The healthcare system wastes up to $800 billion a year.

So no, the Congress cannot fix healthcare.: A corrupt Congress designs
an easily corruptible system. Corruption works the same way
everywhere, and America can't oppose it abroad while it prevails at
home.

by John Kozy

That the government of the United States should be in league with
corrupt foreign governments should be no surprise. Remember the
dictum, birds of a feather flock together? The government of the
United States is as corrupt as any of its "allies," which becomes more
and more evident every day. The only difference is where the
corrupting money comes from. America's allies get it from the United
States; America gets it from its corporations. But therein lies a
story that has, to my knowledge, never been accurately told.

Consider healthcare in America, for example.

CBS' 60 Minutes aired an exposé on Sunday October 25 on Medicare
fraud, estimating that it now amounts to about $60 billion a year, and
I have no reason to dispute that figure. Medicare fraud has increased
because criminals have found a way to get substantial amounts of money
with little effort and little chance of being detected. According to
the FBI, "All you have to do to get into this business is rent a cheap
storefront office, find or create a front man to get an occupational
license, bribe a doctor or forge a prescription pad, and obtain the
names and ID numbers of legitimate Medicare patients you can bill the
phony charges to. . . . Once the crooked companies get hold of the
patient lists, usually stolen from doctors' offices or hospitals, they
begin running up all sorts of outlandish charges and submit them to
Medicare for payment, knowing full well that the agency is required by
law to pay the claims within 15 to 30 days, and that it has only
enough auditors to check a tiny fraction of the charges to see if they
are legitimate."

Of course, the Congress designed this program. I suspect the
requirement to pay claims within 15 to 30 days was inserted at the
behest of the medical community whose interest is in getting paid
rather than in combating fraud. The doctors who are bribed or have
poor security procedures to safeguard patient records are members of
this community. The community has an enormous influence over Congress.
AARP has an editorial in its November, 2009 issue about the excessive
charges to medicare for powered wheelchairs, that states, "Congress
has blocked attempts to impose competitive bidding." So a corrupt
Congress designs an easily corruptible system. As an ancient Chinese
proverb says, officials don’t punish those who send gifts.

Maggie Fox writes that the healthcare system wastes up to $800 billion
a year. She cites (1) the paper-based system of patient recordkeeping,
(2) unnecessary care, (3) fraud, (4)  kickbacks and other scams, (5)
administrative inefficiency and redundant paperwork, (6) medical
mistakes, (7) non prevention of preventable conditions, (8)
inefficient hospital and physician billing and administration, and (9)
the use of emergency rooms for routine treatments because of a
shortage of primary care doctors (and, I suspect, the lack of access
many in America have to routine medical care). Unfortunately she
quotes Robert Kelley, vice president of healthcare analytics at
Thomson Reuters, as having said, "The good news is that by attacking
waste we can reduce healthcare costs without adversely affecting the
quality of care or access to care." But I doubt it.

The America healthcare "system" is a fractured, distributed,
hodgepodge of thousands of private companies made up of physicians,
clinics, hospitals, pharmacies, pharmaceutical companies, equipment
manufacturers, and insurance companies. All of these entities have
their own policies, procedures, and practices, and attempts to get
these various companies to voluntarily spend the money to bring about
an efficient, uniform system are bound to fail, especially since the
waste in the system contributes to their incomes, and any attempt by
the Congress to impose changes on the industry would certainly fail
because the industry would use its influence on the Congress to oppose
it. So any claim that the waste will be wrung from the system is
delusional.

But despite the various and sundry ways the industry operates, it,
like all other industries, does a number of common things. In general,
businesses sell products and services to generate income to fund
overhead, salaries, profits, and marketing. The money for all of these
is built into the prices of those products and services. In other
words, the money comes from consumers.

Consider marketing, for instance. People are led to believe that the
"free" television they watch is paid for by the sponsoring companies.
But when the money is followed to its source, one realizes that the
money comes from the people who buy products and services from the
sponsoring companies; the money for advertising is built into the
prices of the products and services sold. So although sponsoring
companies are said to fund "free" television, in reality, consumers
are funding it and it is not free. People pay for it with every
purchase they make. So when companies object to recording devices that
eliminate commercials, they are obfuscating reality. Since the viewers
are the ones who supply the money spent by companies on commercials,
why shouldn't the viewers have the ability to watch the sponsored
programs without having to watch the commercials?

This circumstance, of course, reveals the fallacy in the claim of
orthodox economists that competition reduces prices. There is, of
course, no empirical evidence to support this claim. In fact, the
evidence refutes it. Competition in contemporary society requires
marketing. Marketing is expensive. The expense must be added to
prices. So competition necessarily increases prices. The argument is
irrefutable. The reverse is mathematically impossible.

But something even more insidious is involved, and to my knowledge, it
has never been pointed out. Companies not only engage in the practices
enumerated above—overhead, salaries, profits, and marketing—they also
lobby the Congress, contribute to political campaigns, fund
ideological institutions, and buy political advertising. And where
does the money for all of this corporate spending come from? Why
consumers, of course.

The insidiousness lies in this circumstance: Corporations use this
money to influence the Congress to pay no heed to what the people need
or want and even to oppose the enactment of beneficial public
programs. But it is the people who supply the money the corporations
use to buy the influence, which puts the public in a paradoxical
situation that can only be likened to requiring the condemned to
purchase their own nooses. That is how corrupt the American government
has become.

So no, the Congress cannot fix healthcare. For exactly the same
reasons cited above, the Congress can't fix anything. It can no more
fix America than the Karzai government can fix Afghanistan. Corruption
works the same way everywhere, and America can't oppose it abroad
while it prevails at home.

Jefferson wrote, "The time to guard against corruption and tyranny, is
before they shall have gotten hold on us. It is better to keep the
wolf out of the fold, than to trust to drawing his teeth and talons
after he shall have entered." If Jefferson is right, it is far too
late to save America by fighting corruption. America is lost! It shall
suffer the fate predicted by Amos Bronson Alcott when he wrote, "A
government, for protecting business only, is but a carcass, and soon
falls by its own corruption and decay."

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=15971

John Kozy is a frequent contributor to Global Research.  Global
Research Articles by John Kozy

Diagnose This:

Physicians may not overly concern themselves about the bribery they
allow to take place, but we as consumers must. Gross asks, "What could
be better than stopping the waste of $100 billion (at the very least)
in medical, dental and pharmaceutical fraud, and using the money for
any good purpose, including lower federal taxes for all? And in the
process, cleansing the stain that dishonest doctors have cast on the
profession and, by extension, on their honest colleagues?"

In other words, corrupt doctors actively try not to question
themselves about it , thereby perpetuating their state of self-
deception. ...There are a lot of corrupt doctors out there. Corrupt
doctors should have their licences taken away from them. One of the
doctors said essentially that a corrupt society deserved corrupt
doctors (he did not add, like himself)

Physicians may not overly concern themselves about the bribery they
allow to take place, but we as consumers must....One big question
remains unanswered: How can doctors accept these bribes and look in
the mirror afterward?

Physicians and bribery: a closer look at this common medical industry
practice

Kickback scams are omnipresent in medicine. Dishonest and ingenious
doctors can take in sums much greater than $100,000 a year.  "Most
physicians do not make decisions about which drug to use on the basis
of scientific research or cost. They base their decision almost
entirely on which drug is the most popular choice of their
colleagues." How would you like a bonus of $100,000 per year on top of
your already outrageously high salary?

by: Dani Veracity, citizen journalist

More on the corrupt health care system in the United States. MOST
doctors make the gangsters and the bank robbers of the 1930s look like
alter boys. And they think pro bono ( Latin
meaning "for the public good").  is an Italian Bocce (or Bocci, or
Boccie) champion. That is
not to say that there are not some great and decent and honest men and
women in medicine, however, they are rare. Good luck in finding them.
...

read more »

Why did Buckwheat waste an entire year doing NOTHING about waste and
fraud?

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/health/2010/03/01/cohen.health.care....
http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/Insurance/Insureyourhealth/P74840...
http://www.health.com/health/money-article/0,,20221597,00.html
http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/insurance/20040206a1.asp
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/money/personal-investing/check-med...

That's more than the entire economy of many countries.

With that kind of money involved this problem will never be solved.
For every crooked fake doctor's office they shut down there are
hundreds more waiting to take their place.

This reminds us that the politicians cannot solve real problems.  When
that kind of money is being stolen annually this indicates that the
system has failed in my opinion.

They'll eventually get some schmuck to testify before congress on TV
and start ranting and raving at them like they did with the so called
Wall Street meltdown.

This however distracts us from the real issue which is the people in
the government have no idea what the root causes of these issues are
or how to solve them.

It's very discouraging to struggle to try to survive when this kind of
money is being stolen.  And that's just outright fraud.  Who knows
where many other billions are disappearing in many other ways.

If this has been going on for say 10 years that's $ 600 billion
dollars taken out of the economy tax free.  No wonder America is going
broke.

What's the illegal drug market in the U.S. worth today ?  Another $
100 billion or so a year ?  There's a lot of oxy contin tablets out
there.  They seem to make their way to the street very easily.  The
U.S. is drowning in an endless sea of cocaine, heroin,
methamphetamine, etc..

Then they tell people to text $ 10 to help the people in Haiti.  I
wonder what $ 60 billion could do in Haiti.

Jeff

It is  virtually impossible to mount an honest defense of the current
U.S. health care system.
We, the people, must find a way to break corporate America's current
stranglehold over the legislative process

Corrupt U.S. Health Care System Far More Deadly Than Previously
Realized
New study finds 45,000 Americans die each year for lack of health
care...
Guest editorial by Ernest A. Canning

In "ObamaCare: Right Diagnosis, Wrong Prescription" I noted that it
was virtually impossible to mount an honest defense of the current
U.S. health care system. Doing so would amount to suggesting that the
obscene wealth of a few health care insurance company CEOs and their
Wall Street investors has a greater social value than the lives of
18,000 of our fellow citizens whom the current system annually
sentences to death simply because they are too poor to purchase
insurance coverage.

Today, as I mulled over the legislative obscenity that Sen. Max Baucus
(D-MT) and a former vice president of WellPoint spent months preparing
--- an insurance carrier wish-list that contains no public option, no
means for controlling costs or abuse; a measure that does not merely
protect but expands the already obscene wealth of the few by mandating
that every citizen purchase insurance, with massive subsidies flowing
into carrier coffers --- I learned that I was wrong...

The 18,000 figure I relied upon was based on a now outdated 2002 study
performed by the National Academy of Science's Institute of Medicine.
Today, there is a new Harvard University study which has been released
by the American Journal of Public Health. Our corrupt and
dysfunctional system does not sentence a mere 18,000 Americans to
death each year because they can't afford coverage. Our system kills
close to 45,000 each year due to lack of coverage --- 45,000 in
addition to the still uncounted numbers who die when carriers refuse
to authorize vital procedures.

To fully appreciate the enormity of that number, consider: Direct U.S.
military involvement in Vietnam commenced when President Kennedy sent
several thousand advisers in 1963. It ended twelve (12) years later
when Saigon fell in 1975. During that twelve year span a total of
58,000 American service personnel lost their lives.

At current rates, 540,000 Americans will die over the next 12 years
simply because they can't afford insurance.

I'd ask, "enough of a trigger, Mr. President?" But the truth is, as
forcefully noted by Dr. Stephanie Woolhandler, a Harvard University
Professor involved in the latest study, even the so-called "public
option" would not come close to resolving the crisis in American
health care. Single-payer (Medicare for All) is the only solution.

Where I depart from Dr. Woolhandler is in her faith that a large
enough number of e-mails and calls can pressure Congress to do the
right thing.

At this point the democracy deficit is so great that there appears to
be only two ways the super majority of Americans who desire a single-
payer system may be able to effectuate meaningful change. One would be
a massive civil disobedience campaign at levels used by Ghandi to
bring the British empire to its knees, perhaps on the scale of a
national general strike. The other, also entailing direct, non-violent
action, would be for progressives both inside and outside the
Democratic Party to come together to jointly target each corporate
sell out in Congress for replacement.

No doubt, the enormity of either approach is daunting, but, as Howard
Zinn observed in A Power Governments Cannot Suppress:

There is a basic weakness in governments, however massive their
armies, however vast their wealth, however they control images and
information, because their power depends on the obedience of
citizens...When the citizens begin to suspect they have been deceived
and withdraw their support, government loses its legitimacy and its
power.
I would venture that the Founding Fathers of this nation would find
the notion of a government willing to sacrifice the lives of so many
to secure the wealth of so few as contrary to the very principles upon
which they fought the American Revolution.

The Declaration of Independence does not merely describe rights to
"life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" as "inalienable," but
adds:

That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men,
deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That
whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it
is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute
new government, laying its foundation on such principles and
organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely
to effect their safety and happiness.

As daunting as the task may be, we owe it to those who came before us
and to our posterity to finally say, enough! We, the people, must find
a way to  break corporate America's current stranglehold over the
legislative process. Our political elites must come to realize that we
will neither support nor obey a leadership that would sacrifice our
very lives to satisfy the greed of the privileged few. If they will
not, they must step aside. Such is the guiding principles of our
American democracy.

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7424
* * *
Ernest A. Canning has been an active member of the California state
bar since 1977. Mr. Canning has received both undergraduate and
graduate degrees in political science as well as a juris doctor. He is
also a Vietnam vet (4th Infantry, Central Highlands 1968).

The 9/18/09 'Democracy Now!' interview of Dr. Steffie Woolhandler,
professor of medicine at Harvard University and a co-founder of
Physicians for a National Health Program, follows below...
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7424

We have more important problems than your Communist perversion to have
someone else pay your bills for you.

 Fraud is a way of life in the medical industry.
3 Miami-Dade doctors arrested-$10 million Medicare fraud scheme!
More Than 30 Arrested in Nationwide Medicare Fraud Sweep ...
26 Arrested in Three States in Medicare Fraud Schemes - ..
3 more Miami-Dade doctors arrested in Medicare - Local News: ..
Feds Crackdown On Medicare Fraud In Miami
Federal authorities arrested more than 30 suspects, including doctors
Doctors, assistants found guilty in Medicare fraud trial ...
Several home health operators and several doctors were arrested
There's Medicare and Medicaid fraud committed by organized Russian-
Armenian crime circles. ..
Miami Serves As Model In Medicare Fraud Crackdown | KOSU Radio
Miami-Dade doctors and two medical assistants of plotting to submit
millions of dollars in bogus bills to Medicare
Over the past five years, about 60 people charged with Medicare fraud
have fled
Sacramento Division: Press ...Three Arrested for Their Roles in
Medicare Fraud Scheme
News Stories: Florida Medicare Fraud
Former President and Owner of Complete Medical Center, Inc. Arrested
on Health Care ...
Feds catch Medicare-fraud fugitive in Mexico
Feds arrest 26 in $61 million Medicare fraud. Doctors, nurses among
them
Imperial Valley News - Balboa Therapy Center Owners Arrested ...
Medical Fraud Carries A Staggering Price Tag :
Medicare fraud - estimated now to total about $60 billion ...
Local Doctor Faces Whistle-Blower Lawsuit for Medicare Fraud ...
A team of federal agents working in New York, Louisiana, Boston, and
Houston arrested 32 people

Let us prey.

And that's because Fraud is a White Collar crime and NOT punished
severely.

Today, if YOU are in the passenger seat and I'm driving and I tell you
I'm gonna drive over to the convenience store and rob it, and during
that robbery I MURDER the clerk YOU WILL BE TRIED FOR MURDER.

The Prosecutor merely needs to get the detectives to get you to admit
that I told I would rob the store... No OTHER evidence is needed.

We need something similar for White Collar organized Fraud.

You and I both know that clericals DO NOT commit Fraud from their own
ideas because they can't profit from it.  Medical clericals commit
Fraud because they were TOLD to.  (And it's NOT in an email, or
documented.)

If we put Executives in PRISON we'll see Fraud drop massively.

Bravo Patriot.. You got that right. Hang em High. In the case of  the
medical fraudsters: Patients are also guilty. They often know that the
medical people are charging the insurance companies, especially
Medicare and Medicade, for products and services that were not
provided. Yet, the patient does not report these gangsters since
nothing comes out of the patient's pocket. Also, when people have
insurance, they use more health services and subject themselves to
more medical corruption.

I recently had a series of tests done at a cardiologists and was
charged for services that I knew were not performed. I turned them in
to Medicare and they had to return the money since they could not
provide proof that these particular services were performed.

The US government says that they have further tightened the screws on
doctors and hospitals who have been extracting billions of dollars of
dishonest reimbursement claims. You can bet that the medicine men will
find a way to continue their crooked ways. "Doctor, heal thyself."

I no longer deal with these crooked bastards.  Let's see if my new
heart medic does the same thing when I need tested again.
I don't trust any of them.  I have seen too much fraud. Quack,
quack.....
--- Raymond.

hey, long time no vomit over your posts, rumor was your neighbors buried
you out on the north 40

"I'm not a leftist, I'm where the righteous ought to be"