A new report about Veterans Affairs Department employees squirreling away tens of thousands of unopened letters related to benefits claims is sparking fresh concerns that veterans and their survivors are being cheated out of money.
VA officials acknowledge further credibility problems based on a new report of a previously undisclosed 2007 incident in which workers at a Detroit regional office turned in 16,000 pieces of unprocessed mail and 717 documents turned up in New York in December during amnesty periods in which workers were promised no one would be penalized.
“Veterans have lost trust in VA,” Michael Walcoff, VA’s under secretary for benefits, said at a hearing Tuesday. “That loss of trust is understandable, and winning back that trust will not be easy.”
Unprocessed and unopened mail was just one problem in VA claims processing mentioned by Belinda Finn, VA’s assistant inspector general for auditing, in testimony before the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee.
Auditors also found that the dates recorded for receiving claims, which in many cases determine the effective date for benefits payments, are wrong in many cases because of intentional and unintentional errors, Finn said.
The worst case uncovered by auditors involved the New York regional office, where employees testified that managers told staff to put later dates on claims to make it appear claims were being processed faster. A review found that 56 percent of claims had incorrect dates, although no evidence was found of incorrect or delayed benefits payments. Finn said workers reported that this practice had been used for years.
The new report comes as VA is trying to resolve an earlier controversy involving documents essential to the claims process that were discovered in bins awaiting shredding at several regional offices, which raised questions about how many past claims had been delayed or denied because of intentional or unintentional destruction of documentation.
‘It is impossible not to be shocked’
Kathryn Witt of Gold Star Wives of America said survivors trying to receive VA benefits have long complained about problems getting accurate information and missing claims. “When they call to check on the status of the claim, they are often told that the VA has no record of their claim and that they should resubmit their paperwork,” she said.
In one case, a woman claimed she had to submit paperwork to VA three times to prove she was married and had three children, Witt said.
And having to resubmit the same claim, she added, does nothing to reduce the backlog that already forces survivors to wait six to nine months for simple claims to be approved.
“It is impossible not to be shocked by the numbers from Detroit,” said Rep. Harry Mitchell, D-Ariz., who chairs the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee’s oversight and investigations panel. “Shredding documents or burying them in the bottom drawer is a breach of trust. Whether that breach of trust comes as a consequence of inadequate training or negligent or deliberate behavior, Congress must not and will not tolerate it.”
It is unclear, however, whether there is any short-term fix.
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_________________ True scientists don't manipulate complex data to get a simple answer they wanted to achieve from the start. That's not science.
zeeder Genious
Posts: 416
Posted: Fri Mar 06, 09 7:12 am Post subject:
Hey I get post something useful! A recent article from Walter Williams. I will listen to Rush Limbaugh's entire show when he guest hosts.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Support grew on Friday for insurance industry demands that all Americans be required to obtain coverage as part of a planned healthcare system overhaul, with a senior Senate Democrat and a coalition of business and consumer groups promoting the idea.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, a Democrat who is helping write healthcare legislation, said an insurance requirement, or mandate, would help the market function better and reduce premium costs for everyone.
Baucus argued that the cost of medical care for people with no insurance is being shifted to those with insurance, forcing costs higher.
"An individual obligation to get health coverage is essential," Baucus said in a speech to the Center for American Progress think tank.
Meanwhile, an influential coalition of hospital, nurses, doctors, business, consumer and insurance groups said on Friday its members had agreed on a set of reform ideas including a mandate that all Americans obtain health insurance.
The coalition, called the Health Reform Dialogue, also backed the idea of federal subsidies to help people pay for medical coverage.
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_________________ True scientists don't manipulate complex data to get a simple answer they wanted to achieve from the start. That's not science.
Last year, former Washington Post reporter T.R. Reid made a great documentary for the PBS show Frontline titled Sick Around the World.
Reid traveled to five countries that deliver health care for all – UK, Japan, Switzerland, Germany, Taiwan – to learn about how they do it.
Reid found that the one thing these five countries had in common – none allowed for-profit health insurance companies to sell basic medical coverage.
Frontline then said to Reid – okay, we want you to go around the United States and make a companion documentary titled Sick Around the America.
So, Reid traveled around America, interviewing patients, doctors, and health insurance executives.
The documentary that resulted – Sick Around America – aired Monday night on PBS.
But even though Reid did the reporting for the film, he was cut out of the film when it aired this week.
And the film didn't present Reid's bottom line for health care reform – don't let health insurance companies profit from selling basic health insurance.
They can sell for-profit insurance for extras – breast enlargements, botox, hair transplants.
But not for the basic health needs of the American people.
Instead, the film that aired Monday pushed the view that Americans be required to purchase health insurance from for-profit companies.
And the film had a deceptive segment that totally got wrong the lesson of Reid's previous documentary – Sick Around the World.
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_________________ True scientists don't manipulate complex data to get a simple answer they wanted to achieve from the start. That's not science.
TimeVirus Galactic Overlord
Posts: 26139
Posted: Thu May 21, 09 11:41 pm Post subject:
Bob has some thoughts on health care...
_________________ True scientists don't manipulate complex data to get a simple answer they wanted to achieve from the start. That's not science.
jimmy8DT Quantum Mechanic
Posts: 103
Posted: Sat May 30, 09 10:47 pm Post subject: Blue Cross Blue Shield to Launch Ad Campaign Against Obama
President Barack Obama has issued the call for the medical insurance industry to produce significant reform so millions of Americans still uncovered or underinsured by the healthcare insurance industry can obtain affordable medical care and to rein in the skyrocketing cost of premiums for the individuals who do have access to it. In response, Blue Cross Blue Shield has notified the Washington Post that it has an ad campaign in the development stage that will lambaste many of the reforms advocated by the president........
_________________ "Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like force, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." - George Washington
jimmy8DT Quantum Mechanic
Posts: 103
Posted: Sun May 31, 09 10:30 am Post subject:
the company i work for told us last week that we're no longer competitive in the market... so, we're cutting 100million of on-going costs. We've spent so much money investing in products no one wants.
Things are getting stranger and stranger in D.C. and the promise of change now definitely looks like the same old game with Medicare: invite the HMOs in to brainstorm cuts in services to people who need them most.
Behind this is a new bill submitted on May 20 by Senator John D. “Jay” Rockefeller IV (D, W.VA.), chairman of the Senate Finance Subcommittee on Health Care. It authorizes the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC, created in 1997) to go even further and set lists of approved treatment standards and actually have enforcement powers over methods of healthcare delivery and reimbursement. You just think about that for a minute.
The bill is called, “The MedPAC Reform Act of 2009,” so beware when you hear words like “Reform” in an act as in “The Commodities Futures Trading ‘Modernization’” Act of 2000 (thanks to Larry Summers and signer Bill Clinton), which helped bring us “The Enron Loophole,” which helped bring down Enron and helped get us in the financial pickle we’re in today with derivatives.
This time “The MedPAC Reform Act” is calling for MedPAC to be made up of “independent experts” as an “executive agency modeled after the Federal Reserve.” Is that because the Fed has done such an incredibly super job of throwing our money after banks and other dinosauric corporations like AIG?
Do we need still another shark tank of “experts” with vested interests and little transparency over their actions, spending your money as they will, and as fast as they print it. Yes, just as the Federal Reserve serves private financial interests, so too the new health care reimbursement agency will serve the HMOs, demanding their (your) blood money. This is the opposite of what Obama promised in his “Change” campaign.
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_________________ True scientists don't manipulate complex data to get a simple answer they wanted to achieve from the start. That's not science.
WASHINGTON — Influential senators working to overhaul the nation's health care system have investments and family ties with some of the biggest names in the industry. The wife of Sen. Chris Dodd, the lawmaker in charge of writing the Senate's bill, sits on the boards of four health care companies.
Members of both parties have industry connections, including Democrats Jay Rockefeller and Tom Harkin, in addition to Dodd, and Republicans Tom Coburn, Judd Gregg, John Kyl and Orrin Hatch, financial reports showed Friday. .
Jackie Clegg Dodd, wife of the Connecticut Democrat, is on the boards of Javelin Pharmaceuticals Inc., Cardiome Pharma Corp., Brookdale Senior Living and Pear Tree Pharmaceuticals.
Dodd is filling in for ailing Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which will soon start work on a health care bill.
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_________________ True scientists don't manipulate complex data to get a simple answer they wanted to achieve from the start. That's not science.
TimeVirus Galactic Overlord
Posts: 26139
Posted: Mon Jun 15, 09 10:21 am Post subject:
Dr Ron Paul On Reforming Health Care
_________________ True scientists don't manipulate complex data to get a simple answer they wanted to achieve from the start. That's not science.
“On the night of June 24, the media and government become one, when ABC turns its programming over to President Obama and White House officials to push government run health care,” reports Drudge.
Charlie Gibson will anchor his World News program from the Blue Room of the White House and the network plans to air a slick propaganda piece — entitled “Prescription for America” — that will originate from the East Room.
Republicans demanded equal time to present their views on so-called health care reform, but the request was rejected by ABC News. “In the absence of opposition, I am concerned this event will become a glorified infomercial to promote the Democrat agenda,” complained Ken McKay of the Republican National Committee.
Obama will take part in a “moderated” discussion with a live audience and will “answer questions from an audience made up of Americans selected by ABC News who have divergent opinions in this historic debate,” according to New Mexico Business Weekly.
Obama’s health care plan is based on rationing and denial of service. “There’s always going to be an asymmetry of information between patient and provider,” said the anointed one earlier this year. “And part of what I think government can do effectively is to be an honest broker in assessing and evaluating treatment options.”
[Controlling our health choices is clearly allowed for in the Constitution... not!]
_________________ True scientists don't manipulate complex data to get a simple answer they wanted to achieve from the start. That's not science.
TimeVirus Galactic Overlord
Posts: 26139
Posted: Thu Jun 18, 09 9:09 pm Post subject:
Congressman Ron Paul on Healthcare
_________________ True scientists don't manipulate complex data to get a simple answer they wanted to achieve from the start. That's not science.
TimeVirus Galactic Overlord
Posts: 26139
Posted: Thu Jul 02, 09 10:57 pm Post subject:
Why? Only one reason, it's a ripoff. Otherwise they wouldn't need a gun to make me take it.
WASHINGTON — Americans who refuse to buy affordable medical coverage could be hit with fines of more than $1,000 under a health care overhaul bill unveiled Thursday by key Senate Democrats looking to fulfill President Barack Obama's top domestic priority.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated the fines will raise around $36 billion over 10 years. Senate aides said the penalties would be modeled on the approach taken by Massachusetts, which now imposes a fine of about $1,000 a year on individuals who refuse to get coverage. Under the federal legislation, families would pay higher penalties than individuals.
In a revamped health care system envisioned by lawmakers, people would be required to carry health insurance just like motorists must get auto coverage now. The government would provide subsidies for the poor and many middle-class families, but those who still refuse to sign up would face penalties.
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_________________ True scientists don't manipulate complex data to get a simple answer they wanted to achieve from the start. That's not science.
Red Devil Infinity Agent
Posts: 2949
Posted: Fri Jul 03, 09 6:26 am Post subject:
"If you don't accept our protection, youse gots to pay."
Washington (CNSNews.com) - House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Tuesday that the health-care reform bill now pending in Congress would garner very few votes if lawmakers actually had to read the entire bill before voting on it.
“If every member pledged to not vote for it if they hadn’t read it in its entirety, I think we would have very few votes,” Hoyer told CNSNews.com at his regular weekly news conference.
Hoyer was responding to a question from CNSNews.com on whether he supported a pledge that asks members of the Congress to read the entire bill before voting on it and also make the full text of the bill available to the public for 72 hours before a vote.
In fact, Hoyer found the idea of the pledge humorous, laughing as he responded to the question. “I’m laughing because a) I don’t know how long this bill is going to be, but it’s going to be a very long bill,” he said.
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_________________ True scientists don't manipulate complex data to get a simple answer they wanted to achieve from the start. That's not science.
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A Seattle clinic for people fed up with insurance, started by doctors fed up with insurance, has gotten $4 million in private venture capital money to expand, it announced on Monday.
Qliance says it has a profit-making solution to the problems of long waits, rushed doctors and cursory care that bother patients, at the same time that it eliminates the paperwork and pressure that plague primary care doctors.
"If you spent five minutes in my office you would notice there is nobody waiting. We don't have to stack them up like jets over Newark," said Garrison Bliss, a doctor and co-founder of the primary care clinic.
The new venture funding comes from Second Avenue Partners with participation by New Atlantic Ventures and Clear Fir Partners, bringing total capital raised to about $7.5 million.
Co-founder Norm Wu said per-patient revenue is triple that of insurance-based clinics. He said many costs are fixed so the firm, now losing money, will turn to profit as business grows.
More than 50 noninsurance clinics operate in 18 U.S. states, based on different business models, Wu noted.
The backers believe Qliance can grow very profitable, and the clinic uses stock options to attract new doctors. The next step is to open a suburban office.
Qliance says it is a private alternative to the failures of insurance, which have made health care President Obama's top legislative priority in Congress, with a price tag of $1 trillion or more.
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_________________ True scientists don't manipulate complex data to get a simple answer they wanted to achieve from the start. That's not science.
FORT LEE, N.J., July 7 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The National Inflation Association today released the following statement to its http://inflation.us members:
"It is becoming increasingly likely that health care will be the straw that causes the U.S. Dollar to collapse. There is no doubt about it that health care costs are out-of-control in America. Unfortunately, most Americans are calling for the government to do something about astronomical health care costs, when the government is actually the cause of the crisis and will only make it much worse.
Medicare costs have increased from $3 billion in 1966 to an estimated $408 billion in 2009. This equals a compound annual growth rate of 12% and proves that inflation gravitates towards parts of the economy where government is involved in the most. Health care now accounts for 17% of the U.S. GDP, and by 2017 it is estimated that one out of every $5 spent in this country will be on health care.
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_________________ True scientists don't manipulate complex data to get a simple answer they wanted to achieve from the start. That's not science.
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