Heartless Rick Scott

[FayeforCure]

http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/local/article/199012/3/Cuts-to-Program-for-Disabled-Worry-First-Coast-Families

Governor Rick Scott approved a 15 percent reduction to the rates on Thursday and they went into effect Friday, leaving many families in a bind.

"There's no way to watch him 24/7," mother Kimberly Farrell said about her autistic son, Jonathan.  "I don't know what I'm going to do."

Both Farrell and Carter receive services from PCA Plus, which is located in Middleburg.

Farrell depends on assistance to run errands and prepare meals, because her husband is serving in Afghanistan. 

Farrell said she is doing her best not to have to put Jonathan in a home.

"We have nowhere to turn," she said. 

The new rates are effective from April 1 through June 30, 2011.

Governor Scott said this week the cuts are necessary.

"We have to make sure we don't waste dollars," Scott explained.   "We have to get great care.

Yes, Yes, Rick Scott: Providing Services to the Disdabled is PURE Waste.


It's so much cheaper to just stick them in an institution. Who needs them anyway.........they are too disabled to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and have no place in the "You're On Your Own" aka YOYO society

Bravo Ricky!!!!

[Charles Hunter]

I can't afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned - they cost enough:
and those who are badly off must go there.'

'Many can't go there; and many would rather die.'

'If they would rather die,' said Scrooge, 'they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. '

[jcjohnpaint]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tq1zpHF0J04&feature=player_embedded#at=59

[Jaxson]

Did I see Middleburg mentioned in the above news story?  All I can say is that Middleburg is getting what they voted for... 

[Timkin]

Rick Scott needs to be removed from office.  He is taking our State backwards.

[danem]

http://www.baynews9.com/article/news/2011/february/208947

ST. PETERSBURG --
A local lawmaker wants voters to have the option to recall their state leaders.

State Representative Rick Kriseman (D-St. Petersburg) filed House Joint Resolution 785 in Tallahassee Wednesday.

[NotNow]

Cuts in Medicare are coming.  The current growth of the program is not going to go on.  There is simply not enough money.  Cuts is services and cuts in allowable rates are inevitible.  The federal government can not continue to borrow the money to sustain ALL of the federal programs for many more years. 

Hopefully, we can stem the financial bleeding before a crash.  As time passes, it seems that the courage to solve our budget problems can not be found.  And the resulting crash is inevitable. 

Tough days are ahead.

[JeffreyS]

^ Your right NN too bad we don't solve our funding problems more sensibly by closing the loopholes the rich and corporations use and cutting back the needless sprawl of our military.  But again you are correct about what will happen much easier to attack the elderly or infirm.

[tufsu1]

^ Your right NN too bad we don't solve our funding problems more sensibly by closing the loopholes the rich and corporations use and cutting back the needless sprawl of our military.  But again you are correct about what will happen much easier to attack the elderly or infirm.

Yep...Democrats just proposed Medicare reform that will save $900+ billion over 3 years...wanna bet whether Repubklicans will go along?

[buckethead]

^ Your right NN too bad we don't solve our funding problems more sensibly by closing the loopholes the rich and corporations use and cutting back the needless sprawl of our military.  But again you are correct about what will happen much easier to attack the elderly or infirm.

Yep...Democrats just proposed Medicare reform that will save $900+ billion over 3 years...wanna bet whether Repubklicans will go along?

What is the proposal?

[NotNow]

I am willing to listen to any taxing/cutting proposals that either of you think will work.  At this point, completely scrapping the Department of Defense would not solve our problem.

I have not heard of this dem proposal either.  Care to elaborate?

[buckethead]

Perhaps he speaks of the Health Insurance Reform and 100% Market Share/Profitability Act?

The CBO gave that little gal rave reviews.

[NotNow]

From wikipedia on "medicaid":

Unlike Medicare, which is solely a federal program, Medicaid is a joint federal-state program. Each state operates its own Medicaid system, but this system must conform to federal guidelines in order for the state to receive matching funds and grants. The matching rate provided to states is determined using a federal matching formula (called Federal Medical Assistance Percentages), which generates payment rates that vary from state to state, depending on each state's respective per capita income.[23] The wealthiest states only receive a federal match of 50% while poorer states receive a larger match.

Medicaid funding has become a major budgetary issue for many states over the last few years, with states, on average, spending 16.8% of state general funds on the program. If the federal match expenditure is also counted, the program, on average, takes up 22% of each state's budget.[24][25] According to CMS, the Medicaid program provided health care services to more than 46.0 million people in 2001.[26][27] In 2002, Medicaid enrollees numbered 39.9 million Americans, the largest group being children (18.4 million or 46 percent)[citation needed]. Some 43 million Americans were enrolled in 2004 (19.7 million of them children) at a total cost of $295 billion. In 2008, Medicaid provided health coverage and services to approximately 49 million low-income children, pregnant women, elderly people, and disabled people. Federal Medicaid outlays were estimated to be $204 billion in 2008.[28]

Medicaid payments currently assist nearly 60 percent of all nursing home residents and about 37 percent of all childbirths in the United States. The Federal Government pays on average 57 percent of Medicaid expenses.


On March 23, 2010, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was signed into law by President Barack Obama. The law expanded Medicaid eligibility starting in 2014; people with income up to 133% of the poverty line qualify for coverage, including adults without dependent children.[33][34]

[FayeforCure]

^ Your right NN too bad we don't solve our funding problems more sensibly by closing the loopholes the rich and corporations use and cutting back the needless sprawl of our military.  But again you are correct about what will happen much easier to attack the elderly or infirm.

Yep...Democrats just proposed Medicare reform that will save $900+ billion over 3 years...wanna bet whether Repubklicans will go along?

That sounds impossible, since the annual federal budget for Medicare AND Medicaid is $900 billion. You mean to say they proposed to cut it by 33% every year?

I couldn't find anything of the sort. Please source your statements.

On a positive note:

Obama administration cracking down on health care fraud
Strike forces rounding up hundreds in targeted cities
BY CHRIS CASTEEL ccasteel@opubco.com Oklahoman     7 Published: March 21, 2011


WASHINGTON â€" The Obama administration has been aggressively cracking down on health care fraud, bringing criminal cases against doctors, nurses, hospitals, equipment suppliers and others in a major effort to curb abuses in huge federal programs that have long been vulnerable to a host of schemes.


Advertisement
Last month, the FBI and Justice Department rounded up and charged 110 people in nine cities for allegedly defrauding Medicare of more than $240 million. The largest federal health care “takedown” ever, it included doctors, nurses, health care company owners and executives.

That bust followed another large one in July that included charges against 94 people in connection with an alleged $251 million in false claims to Medicare.

Building from a strike force effort established in Miami, Fla., and Los Angeles in the last years of the Bush administration, the Justice Department and the Department of Health and Human Services have expanded strike forces to Houston, Detroit, Brooklyn, Tampa, Baton Rouge, Dallas and Chicago.

“We think the strike force efforts are having great success and we'd like to continue those efforts,” U.S. Justice Department official Greg Andres told a Senate committee earlier this month.

The federal government spent close to $900 billion on Medicare and Medicaid last year â€" and the Justice Department recovered about $4 billion for Medicare from its anti-fraud efforts.

“They're doing better,” Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Muskogee, said last week.

“When they recover $25 billion, I'll start being happy. When they recover $50 billion, I'll give them an attaboy.”

Coburn authors bill

Coburn has long complained that the government wasn't doing enough to combat waste, fraud and abuse in its massive health care programs, and he authored legislation last year to give the Health and Human Services Department more tools to fight fraud.

That bill didn't pass, but department officials said they're using some of the same proposals advocated by Coburn to detect potential fraud. Rather than chasing after money already paid, they are analyzing suspicious patterns of claims before paying them, screening companies that want to provide Medicare services and even refusing new providers if a certain market has an ample amount.

The health care bill approved last year will make it easier to charge people for health care fraud and increase the prison time for guilty parties. It also increases the amount of money spent to pursue fraud.

“My goal is that anyone who is cheating Medicare ought to be in jail,” Coburn said. “They are stealing from our children and grandchildren.” HELLO: Rick Scott

Coburn said he was impressed with the return on investment the Justice Department is claiming for its health care fraud efforts.

Recovering funds

According to Andres, an acting deputy assistant attorney general in the criminal division, the government last year recovered nearly $7 for every $1 spent on investigating fraud.

There is no official government estimate for the amount of money lost each year to Medicare and Medicaid fraud.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and others have cited a figure of $60 billion in Medicare alone, and some attribute the number to the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud.

But the coalition's website attributes the number to a 2008 news story in the Miami Herald.

“Fraud is elusive, fraud is secret, fraud is hidden,” Peter Budetti, an administrator with the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, told a Senate subcommittee this month.

Daniel Levinson, the inspector general for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said there is no precise measure, but that annual fraud totals billions of dollars.

The schemes, he said, commonly include billing for services that weren't provided or weren't necessary; paying or receiving kickbacks; illegally marketing products; and stealing identities and using them to make claims for care or equipment. (In his deposition....... RICK SCOTT: What is the definition of fraud?)

“The perpetrators of these schemes range from street criminals, who believe it is safer and more profitable to steal from Medicare than to traffic in illegal drugs, to Fortune 500 companies that pay kickbacks to physicians in return for referrals,” Levinson said.



Read more: http://newsok.com/obama-administration-cracking-down-on-health-care-fraud/article/3550491#ixzz1ISxunnJp

Ah, but Rick Scott topped them all with his Medicare defrauding!

The KING of CROOKS!!

[Ocklawaha]

Rendering of the future prosperity of Florida.

OCKLAWAHA