STRIKE Against Voting for Fat Cats

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqpFm7zAK90

ALEC 8-4-11 Health Insurance Exchanges States in Charge

ALEC 8-4-11 Health Insurance Exchanges States in Charge

63649152-ALEC-8-4-11-Health-Insurance-Exchanges-States-in-Charge (1).pdf

http://www.scribd.com/document_downloads/direct/63649152?extension=pdf&ft=1316498103&lt=1316501713&uahk=w5XNEBV472WUiRyp3RFaIB3+xlY

MN ALEC members start to mess with state insurance exchange already

Sen. David Hann follows a strictly ALEC agenda - and we know for sure that Senator Chris Gerlach is an ALEC member.  As ALEC has the gutting of ALL ObamaCare and state health plans, this comes as no surprise.  Be nice if the press would mention these FACTS.  Their pamphlet on gutting Obamacare is well known.  What strategy should be used, was hotly debated at the ALEC convention this month, as this link will show.  Gerlach is on the ALEC task force on Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development which indicates he has been given corporate orders.  No legislation gets by an ALEC member without corporate participation.

Minnesota Republicans demand role in state insurance exchange

By Doug Belden
dbelden@pioneerpress.com

Updated: 08/16/2011 11:52:34 PM CDT

Republican lawmakers said Tuesday that Gov. Mark Dayton lacks the authority to proceed with a federally funded health-insurance exchange for Minnesota, and they vowed to try to block the effort.

GOP members generally oppose the idea of an exchange - an online marketplace that would allow consumers to compare and buy coverage - but if the state is going to have one, the Legislature must be involved in developing it, said Sen. David Hann, R-Eden Prairie, chairman of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee.

"We don't think that a significant step of this nature should be taken unilaterally by the governor," Hann said at a news conference. "We are going to pursue every means available to us as a Legislature to prevent that from occurring."

Asked if that could include court action, Hann said, "If that's the avenue that we have to pursue, absolutely."

Hann and other Republican legislative leaders spoke out Tuesday in response to the announcement last week that Minnesota would receive $4.2 million to help set up an exchange, a centerpiece of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.

"We're surprised by the Republican legislators taking this tack," responded Commerce Commissioner Mike Rothman, whose department is leading the effort to establish an exchange in Minnesota.

The exchange plan was in the Commerce Department budget, Rothman said, and lawmakers were notified about the recent federal grant as well.

Minnesota must act now to get its exchange ready by Jan. 1, 2013, with implementation the following year, Rothman said. If it does not, "the federal government will step in, and Minnesota will be subject to a federal exchange."

Sen. Chris Gerlach, R-Apple Valley, chairman of the Senate Commerce and Consumer Protection Committee, said Republicans "have grave concerns over Gov. Dayton's willingness to fully embrace the federal Obamacare."

He said he plans to hold hearings early next session on the issue and urged Dayton to partner with Republicans in opposing the federal program.

Language that would have blocked state money being spent to implement the health care overhaul until its constitutionality had been settled was removed in the final health and human services bill.

But that doesn't give Dayton the right to move ahead on the exchange plan without involving the Legislature, Hann said.

"He's acting as if the state of Minnesota was an administrative function of the federal government, and it isn't," he said.

Doug Belden can be reached at 651-228-5136.

June 10th, 2011 8:22 PM Disturbing New Statistics Show Huge Percentage Of Financial Fraud Against U.S. Government Comes From Healthcare Industry

By Don Soeken

Ever wondered who the biggest culprits are, when it comes to defrauding the taxpayers of the United States?

The answer to that question may surprise you.According to some shocking new statistics from the nonprofit Taxpayers Against Fraud (TAF) public interest group, the ranks of the admitted federal cheaters are occupied almost entirely by health insurers and the healthcare pharmaceutical industry.That’s the clear and thoroughly disturbing conclusion to be found in a revealing TAF study of the “Top 20” fraud lawsuits (ranked by dollar amounts) to have been decided by court judgments or agreed-upon settlements in recent years. Amazingly, the list of penalty awards – as adjudicated under legal procedures mandated by the U.S. False Claims Act – contains no fewer than 19 healthcare or health insurance entities . . . and only a single financial entity who isn’t engaged in the business of health insurance or medical care.
Astonishing? You bet it is. Even a quick look at the list of recent fraud convictions and fraud case settlements involving the U.S. healthcare industry (to review them for yourself: www.taf.org) should be enough to make any alert taxpayer ask: Why haven’t all of these obvious fiscal abuses by healthinsurers and the pharmaceutical industry been reported in the news media . . . even as the entire nation continues to debate the future of healthcare reform?As the Taxpayers Against Fraud website makes chillingly clear, some of America’s most best known and most trusted healthcare industry corporations are heading up the list of despicable cheaters whose conscienceless manipulation of federal health dollars has resulted in convictions or financial settlements with Uncle Sam.Some appalling examples from the TAF “Top 20” list:


No. 1 Fraud Offender: Pfizer -- $1 billion under the False Claims Act. Pfizer paid a total of $2.3 billion, of which $1.3 billion was a criminal fine for kickbacks and off-label marketing and $1 billion was paid under the False Claims Act.


No. 2 Fraud Offender: Tenet Heathcare -- $900,000,000 under the False Claims Act. In July 2006, Tenet Healthcare agreed to pay the Federal Government $900 million for billing violations that included manipulation of outlier payments to Medicare, as well as kickbacks, upcoding, and bill padding.


No. 3 Fraud Offender: HCA -- $731,400,000 under the False Claims Act.?In December 2000, HCA The Healthcare Company (formerly known as Columbia HCA), the largest for-profit hospital chain in the United States, pled guilty to criminal conduct and agreed to pay more than $840 million in criminal fines, civil penalties and damages for unlawful billing practices.


No. 4 Fraud Offender: Merck - $650,000 under the False Claims Act.?In January of 2008, Merck settled the very first nominal pricing fraud case in which the company was accused of taking kickbacks and violating Medicaid best price regulations for Vioxx (an arthritis drug), Zocor (a cholesterol drug), Pepcid (an acid-reflux drug), Cozaar (a hypertensive medication), Fosamax (a bone loss drug) Maxalt (a migraine medication) and Singulair (an asthma medication)


.****As you read through the “Top 20” list of fiscal malefactors who were either found guilty or agreed to settle in fraud cases against Uncle Sam, one fact stands out with startling clarity: 95 percent of these massively unprincipled cheaters were healthcare players . . . including some of the most venerated names in the pharmaceutical, hospital and health insurance industries.


Unfortunately, however, the taxpayers who are so frequently being bilked by these unscrupulous players haven’t been told that the record already shows how willing the U.S. healthcare industry is to stretch the rules and cheat the public in its ceaseless quest for grotesquely swollen profits.As a Ph.D. social worker who has spent much of the past 30 years counseling and defending whistleblowers who dare to speak out against fraud against the U.S. government, I learned a long time ago that the U.S. healthcare industry can’t be trusted to provide adequate medical care for the citizenry, or even to obey the laws and regulations that protect the taxpayers from being defrauded.


Make no mistake: That disturbing list of “Top 20” awards against healthcare insurers and the Pharmaceutical industry shows clearly that we cannot leave healthcare to the “profit-oriented” insurance companies and the hospital chains whose greed and willingness to short-change consumers on care is now common knowledge everywhere. The record shows clearly that allowing the insurers to dictate healthcare policy and healthcare costs can only produce disastrous results. A massive Harvard University study of treatment patterns among patients who were treated in hospital emergency rooms showed that “uninsured” patients were much more likely to die while in the hospital than those who were able to pay the sky-high premiums for adequate healthcare coverage. 


(To learn more about the study, click on:http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/uninsuredtraumapatientsmorelikelytodiestudy).


The first step on the road to getting healthcare reform right is to understand that we are not on a “level playing field,” and that the health industry will stop at nothing to protect its immense profits, regardless of the needless death and the needless suffering their behavior may cause the rest of us.


Donald R. Soeken, founder of the nonprofit Whistleblower Support Fund – a public service organization that supports whistleblowers – can be contacted at: helpline@tidalwave.net and by phone at 301-953-7353. All healthcare fraud cases can be researched on the International Whistleblower Archive.