Too difficult? Really?

Lawmakers in Virginia have found the time to fast-track all sorts of ridiculous and unnecessary legislation—banning books, policing bathrooms, and micromanaging school libraries—but somehow protecting vulnerable elders from abuse and medical neglect is just too heavy a lift? Addressing felony-level Medicare and Medicaid fraud is too inconvenient?

Or maybe the real reason they won’t act is even simpler: they’re complicit.
Complicit because they accept campaign donations from the same PACs and lobbyists representing the corporate healthcare chains committing this abuse. Complicit because they know the system is rigged—and they benefit from keeping it that way.

And let’s talk about TRIAD, the program Obenshain is so proud his wife helped create. A community partnership that hosts crime prevention seminars and distributes flyers is not a solution to systemic medical neglect. TRIAD has no regulatory power, no oversight of long-term care facilities, no investigative authority, and no impact on the conditions driving this crisis. It’s a press release, not a protection.

When Obenshain references TRIAD or his wife’s past as a nursing home administrator, it’s not reform. It’s resume-padding. And for frontline caregivers like me, it feels like a slap in the face.

If he truly cared, he’d be demanding:
 • Enforceable staffing ratios
 • Emergency inspections and penalties for noncompliant facilities
 • Criminal accountability for abuse, falsified records, and neglected care
 • Transparency about where taxpayer-funded Medicaid dollars are going

But instead, he’s silent. And silence is not neutrality—it’s betrayal.

This isn’t just what we’ve come to expect from Virginia lawmakers. It’s everything that’s wrong with this system. But it doesn’t have to be this way. We can demand better. We must demand better.

Our elders deserve real protection—not platitudes, not pamphlets, and definitely not politicians too busy cashing checks to take action.