In the following case, I'm more disturbed about the doctor being bought by drug companies than by his failure to report income to the IRS.
Emory Psychiatrist Dr. Charles B. Nemeroff Did Not Report Drug Income
LINK
By Jenny Huntington
October 4th 2008
"Congressional investigators have revealed that Dr. Charles B. Nemeroff of Emory University, one of the nation’s leading psychiatrists, has failed to report income of more than $1.2 million, thus violating federal regulations.
"The money, which came from consulting arrangements with drug makers, has been earned by Nemeroff over a period of seven years, from 2000 to 2007. The total amount has been estimated at about $2.8 million..."
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Friday, October 3, 2008
Why you should be a bad patient: you're likely to survive longer
It's Better to Be a Bad Patient, Actor Says
CNN
Oct. 3, 2008
You probably know Evan Handler as Harry Goldenblatt, Charlotte York's husband on HBO's "Sex and the City," or as Charlie Runkle, the agent for David Duchovny's character on "Californication." What you probably don't know is that he's a passionate patient advocate, based on his experience being treated for leukemia in the mid- and late-1980s.
In many ways, Handler is the ultimate empowered patient. "I learned that I must always remain in control, double-check everyone's work, and trust no one completely," Handler wrote of his approximately eight months in the hospital. "I must have been sheer hell to be around. But I know that my cantankerousness saved my life on several occasions."
In his books "It's Only Temporary," and "Time on Fire," Handler wrote that during his months in the hospital, he was given intravenous drugs that were supposed to go to another patient, that nurses tried to give him medications his doctors had forbidden for him and that staff members refused to follow the hospital's posted hygiene precautions for immunosuppressed patients like himself.
Handler survived when statistics said he shouldn't have. He endured round after round of chemotherapy, one infection after another and a bone marrow transplant. In this conversation with CNN Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen, Handler discusses firing your doctor, tattooing medical directives on your stomach and the importance of not doing exactly what you're told.
Elizabeth Cohen: Were you a "bad" patient?
Evan Handler: The irony of "bad" patients is that they actually do better for themselves. ... There were hundreds and hundreds of instances where my being a "bad" patient saved my life.
Cohen: You write about how nurses tried to give you drugs to which you'd had "horrendous adverse reactions" even though doctors had explicitly written in your chart you shouldn't have those drugs. A friend of mine had a similar problem, and we decided maybe he should have hung a sign around his neck with a list of the drugs he wasn't supposed to get...
Cohen: You write about how you became "a criminal of sorts" by forging your doctor's signature on authorization slips so your bloodwork would be done by a lab that ran the tests more quickly. Were you afraid you'd get caught?
Handler: Nothing bad is going to happen to you if you don't do exactly as you're told. They weren't going to put me in jail. I worried about getting caught only because then I wouldn't be able to do it any more.
Cohen: You describe your first doctor as being nasty, hostile and disrespectful. He yelled at your father for calling him on the phone with a question about your care. He yelled at you when you were in the middle of chemotherapy and came to see him with a rash and a fever because the fever was only 100 degrees. Did you wait too long to fire him?
Handler: Oh, yeah. Doctors had told me that I would be endangering my care if I switched doctors, but that advice was criminal. ..
Cohen: When you were being treated for leukemia, you were very, very sick. You said sometimes you were barely conscious. How'd you keep up the stamina to keep double-checking everyone's work?
Handler: I was lucky to be able to maintain my strength and do it as long as I did, and my girlfriend at the time, Jackie, was willing to sit by my side and advocate for me, and she was very skilled at doing it. You wonder, how many people die from illnesses because the strength to keep up vigilance runs out?
CNN
Oct. 3, 2008
You probably know Evan Handler as Harry Goldenblatt, Charlotte York's husband on HBO's "Sex and the City," or as Charlie Runkle, the agent for David Duchovny's character on "Californication." What you probably don't know is that he's a passionate patient advocate, based on his experience being treated for leukemia in the mid- and late-1980s.
In many ways, Handler is the ultimate empowered patient. "I learned that I must always remain in control, double-check everyone's work, and trust no one completely," Handler wrote of his approximately eight months in the hospital. "I must have been sheer hell to be around. But I know that my cantankerousness saved my life on several occasions."
In his books "It's Only Temporary," and "Time on Fire," Handler wrote that during his months in the hospital, he was given intravenous drugs that were supposed to go to another patient, that nurses tried to give him medications his doctors had forbidden for him and that staff members refused to follow the hospital's posted hygiene precautions for immunosuppressed patients like himself.
Handler survived when statistics said he shouldn't have. He endured round after round of chemotherapy, one infection after another and a bone marrow transplant. In this conversation with CNN Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen, Handler discusses firing your doctor, tattooing medical directives on your stomach and the importance of not doing exactly what you're told.
Elizabeth Cohen: Were you a "bad" patient?
Evan Handler: The irony of "bad" patients is that they actually do better for themselves. ... There were hundreds and hundreds of instances where my being a "bad" patient saved my life.
Cohen: You write about how nurses tried to give you drugs to which you'd had "horrendous adverse reactions" even though doctors had explicitly written in your chart you shouldn't have those drugs. A friend of mine had a similar problem, and we decided maybe he should have hung a sign around his neck with a list of the drugs he wasn't supposed to get...
Cohen: You write about how you became "a criminal of sorts" by forging your doctor's signature on authorization slips so your bloodwork would be done by a lab that ran the tests more quickly. Were you afraid you'd get caught?
Handler: Nothing bad is going to happen to you if you don't do exactly as you're told. They weren't going to put me in jail. I worried about getting caught only because then I wouldn't be able to do it any more.
Cohen: You describe your first doctor as being nasty, hostile and disrespectful. He yelled at your father for calling him on the phone with a question about your care. He yelled at you when you were in the middle of chemotherapy and came to see him with a rash and a fever because the fever was only 100 degrees. Did you wait too long to fire him?
Handler: Oh, yeah. Doctors had told me that I would be endangering my care if I switched doctors, but that advice was criminal. ..
Cohen: When you were being treated for leukemia, you were very, very sick. You said sometimes you were barely conscious. How'd you keep up the stamina to keep double-checking everyone's work?
Handler: I was lucky to be able to maintain my strength and do it as long as I did, and my girlfriend at the time, Jackie, was willing to sit by my side and advocate for me, and she was very skilled at doing it. You wonder, how many people die from illnesses because the strength to keep up vigilance runs out?
Friday, September 26, 2008
Default credit swaps: insurance or financial weapon of mass destruction?
Insurance makes us safer, right? Maybe not. Here's an article from Reuters.
Buffett's "time bomb" goes off on Wall Street
Sep 18, 2008
"...credit default swaps -- complex derivatives originally designed to protect banks from deadbeat borrowers -- are adding to the turmoil.
"This was supposedly a way to hedge risk," says Ellen Brown, the author of the book "Web of Debt."
"I'm sure their predictive models were right as far as the risk of the things they were insuring against. But what they didn't factor in was the risk that the sellers of this protection wouldn't pay ... That's what we're seeing now."
Brown is hardly alone in her criticism of the derivatives. Five years ago, billionaire investor Warren Buffett called them a "time bomb" and "financial weapons of mass destruction" and directed the insurance arm of his Berkshire Hathaway Inc (BRKa.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) to exit the business...
"When the credit default market began back in the mid-1990s, the transactions were simpler, more transparent affairs. Not all the sellers were insurance companies like AIG -- most were not. But the protection buyer usually knew the protection seller..."
Buffett's "time bomb" goes off on Wall Street
Sep 18, 2008
"...credit default swaps -- complex derivatives originally designed to protect banks from deadbeat borrowers -- are adding to the turmoil.
"This was supposedly a way to hedge risk," says Ellen Brown, the author of the book "Web of Debt."
"I'm sure their predictive models were right as far as the risk of the things they were insuring against. But what they didn't factor in was the risk that the sellers of this protection wouldn't pay ... That's what we're seeing now."
Brown is hardly alone in her criticism of the derivatives. Five years ago, billionaire investor Warren Buffett called them a "time bomb" and "financial weapons of mass destruction" and directed the insurance arm of his Berkshire Hathaway Inc (BRKa.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) to exit the business...
"When the credit default market began back in the mid-1990s, the transactions were simpler, more transparent affairs. Not all the sellers were insurance companies like AIG -- most were not. But the protection buyer usually knew the protection seller..."
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Tri-City Hospital Confiscates Delivered Papers
From the AUGUST 14TH ISSUE OF SAN DIEGO NORTH COUNTY'S INDEPENDENT FREE PRESS PUBLICATION THE PAPER
Tri-City Hospital Bans The Paper
Following last week’s cover story in The Paper that strongly opposed Measure A, an apparent serious First Amendment violaton occurred when Tri-City Hospital personnel took what The Paper’s editor and publisher, Lyle E. Davis, alleges was an illegal action by confiscating all copies of The Paper that had been delivered to the hospital waiting rooms.
The bond measure for which Tri-City Hospital District seeks support from the electorate would provide $589 million in funding for Tri-City Hospital...
Bob Allred, a driver for The Paper reported to Davis that while delivering papers he had been accosted by a young woman in the lobby of the hospital who told him she had been instructed to pick up all copies of The Paper and that he was not to deliver any others...
Under the law, Davis contends the hospital, being a public hospital, has no legal authority to deny distribution of The Paper, based on content, under the 1st Amendment of both the state of California constitution and the Federal Constitution...
Tri-City Hospital Bans The Paper
Following last week’s cover story in The Paper that strongly opposed Measure A, an apparent serious First Amendment violaton occurred when Tri-City Hospital personnel took what The Paper’s editor and publisher, Lyle E. Davis, alleges was an illegal action by confiscating all copies of The Paper that had been delivered to the hospital waiting rooms.
The bond measure for which Tri-City Hospital District seeks support from the electorate would provide $589 million in funding for Tri-City Hospital...
Bob Allred, a driver for The Paper reported to Davis that while delivering papers he had been accosted by a young woman in the lobby of the hospital who told him she had been instructed to pick up all copies of The Paper and that he was not to deliver any others...
Under the law, Davis contends the hospital, being a public hospital, has no legal authority to deny distribution of The Paper, based on content, under the 1st Amendment of both the state of California constitution and the Federal Constitution...
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Patrick Fitzgerald wins in medicare fraud case against Amerigroup
2-Amerigroup to pay $225 mln Medicaid settlement
Aug 14, 2008
WASHINGTON, Aug 14 (Reuters) - Health insurer Amerigroup Corp (AGP.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) will pay $225 million to settle federal and state claims of fraud in a government health insurance program, the company and the U.S. Justice Department said on Thursday.
The pact, in coordination with Illinois officials, settles allegations that the company's health plans excluded pregnant women and unhealthy patients in the Illinois Medicaid plan. Medicaid is the state-federal health plan for the poor.
"A settlement of this magnitude sends the clear message that this office takes health care fraud very seriously," said Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney for the northern district of Illinois, in a statement...
A jury found Amerigroup liable under federal and state law in October 2006, and the court entered a $334 million judgment against Amerigroup...
Aug 14, 2008
WASHINGTON, Aug 14 (Reuters) - Health insurer Amerigroup Corp (AGP.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) will pay $225 million to settle federal and state claims of fraud in a government health insurance program, the company and the U.S. Justice Department said on Thursday.
The pact, in coordination with Illinois officials, settles allegations that the company's health plans excluded pregnant women and unhealthy patients in the Illinois Medicaid plan. Medicaid is the state-federal health plan for the poor.
"A settlement of this magnitude sends the clear message that this office takes health care fraud very seriously," said Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney for the northern district of Illinois, in a statement...
A jury found Amerigroup liable under federal and state law in October 2006, and the court entered a $334 million judgment against Amerigroup...
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Who benefits from CASBO's "calculated risks"?
The first time I saw Lora Duzyk (on left in above picture) she had just been promoted to Assistant Superintendent of Business Services at SDCOE. I thought to myself, "She couldn't possibly know about the criminal actions in the SDCOE business office. Don Shelton, her predecessor, must have known about wrongdoing by SDCOE Joint Powers Authority, but how could this round-faced, innocent-looking blond lady with the sweet smile be involed in such goings-on?
It turns out I was wrong.
Here's what Lora Duzyk herself wrote:
"At CASBO [California Association of School Business Officials] we take actions – or calculated risks – based on our version of thoughtful data: our strategic plan...
"We’re very near adoption of our new strategic plan: ... We’re the lead agency in implementing a partnership program for SB 352 CBO training: Classes have begun in a program that took five years of CASBO advocacy to bring to fruition..."
Very clever, Ms. Duzyk. CASBO trains all the school business officers, indoctrinating them into the system in which insurance companies make big profits by making sure that schools use lawyers that have been hand-picked to generate business--and soak the taxpayers--for the benefit of those in power, without regard to the needs of students.
Duzyk is clear about who CASBO benefits. Duzyk praises "...active members today, all of whom took calculated risks to move the association forward for their sake and for the sake of their colleagues throughout California.
How do Duzyk and her sidekick Diane Crosier benefit themselves and insurance companies? By making sure that school officers and top employees who violate the law are protected. That ensures that problems--and lawsuits--keep coming. The school officials and administrators love it--they've got great job security, no matter what they do. Chancellor Omero Suarez of Grossmont Cuyamaca Community College District and Victoria Richart of MiraCosta College are perfect examples. But their lawyers, from Stutz Artiano Shinoff & Holtz also represent the lion's share of K-12 school districts in San Diego County.
Duzyk writes, "Taking calculated risks based on thoughtful consideration of the data at hand is the hallmark of every great human achievement...Risking nothing means gaining nothing."
Duzyk and her friends have carefully calculated that it's worth the risk to break the law. And they are apparently correct.
About a month ago my few remaining illusions about sweet little Lora Duzyk were shattered when I saw a picture of her along with Don Shelton and the news that the two of them would be chosen in May 2008 as board members of Mission Federal Credit Union. I realize now that Duzyk had me completely fooled that first time I saw her. She knew the truth that night. She had simply calculated that she would be safe if she ignored it.
CASBO's motto is "Smart Business. Smart Schools."
Clearly, the "smart" in the motto isn't referring to students. The taxpayers might be paying the salaries of CASBO members, but they're not reaping the benefits.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Insurance company lawyers should have settled instead of continuing harrassment
Chula Vista, Calif., Goodrich Employee Wins Harassment Lawsuit.
Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News, February, 2003
By Michael Kinsman, The San Diego Union-Tribune Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
Feb. 8--Goodrich Aerostructures in Chula Vista just took a half-million-dollar hit just because it didn't listen to one of its employees.
The aerospace manufacturer recently was on the losing end of a lawsuit filed by maintenance technician Bob Haist, who said he was slandered by his manager.
A San Diego Superior Court jury awarded Haist $165,000 for the slander and another $335,000 for malice.
Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News, February, 2003
By Michael Kinsman, The San Diego Union-Tribune Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
Feb. 8--Goodrich Aerostructures in Chula Vista just took a half-million-dollar hit just because it didn't listen to one of its employees.
The aerospace manufacturer recently was on the losing end of a lawsuit filed by maintenance technician Bob Haist, who said he was slandered by his manager.
A San Diego Superior Court jury awarded Haist $165,000 for the slander and another $335,000 for malice.
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