Over the past few months, we’ve seen a disturbing pattern in Virginia politics: elected officials ignoring constituent pleas for reform, while at the same time positioning themselves to profit off the very harm they refuse to stop.

Governor Youngkin’s recent executive order on nursing home “oversight” sounds good in a headline but fails to address the two key issues that actually matter: mandatory staffing ratios and nursing admissions reform. Without those, nothing changes. Facilities will still understaff, still admit residents they can’t safely care for, and still bill taxpayers through Medicare and Medicaid as if they were fully staffed.
Even worse, Senator Obenshain’s law firm just published an article marketing legal services to families of residents at Harrisonburg Health & Rehabilitation — the very same crisis that his office, as a legislator, has ignored since March. Voters elected him to lead, to pass laws, to fix the system before people are harmed. Instead, his law practice is now positioned to charge constituents for representation after the damage has already been done.

This is not leadership. It’s exploitation. Taxpayers are paying twice: once in subsidies to corporations delivering unsafe care, and again in legal fees when those corporations inevitably hurt people.

Dale’s Law would end this cycle by making it illegal to staff unsafely, illegal to admit more residents than staff can handle, and fully transparent to the public when facilities fail. It’s the reform Virginians have been demanding — and it’s time for our leaders to stop dodging it.