WASHINGTON -- Your parent is sick and aging. He needs a nursing home. And you've found what looks like a good one.

But as he is admitted, he is asked to sign a binding agreement stating that if he's ever harmed or believes he was mistreated, he won't sue. Instead, he'll go to binding arbitration and accept the outcome. He promises not to go to court -- and the nursing home asks him to sign that promise before it even gives him a bed.

This, say critics of the nursing home industry, is a standard practice that President Donald Trump not only wants to maintain but seeks to codify in a new federal rule. The Trump administration not only wants to reverse major parts of a rule signed in 2016 by President Barack Obama that would have banned arbitration agreements as part of the admission process. It also wants to make the rights of nursing homes clear in a federal rule.

The proposal has flown largely under the radar until now, a result of other issues and news crowding out the public's attention.

"This is the health care story that nobody talks about," said Remington Gregg, an attorney who works on civil rights and similar issues at Public Citizen.

The nursing home industry, in agreement with Trump, says it only wants what's best for seniors. That includes knowing that if a resident has a complaint, he or she can resolve it without the cost or bother of a court case, and without appeals that can drag on for years.

"The arbitration system can often help consumers get more rapid resolution to their concerns rather than pursuing the often time-consuming and costly court system," said a statement from the American Health Care Association, a national trade group that has taken the lead in this fight.

Critics including an Ohioan named Linda Freier don't buy it, especially given the circumstances of when an arbitration agreement is presented -- right when someone needs a nursing home to admit him. The fact that the arbitration is binding, with extremely limited rights to appeal, only adds to the anger.

"This proposed regulation is an evil idea," Freier, whose hometown was not listed, said in electronic correspondence recently to the Centers for Medicaid and Medicaid Services, or CMS. "How can you consider making captive victims out of the elderly? It's criminal and immoral to remove an aggrieved victim's right to justice in a court of law."

Agreed U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat: "Any family who has been through the transition of admitting a loved one into a nursing home will tell you it's a difficult time in the best of circumstances. Forcing those families to sign away their rights is not only wrong, it's dangerous."

Here's how things got to this stage, and where they might go next.

The problem was building:

Businesses have long preferred arbitration over court trials. Their push to expand the practice grew with the help of appellate court decisions over the last three decades in employment and consumer contracts. When fairness or the right to a lawsuit were challenged, the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1980s ruled in favor of arbitration, noting that Congress in 1925 passed the Federal Arbitration Act to promote arbitration as an alternative to court trials.

The Obama White House and its appointees started pushing back, saying consumers had lost too many rights. Just this year, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued a rule to let people file or join group lawsuits when they think credit card companies or banks have ripped them off. This was a direct move to circumvent bank and credit card practices requiring customers to agree to arbitration and forego class actions.

Republicans in Congress are now trying to pass a law to overturn the bureau's rule.

In 2015, the same year the CFPB's director, Richard Cordray, started publicly raising his concerns about arbitration, CMS and some members of Congress wondered if a similar rule was needed for nursing homes. Thirty-four U.S. senators, including Ohio's Brown, wrote to CMS to say it should side with seniors rather than nursing homes.

"The decision to admit yourself or a loved one to a long-term care facility can be difficult," said the senators' letter. They said the pressure to make an on-the-spot decision about complex legal rights -- amid a confusing, paperwork-intensive admissions process and worries about health care, finances and family -- was unfair.

Many other people agreed. When CMS put the question out for public feedback, it got 9,803 comments back.

The rule comes out:

CMS issued its rule last Sept. 28 as part of a broader set of protections for nursing home residents. It barred any facility that took federal money from using pre-dispute binding arbitration agreements. Since the overwhelming majority of nursing home patients are on Medicare as well as Medicaid -- government programs for seniors and low-income Americans, especially those whose nursing home costs sap their savings -- the rule would apply to nearly every nursing home resident.

The rule was to take effect Nov. 28. AARP applauded it, calling it a win for consumers.

"Nursing home residents and their families will now have access to the courts to address misconduct such as neglect, sexual assault, and wrongful death," AARP executive vice president Nancy LeaMond said at the time.

But the nursing home industry, led by the American Health Care Association, quickly went to court. Filing in U.S. District Court in Mississippi along with several Mississippi nursing homes, the association said the Federal Arbitration Act clearly favored arbitration as a means to resolve disputes, and that CMS lacked the authority to impose its rule.

U.S. District Judge Michael P. Mills agreed, issuing a preliminary injunction against the rule on Nov. 7. Mills said he understood the government's worries. He even mentioned in his ruling that he was well aware from his judicial experience that a nursing home patient's competency and state of mind can cloud decision-making. But he said he had to rule on the basis of established law, so he blocked the Obama rule.

This was one day before the presidential election that saw Trump, a Republican, win the White House.

CMS calls a time-out, then a halt:

Still reporting to Obama and led by an Obama appointee, CMS soon appealed the judge's ruling to the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Then Trump took office.

His administration first asked for time to consider how it should proceed. Then in June, it officially had the appeal dropped. That meant the last legal action -- the judge's order that allowed nursing homes to keep requiring residents to sign arbitration agreements -- was the law of the land. But proposing to end any ambiguity, within days CMS -- now with a Trump-appointed director, Seema Verma -- issued a proposal to clarify the Obama rule.

The top point, from the CMS announcement: "The prohibition on pre-dispute binding arbitration agreements is removed."

A question of coercion:

This is not simply a matter of which method is best for resolving disputes over patient safety, accidents or complaints. It's about an imbalance of power, advocates for seniors say.

They use a word that makes nursing home executives cringe: coercion.

Arbitration agreements are typically presented when a new resident enters a nursing home. There is an implication: Agree to this, or find some other place that will care for you.

The agreements, said Joanne Doroshow, executive director at New York University's Center for Justice and Democracy, "are coercive."

Or as a commenter from Ohio wrote in a message to CMS in June, without providing a name, "This proposal is just WRONG!!! No one should ever be forced to give up their rights unless they have committed and been convicted of a crime! This is just WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!!!!"

The nursing home industry says critics have it all wrong.

Arbitration agreements are "fairly standard," conceded Peter Van Runkle, executive director of the Ohio Health Care Association, a trade group representing nursing homes. But he said "it's important to note that it's not a standard for admission -- that someone wouldn't be denied admission if they didn't agree to it."

The industry frowns on coercion, he said, and it's "not very common."

Critics counter that the coercion may not be direct but it is certainly implied, especially when the stress of the situation -- a need for care, a leave from one's home, a new setting -- can be immense.

But even if signing is completely voluntary, what does a resident get from it?

A speedy and fair resolution in the event of a dispute, Van Runkle and others in the industry say.

"What you don't have is a jury," he said. "You don't get to have your lottery card," or the chance of using a lawsuit to strike it rich.

What happens next:

As a practical matter, this is where matters stand. It is perfectly fine for a nursing home to have a resident -- a new one or one who is renewing an old contract -- sign a binding arbitration agreement.

But this might not be the end. CMS said in a public notice on June 15 that it also wants to be sure arbitration agreements are written and explained in plain English and that the arbitration policy be posted in a place where visitors and residents can see it.

CMS also said it recognizes "that there are concerns that these agreements should be prohibited in the case of nursing home residents. Therefore, we are also soliciting comments on whether binding arbitration agreements should be prohibited."

In other words, there is a chance CMS could change its mind.

Advocates for the elderly and public interest groups don't expect that. They note that the Trump administration has already made itself clear -- first by dropping the court appeal, then by stating it wants a rule to codify its position. Some congressional Democrats say they share that worry.

Asked about the issue, Ohio's Brown said in a statement that he recognizes the valuable work nursing homes perform. Still, he said on Wednesday, "just yesterday an Ohioan reached out to my office because his wife had been abused in a nursing home - and we get heartbreaking calls like his all too often.

"It's CMS's job to protect Ohioans like him and his wife, and I'm doing everything I can to urge the administration to protect their rights," Brown said.

The period for submitting comments ends Monday, Aug. 7. As of Wednesday, there were 372 comments, most saying seniors deserved protections.

CMS has not said how long it will take to review the comments and made a final decision.