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Health/Medical Title: Vote For Cruz, Screw Your Parents The CEO of Platinum Health Care — a nursing-home chain that recently settled a lawsuit alleging it stole patients’ Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and Veterans Administration payments — is closely linked to five mysterious companies that donated $250,000 to Stand For Truth, a super PAC supporting Ted Cruz. The five limited liability companies, which own or operate assisted living facilities for seniors, each donated $50,000 to Stand for Truth on Dec. 21, 2015. That’s the same day that Platinum Health Care — which shares the same Skokie, Illinois, address as the five LLCs — settled over allegations that CEO Ben Klein and his firms kept seniors’ government checks after they moved out of Platinum facilities or died. Let me remind you that Medicare and Medicaid are the entire problem space within our federal budget, and that same issue -- retiree health care costs -- are the entire issue with state and local budgets, along with private pensions. There is only one candidate from either major political party that has put forward any sort of cogent plan of any kind of deal with the Medicare and Medicaid mess -- along with the mess of health care in private industry. This, as I've written about pretty-much since The Market Ticker began publication, is the intermediate and longer-term issue that will destroy our federal, state and local budgets if we don't deal with it, and there are a huge number of firms (and of course individuals) that make a hell of a lot of money through acts that either are illegal but not prosecuted or damn well ought to be illegal. Some of what Trump wants to do this in regard will require Congressional action, and that may be very hard to obtain. But not all of it; points #5 and #7 can be done without Congressional action by and large. The first by making clear to all health care providers that failure to do so will be treated as a violation of 15 USC and prosecuted, while #7 can also be pursued, in large part, the same way. I remind you, once again, of the numerical facts that are not in dispute: Of the $3,688 billion the Federal Government spent last year 35% of it was spent on Medicare and Medicaid. We do not, other than in the fraud-laced "disability" sub-program, have a budget issue with Social Security; the budgetary strains there are temporary and will subside over time. Medicare and Medicaid, on the other hand, will not stabilize until and unless the monopolist practices of this "industry" are ended, beginning with basic consumer protections -- the posting and enforcement of level pricing for all procedures, devices and drugs to all comers. The corner gas station cannot get away with charging you $2/gallon for gas and the next person $5, refusing to give you a price until after you pumped your gas, solely based on how much money you have or whether you pay cash or with a credit card. If they tried it the owner would be in prison in an hour. Ditto for the local grocer. That this sort of practice goes on literally by the hour and that Cruz is linked to groups that have both done this serially and have settled charges they ripped off Social Security entirely, collecting funds paid to people who either weren't there or are dead, is an outrage. We either resolve this problem folks or this nation dies from self-inflicted fiscal damage. This is not a matter of debate and it's not a close call either. It's a mathematical fact and the Ted Cruz campaign is being funded, in part, by people who have settled charges that they not only benefit daily from the general outrageous conduct of medical providers they crossed even those generous lines and billed for services never performed -- that is, outright ripped us all off. If you vote for anyone who has not put forward a cohesive plan to address this, not in platitudes but in specifics, you are voting for the fiscal destruction of this nation. If America is fiscally destroyed nothing else matters. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread |
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