By Steve Moran
A recent McKnight’s headline stopped me cold:
This presidential pardon of Joseph Schwartz — the former head of the Skyline nursing home chain — landed like a gut punch for me and, I suspect, for many others in senior living.
This wasn’t a small operator or a technical violation.
Skyline ballooned to more than 100 facilities across 11 states, then collapsed spectacularly, leaving thousands of residents, staff, and vendors in chaos. Schwartz eventually pleaded guilty to federal charges tied to $38 million in unpaid payroll taxes. He also faced multiple state-level fraud actions and civil cases tied to resident harm.
So, why a pardon?
You won’t find a convincing explanation in the official paperwork. I know — I spent a lot of time trying to make sense of this insanity.
But you will find the answer in the political ecosystem around the pardon: a coordinated campaign portraying Schwartz as an elderly, religious man unfairly targeted by an overzealous justice system. Influencers sympathetic to the president framed him as a victim — not as a man whose decisions destabilized care for some of the nation’s most vulnerable people.
This should drive the entire industry crazy.
Because hurting residents ultimately hurts all of us.
1. The people harmed are invisible in this story
In the narrative that justified the pardon:
- Residents who were receiving substandard care were not mentioned.
- Families who had to move their loved ones — and watched them struggle — didn’t count.
- Team members who missed paychecks and lost jobs didn’t enter the moral calculation.
When the conversation leaves out the people who live and work in our buildings, it reveals how invisible they still are to the broader world.
And yet we claim — the government claims — that it’s all about the people.
2. Accountability in senior care is fragile
The truth is, senior living and long-term care have been in a long, mostly losing battle for public trust.
When a large-scale operator collapses due to massive mismanagement — and the person at the center gets a second chance without completing their sentence — it sends a terrible message:
Accountability is negotiable.
We know it isn’t — or at least shouldn’t be.
We know operators all over the country pour their hearts, resources, and reputations into doing it right. Those stories rarely, if ever, get told.
But optics matter. And this one hurts more than most, because it is all true.
3. We can’t depend on Washington to safeguard quality or ethics
The Schwartz pardon is a reminder that our sector sits at the intersection of politics, regulation, and public emotion — but rarely at the center of national priorities.
This is a hard and bipartisan truth:
When political incentives collide with the
interests of older adults, older adults often lose.
That means the responsibility for ethical governance, operational transparency, and resident-centered leadership rests more heavily on us — operators, executives, caregivers, and senior-living leaders.
No president, no Congress, no state agency is going to protect the reputation of our field.
We have to do that ourselves.
4. The opportunity: use this moment to lead
Rather than throwing up our hands, we can turn this into something meaningful:
- Push harder for governance excellence
Boards, REITs, owners, and investors must treat financial oversight as seriously as clinical oversight. The Skyline collapse wasn’t a clinical accident — it was a governance failure. And there were signs. People saw those signs. They were ignored for far too long. - Build stronger operational transparency
Families shouldn’t have to guess whether a provider’s financial fundamentals are sound. Neither should staff or investors. - Re-center residents in public conversations
Whenever stories like this hit the news, our industry should be the first to remind policymakers and the public who ultimately pays the price. - Highlight operators who get it right
For every Skyline, there are hundreds of organizations delivering extraordinary care with integrity. They deserve far more of the spotlight.
The Bottom Line
If this pardon tells us anything, it’s this:
The only real guardians of trust in senior living
are the people who show up every day to lead it.
What are your thoughts?
What a shame and insult to all who were victims of Joseph Schwartz and Skyline. One criminal pardoning another. Both will pay the ultimate price when their time comes.
It is a complete insult to every victim and the American people.
Good thoughts Steve. We can’t expect the federal government to fix most things. Only high quality operators will eventually survive and thrive.
I hope you are right about only high quality providers surviving and thriving. It seems like particularly in the skilled nursing world there are way to many not so good to terrible operators that seem to be thriving or at least surviving.
It is a shame that the people who raised us are so easily tossed away and forgotten, especially once big corporations get involved. Don’t they know that the people they hurt are our and their parents? It is so sad that society is quick to push aside and “throw away” and institutionalize smart, caring, hard working individuals as their bodies become frail. We must change this culture. We need to lift the true “Angels” up and help them succeed.
It’s time to organize again! It’s time to fight this culture! It’s time to CARE again!
I read Schwartz hired lobbyists to get his pardon. Trump is handing them out to whomever can pay. It is truly disgusting and disgraceful. He doesn’t realize his own DOJ convicted this Felon I can only assume Trump is making money off these pardons and really doesn’t care