Britney Spears has gained attention in her conservatorship case because she is a pop star, but usually it is an elderly grandma or grandpa who …
Britney Spears has gained attention in her conservatorship case because she is a pop star, but usually it is an elderly grandma or grandpa who suffers from abuse in the system. This attention, fortunately, is bringing needed scrutiny to the crisis, which will hopefully bring relief to the elderly caught in the conservatorship trap as well. As people learn more about this issue, it is important to understand the utter and total power that guardians, who oversee a ward’s health and welfare, and conservators, who oversee all of the ward’s financial assets, have over their wards. It is this level of control and a system that requires guardians and conservators to be paid out of the ward’s estate — while they are supposed to be protecting it — that creates the inherent conflict of interest at the center of this crisis. It’s way overdue for urgent action by our national leaders to address it. Just this week, a bipartisan bill was introduced designed to deliver common-sense solutions. The FREE Act will guarantee that wards are assigned a case worker and allow wards to petition the court to replace their court-appointed guardian with a public one. Both social workers and public guardians will also be required to disclose their financial records under the legislation to prevent conflicts of interest. Lawmakers who have recently begun to take notice of conservatorship abuse are quickly learning that comprehensive data do not exist to guide their efforts. Recently, two Democrat senators sent a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Justice pressing for information from the federal bureaucracy.
