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www.newsindiatimes.com – that’s all you need to know Commentary Disclaimer:The views and opinions expressed on this page are those of the authors and Parikh Worldwide Media does not officially endorse, and is not responsible or liable for them. US Affairs News India Times (February 21, 2026 - February 27, 2026) February 27, 2026 5 The Vital Measure Of Senior Health That Medicare Ignores The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has developed functional outcome measures that compare expected versus observed mobility at discharge. These measures are part of the Skilled Nursing Facility Quality Reporting Program and are publicly reported through Medicare’s Care Compare. These tools work. But they carry minimal weight in federal nursing home ratings and almost no consequence for Medicare reimburse- ment. As long as mobility remains peripheral to quality measurement, facilities will optimize for what carries consequences: avoiding incidents rather than building strength. To be clear: Fall prevention matters. Infection control matters. Adequate staffing matters. These are not com- peting priorities. But safety defined solely as the absence of adverse events is insufficient. True safety includes the ability to move, to stand, to walk with appropriate sup- port. Keeping vulnerable seniors immobile in the name of preventing falls often creates the weakness that makes falls more dangerous when they inevitably occur. Federal policymakers and Medicare regulators could address this directly. Mobility outcomes should be weighted meaningfully in federal nursing home star rat- ings, in which functional recovery measures carry far less influence than inspection findings and staffing measures. Admission-to-discharge functional change should be publicly reported in plain language. Medicare payment should reward improvement, not just the absence of vis- ible harm. Functional decline should no longer be treated as an unfortunate and unmeasured side effect of nursing home care. The elderly U.S. population is growing rapidly. By 2040, more than one in five Americans will be older than 65, according to the Administration for Community Living. If nursing homes continue to measure process but ignore outcomes, to document function without demanding improvement, the result will be a generation that is ware- housed rather than restored. This is not about perfection. Some residents will not improve regardless of care quality. Cognitive impairment, advanced illness and end-stage conditions all limit recov- ery potential. But no one is served by pretending there is no distinction between unavoidable decline and prevent- able loss of function. Families discover too late that their father can no longer stand, that their mother has lost the ability to walk to the bathroom, that rehabilitation meant maintenance at best. They ask why no one warned them, why no one tried harder. Seniors entering nursing homes deserve better than the current standards. They deserve a system that measures whether they leave stronger than they arrived. That is not a radical demand. It is the bare mini- mum a recovery system should provide.. Neha Sabharwal is a physical therapist and rehabilitation director. -Special to TheWashington Post J ay Bhattacharya, a top Trump ad- ministration health official and an outspoken critic of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s response to the coronavirus pan- demic, will lead the CDC on an acting basis, according to four people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe personnel moves. Bhattacharya, who will continue his role as director of the National Institutes of Health, replaces Jim O’Neill, who had served as the CDC’s acting director. O’Neill, who had also served as the deputy secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, will be nominated to run the National Science Foundation after he declined a potential ambassadorship to the Organization for Economic Coopera- tion and Development, two of the people said. The installation of Bhattacharya at the CDC is the latest move by theWhite House and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to shake up HHS’s leadership team ahead of the midterms, as the Trump admin- istration seeks to stabilize a department rattled by internal fights and controversial messages. The NewYork Times first reported that Bhattacharya would serve as the act- ing head of CDC, which is charged with protecting Americans from health threats and issues recommendations on vac- cines and other public health matters. Trump officials have said they are plan- ning to find a full-time CDC director, a post that requires Senate confirmation. Susan Monarez, who was confirmed as CDC director in July, was ousted less than a month later after clashing with Kennedy over his plans to change vaccine policies. Bhattacharya, a Stanford University physician and economist, rose to promi- nence during the pandemic by arguing that the government’s response to the outbreak was too harsh, a stance that put him at odds with public health leaders who said his proposals would imperil the most vulnerable Americans. He co-wrote the Great Barrington Declaration, which was published in October 2020 and called for an end to coronavirus shutdowns. The declaration drew rebukes from govern- ment officials – a clash that ultimately boosted his profile and helped draw the support of Kennedy, a fellow critic of the government’s pandemic response. “The CDC peddled pseudo science in the middle of a pandemic,” Bhattacharya wrote on X in 2024, criticizing agency leaders’ past claim that widespread mask- ing could end the coronavirus outbreak. As CDC’s acting head, Bhattacharya is poised to oversee the agency’s vaccine recommendations, which have emerged as a political flash point as Kennedy has worked to roll them back over the objections of public health leaders. A KFF poll published this month found that 47 percent of U.S. adults now trust CDC for reliable information on vaccines, down from 85 percent in early 2020. Bhattacharya has said he supports vac- cination for childhood diseases. “I think the best way to address the measles epidemic in this country is by vaccinating your children for measles,” Bhattacharya said at a Senate hearing this month. Bhattacharya and other NIH leaders in January also published a commentary in the journal Nature Medicine that criti- cized the public health response to the pandemic led by other agencies. “Many of the recommended policies, including lockdowns, social distancing, school closures, masking, and vaccine mandates, lacked robust confirmatory evidence and remain the subject of de- bate regarding their overall benefits and unintended consequences,” they wrote. “Where enforced, vaccine mandates con- tributed to decreased public confidence in routine voluntary immunizations.” -TheWashington Post White House Taps Jay Bhattacharya, CDC Critic, To Lead Agency For Now By Dan Diamond, Lena H. Sun, LaurenWeber, Carolyn Y. Johnson PHOTO:NNABELLE GORDON/FORTHEWASHINGTON POST As NIH director, Bhattacharya has served as one of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s top deputies. - Continued From Page 4 PHOTO:courtesycalhealthreport.org