The Wizard of Oz Goes to Florida
Dr. Mehmet Oz is hunting healthcare fraudsters in the Sunshine State. Why? So they can run for governor or the U.S. Senate?
This Week In Blunders – March 15-21
“Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.” – Carl Jung
Dr. Mehmet Oz took sharp aim at Florida this week in his crackdown on healthcare fraud.
“Florida has been a hotspot for health care fraud for years,” the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator tweeted. “The scale is out of control.”
He wants to know what Sunshine State Gov. Ron SeSantis is going to do about it. He’s previously targeted New York, Minnesota, Maine and California? Is he finally now just noticing Florida?
In a series of settlements between 2000 and 2003, HCA Healthcare paid more than $1.7 billion to settle what was then the largest healthcare fraud case in U.S. history.
Its widespread schemes included billing for unnecessary tests, inflating costs, paying kickbacks to doctors and falsifying records to maximize Medicare, Medicaid, and TRICARE reimbursements.
In 2010, Florida voters sent the man who ran HCA to the governor’s office and in 2018, they elected him to the U.S. Senate.
That man is Republican Rick Scott who was never charged, denied all knowledge of the improprieties that boosted profits at his fast-growing company, and made him rich off the backs of taxpayers, shareholders and the sick and dying.
Scott was forced to resign in 1997 when the feds raided HCA’s office, but as is the custom in our corporate world, he walked away with a massive severance package.
Oz, of course, hasn’t brought up this sordid history, but he is onto schemes that continue to plague our healthcare systems. He writes:
“Behind every fraudulent claim is money taken from taxpayers, resources diverted from patients who truly need care, and vulnerable seniors and low-income Americans being exploited for profit.
“Taxpayers and vulnerable patients deserve better – and it’s time for state leadership to step up and work with us to stop it.”
Unfortunately, Florida has long been a perpetrators’ paradise, and judging by the way they vote, its residents don’t care.
Kung Pao Chips
Whoever owns the best artificial technology first wins the whole world, but whenever the U.S. has a technological lead, China steals it.
Both Presidents Joe Biden and Donald Trump have restricted sales to China of state-of-the-art chips from Nvidia, but this is like trying to restrict photons from leaking out of the sun.
On Thursday, the feds unsealed an indictment against a senior vice president of Super Micro Computer Inc. and two others connected to the company for smuggling billions of dollars worth of computer servers with advanced Nvidia chips to China.
“Diversion schemes like those disrupted today generate billions of dollars in ill-gotten gains and pose a direct threat to U.S. national security,” said U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton.
But wherever the government creates profitable spread, there’s a smuggler. Super Micro was doing super great until the indictment was announced. Its stock plunged 25% on the news.
Meanwhile, what are we stealing from China? Kung Pao Chicken?
The dirty ‘White Knight Of Wall Street’
Wall Street has always had its share of fallen heroes.
Richard Whitney, New York Stock Exchange president from 1930 to 1935, was known as the “White Knight of Wall Street” until he was literally caught stealing from widows and orphans.
Whitney was a huge champion of self-regulation, but when the pressure was on, he could not even regulate himself.
Please Welcome Whitney to the Business Blunders Hall of Shame
Read More: Richard Whitney – New York Stock Exchange
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I would love to think that someday you’d be out of business, but, it doesn’t seem like fraud will ever go out of style! Rick Scott - what a crumbum! Failing up seems to be the American way and Accountability has certainly left the building.