Monday, May 31, 2010

Baby LK Report May 30, 2010

Baby LK recaps the week in news for the child welfare industry.

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Medicaid Funded Child Torture

Shocking Claim: Human Rights Group Says NY Students Sent to Mass. for "Torture"
NBCNewYork

Teen who was electric shocked for months says, "It was just wrong." Read full report by International human rights organization. And center that shocks children defends practice.

The following are posted comments to the new story. I thought these comments were powerful and wanted to demonstrate how major news stories such as this are swept under the rug by federally funded child welfare organizations with their mighty lobbyists who pay, with tax dollars, major public relations firms to generate sensational child welfare propaganda holidays (i.e. child abuse awareness month, adoption awareness month) to continue this practice, at estimated $220,000 per child.

For 1/10 the cost ($22,000) a child could receive in-home services, but then, that would put a multi-billion dollar operation out of business.

The saddest part of these egregious episodes is that nothing will ever happen to end these practices. Absolutely nothing except more lobbying with bigger and better and more colorful child abuse campaigns.

Welcome to the magnanimous world of Medicaid Fraud in Child Welfare.

anonymous In my previous post the address I gave for the Judge Rotenberg Center response to the Tim Minton story was incomplete. The complete address is: http://www.judgerc.org/v4. EMAIL TO MINTON (version for posting on JRC web site)1.DOC

bighilllex Please. Anyone who doesn't know and accept that abuse and neglect of children are the norm for children placed in residential "treatment" centers is fooling themselves. What is still most shocking to me is that people hearing about this will have one moment of "Oh... that's sad." and then will just move on. These are children. Nobody deserves to be treated like that. Even convicted felons and prisoners of war are not allowed to be treated like this.

If you think... morePlease. Anyone who doesn't know and accept that abuse and neglect of children are the norm for children placed in residential "treatment" centers is fooling themselves. What is still most shocking to me is that people hearing about this will have one moment of "Oh... that's sad." and then will just move on. These are children. Nobody deserves to be treated like that. Even convicted felons and prisoners of war are not allowed to be treated like this.

If you think this is an isolated incident, you are wrong. Psychiatric Solutions Inc., is abusing, neglecting, assaulting and letting children in their care die all over the country. PSI facilities in Virginia were some of the worst, but now Virginia's former Secretary of Health and Human Services, Marilyn Tavenner, (a huge supporter of PSI) is in charge of Medicaid - it will only get worse for everyone.
$220,000 a year for each child!!!!! Paid with your tax dollars!

Check out "Keep An Eye On PSI" on Facebook.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=326364429203&ref=ts

Or read this story about Marilyn Tavenner and PSI in Virginia.
http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/state_regional/article/MENT11_20100310-222606/329667/

Susan L.
Virginia

ANGA There's a dirty little secret of why the Judge Rotenberg Center has not been shut down-- besides the fact that we're in the middle of a raging autism epidemic that's overflowing schools and which medical authorities refuse to admit (or treat) the cause of. The secret is that JRC is the receptacle for the treatment "failures" of award winning special schools in the North East, often specifically children so drug damaged that they'll die if they receive another pill. JRC doesn't drug, it... moreThere's a dirty little secret of why the Judge Rotenberg Center has not been shut down-- besides the fact that we're in the middle of a raging autism epidemic that's overflowing schools and which medical authorities refuse to admit (or treat) the cause of. The secret is that JRC is the receptacle for the treatment "failures" of award winning special schools in the North East, often specifically children so drug damaged that they'll die if they receive another pill. JRC doesn't drug, it just shocks.

Some of the prominent special schools in Massachusetts for instance, particularly for autism, have psychiatrists on staff and routinely drug a high percentage of students. Check out the number of children at JRC with tardive dyskinesia (drug induced condition); it's emblematic of the numbers of children at JRC whose extreme behavior problems may have been worsened or outright induced by excessive drug treatments.

Another irony is that one of the schools in Massachusetts which has periodically "fed" the JRC is NECC, an "acclaimed" autism school which requires parents to sign contracts that they won't attempt to put their children on the "Jenny McCarthy diet" (gluten-free/casein-free/soy-free) to regulate behavior, despite the fact that thousands of parents have testified that their children's behavior improved in the extreme due to a carefully restricted diet. The school also frowns on parents who discontinue vaccination for their children with autism, despite the mounting evidence that a majority of autism cases appear to involve acquired mitochondrial dysfunction-- and despite the fact that many immune specialists advise against revaccinating individuals with mitochondrial disorders. The school's psychiatrists also administer drugs despite the fact that every class of psychoactive is specifically toxic to mitochondria. And they wonder at the failures.

Treatment failure of autism in general and failure to stop the epidemic is what keeps the JRC alive.

Torture not Treatment: Electric Shock and Long-Term Restraint in the United States on Children and Adults a...

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Maximus in the Mix

One of my fans sent me this New York Times article from 1996, featuring a special little corporation called Maximus.

Let me dig through my sandbox and see where I put all the fun stuff I found out about Maximus and Medicaid fraud in child welfare.

I will give the readers a hint: Wayne County, Michigan.

Stay tuned. It gets juicy.

Giant Companies Entering Race To Run State Welfare Programs The New York Times September 15, 1996, Sunday, Late Edition - Final

Copyright 1996 The New York Times Company
The New York Times

September 15, 1996, Sunday, Late Edition - Final

SECTION:
Section 1; Page 1; Column 1; National Desk

LENGTH:
1916 words

HEADLINE:
Giant Companies Entering Race To Run State Welfare Programs

BYLINE:
 By NINA BERNSTEIN

BODY:

The new welfare law is still a matter of confusion in statehouses and city streets. But to some companies, it already looks like the business opportunity of a lifetime.

The players are as diverse as Electronic Data Systems, the $12.4 billion information-technology company that Ross Perot founded, and companies at least a thousand times smaller, like Curtis & Associates, which supplements its successful welfare-to-work jobs clubs with accessories like "motivational fortune cookies" at $3.99 a dozen. A sample message is, "The way to control your future is to work hard today."

The newest and most formidable entrant in a field once left largely to local charities and several small companies is Lockheed Martin, the $30 billion giant of the weapons industry. A nonmilitary division, Lockheed Information Services, is bidding against Electronic Data Systems and Andersen Consulting to take over $563 million in welfare operations in Texas.

And that is only the beginning, Lockheed executives say. Having hired two longtime Federal welfare employees and top officials from Texas, Oregon and Alabama, the corporation plans to market even more comprehensive welfare contracts to states and counties in what is potentially a new multibillion-dollar industry to overhaul and run welfare programs.

"We're approaching this marketplace the way we approach all other marketplaces," said Holli Ploog, senior vice president of business development at Lockheed Information Services.

It is a market that expanded overnight when President Clinton signed a law to replace the 60-year-old guarantee of Federal aid to poor children with lump-sum grants to the states.

To state and county officials facing capped welfare budgets and financial penalties if they fail to move most recipients into jobs in two years, a fixed-price contract with a corporation has a strong appeal.

For the first time, the law allows states to buy not only welfare services but also gatekeepers to determine eligibility and benefits.

"There's some easy money if the states aren't careful," said Robert Tyre, head of the government contracts division of Andersen Consulting, a $4.2 billion subsidiary of Arthur Andersen, the accounting firm.

The jockeying frightens longtime social-service workers and public-interest lawyers. No company can be expected to protect the interests of the needy at the expense of its bottom line, least of all a publicly traded corporation with a fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder profits, said Henry A. Freedman, executive director of the Center on Social Welfare Policy and Law, a research and advocacy law office.

If a gatekeeper's profits are linked to reducing the welfare rolls, Mr. Freedman said, the incentive to deny aid will be overwhelming.

But proponents say turning over welfare to the private sector will prove to be the most cost-effective and humane way for states to face up to the fiscal imperatives of the new law. A profit-making company has the flexibility to reward employees for results, the proponents argue, and to change the culture of the welfare office from one focused on calculating deprivation and issuing checks to one that quickly helps people into jobs.

States that are slow to shrink administrative costs will have no money for the additional child-care and transportation spending that are needed to move recipients to work. With the clock ticking on a five-year lifetime limit on benefits, recipients are ultimately the ones who will pay the penalty for delay.

"The days of spending any amount on welfare and going to the Federal Government for a match are over," said Russell Beliveau, president of the Government Operations Group of Maximus Inc., a consulting company in McLean, Va., that had $100 million in business this year, including $7 million in welfare-to-work programs in Boston, two California counties and Fairfax, Va.

"If they don't perform, they're going to have to overspend," Mr. Beliveau said. "If they underspend, they can find other uses for that money. I've been telling states this is the golden opportunity to turn to private companies for a risk-and-profit-sharing arrangement."

In Texas, the Health and Human Services Commissioner, Michael McKinney, said states would receive their money's worth if they wrote contracts correctly.

Texas is revising its request for offers to combine, overhaul and run the separate systems that now determine eligibility for welfare, food stamps, Medicaid and more than 25 other programs. Lockheed has teamed up with International Business Machines and the state's work-force commission, offering a fixed-price contract with penalties for failures to perform.

Electronic Data Systems, which has long designed computer systems for welfare and Medicaid, is collaborating with Unisys and the Texas Human Services Commission. A third bid will come from Andersen, which offers to take a percentage of the savings it achieves as its only fee.

Like Wisconsin, where similar bidding is under way county by county, Texas is seen by many as the forerunner of a new wave of privatization. Until now, churches and groups like Goodwill Industries had been the main competition for the three companies in the welfare-to-work niche: Maximus; Curtis, which began as the pet project of a communications professor in Kearney, Neb., and America Works, a $7 million job broker with contracts in New York City, Albany and Indianapolis.

Selling Federally subsidized management systems to welfare departments was a separate and much bigger business, the province of huge information-technology companies. Now the separation has vanished, and the welfare-to-work crevasse is suddenly a canyon. Sheer scale puts the big companies in command.

"When you talk about small players like a Maximus, an America Works and a Curtis & Associates, they do not have the ability to indemnify the state the way a large corporation would," Ms. Ploog, of Lockheed, said. "The larger states want to make sure they can hold you accountable and can dip into your pockets if there's a problem."

The line where Lockheed's resources end and those of the United States Treasury begin sometimes blurs. The corporation, which the Government bailed out in the 1970's and 80's, has a backlog of more than $50 billion in contracts, mostly with the Defense Department, and it is lobbying for $1.6 billion in subsidies for mergers with two former competitors, Martin Marietta and Loral.

Members of a bipartisan Congressional coalition opposed to the subsidies have called them corporate welfare at its worst and payoffs for layoffs, because the mergers are tied to 30,000 layoffs and $92 million in executive bonuses.

The chief executive of Lockheed, Norman Augustine, who received an $8.2 million bonus, has argued that the subsidies will eventually save taxpayers money. Although a voice vote in the House would have blocked the subsidies, the issue is back in the military appropriations bill, which is in a conference committee.

One opponent, Representative Christopher H. Smith, Republican of New Jersey, has a Lockheed plant scheduled to close in his district. Last week, Mr. Smith's staff director, Andrew Napoli, said the prospect of Lockheed's winning major welfare contracts gave new meaning to the phrase double dipping.

"They would be getting a subsidy to lay off these folks and then could be getting additional money from the Government to help these people get jobs," Mr. Napoli said.

Few companies come to the marketplace with clean slates. The Florida Attorney General tried unsuccessfully to bar Electronic Data Systems from doing business in the state last year in a dispute over what officials called a "grossly inefficient" $240 million Lockheed computer-management system for welfare eligibility, benefits and child-support enforcement.

A spokesman for Electronic Data Systems, which has contracts in 30 states, called the dispute unfortunate.

America Works has been embraced by Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York and former Gov. Mario M. Cuomo. But it left a trail of unhappy officials in Ohio, Massachussetts and Erie County, N.Y.

In West Virginia, an independent consultant whom Maximus paid to help prepare its bid for an automated statewide child-welfare system in 1994, turned out to be the state employee in charge of the project. He was later indicted, and Maximus lost the contract to Lockheed.

Lockheed, meanwhile, agreed to forfeit the chance to bid on contracts in New York City for four years after an investigation found that aides to Mayor David N. Dinkins had shown favoritism in awarding the company a $150 million contract to run the Parking Violations Bureau in 1993, a case that revived memories of scandals in the 80's, when a Lockheed executive admitted bribing officials to obtain such contracts.

Leaders at the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees say privatization opens the door to big campaign contributors and their cronies. They also fear that welfare privatization may come at the expense of their members, whose jobs could be cut or reinvented at lower pay by the companies.

But on the front lines of change, even some public employees are converts.

In San Francisco, welfare recipients with children 3 and older are now ordered to report to the Express for Success Center, an employment and training program redesigned by Curtis in February. Staff members are still employed by the Human Services Department. But they had to apply to Curtis for jobs at the center and take its training.

The supervisor, Casey Brenner, said that at first, she and other social-service veterans were skeptical of the "cheesy, smiley" approach of the trainers from Curtis.

"We were like, 'Oh, yeah, right, Kearney, Neb., is not going to work in San Francisco,' " Ms. Brenner said. "But you know what? It did."

She showed off walls with photographs of smiling recipients who had landed jobs after a six-day workshop.

As the latest workshop reached its end, a trainer led the graduates in cheering one another. Elsewhere, job seekers worked a telephone bank to set up interviews and helped one another fill out job applications.

Later, Ms. Brenner said the center was placing 40 of the 60 people a month who completed the program, which has a 17 percent dropout rate. That represents a 20 percent improvement on the city-run program, which dealt with recipients one at a time, lacked a sense of urgency and focused more on barriers to employment than on strengths, she said.

"It really lifted me up," a job seeker, Denise Hunter, said. "But I can't make nobody give me a job."

She said that after looking for work for three weeks, she saw the way that the welfare law would play out. "People that's been working 20 years, they're going to give us their jobs for minimum wage," she said.

Most of the companies seeking to inject marketplace efficiency into government bureaucracies were built on government contracts and have long staffed their top ranks with once and future officials.

To some longtime workers in social services, the new systems seem like a bad dream.

"For us old bleeding-heart liberals who were on the streets in the 60's, the idea that Lockheed, of the military-industrial complex, would be in charge of welfare is out of somebody's nightmare fantasy," said the director of the JOBS program in a Northeastern state.

Then he begged not to be identified, "We may end up working with them," he said.


GRAPHIC:
Chart: "PROFILE: Profits Out of Poverty?

Before the new welfare law, moving people from welfare to work was the domain of nonprofit organizations and three relatively small businesses. Now, some large companies see a potentially multibillion-dollar industry that could run entire welfare programs for states and counties.

Three Small, For-Profit Veterans

America Works

$7 million in contracts in New York City, Albany and Indianapolis

SPECIALITY -- provides supportive services for the first four months on the job while paying minimum wage and collecting a higher wage rate from the employer; charges about $5,000 per successful job placement.

Curtis & Associates

$9.2 million in business last year in 11 states, including California, New Jersey, Indiana, Vermont and Wisconsin; was founded by a professor of communications in Kearney, Neb.

SPECIALITY -- Markets a jobs club model to government as a contracted service or a public-private partnership, and sells schools and churches a line of training manuals and accessories.

Maximus, Inc.

$100 million government consulting firm in McLean, Va. founded by a former HEW administrator

SPECIALTY Provides child support enforcement contracts in six states, a $10 million California contract to recruit Medicaid recipients into HMOs, and welfare to work programs there and in Boston and Fairfax, Va. and two California counties.

...And Three Giants Looking to Expand

Andersen Consulting

$4.2 billion global management and technology consulting company that is a sister company to accounting firm.

SPECIALITY -- Contracts in 14 states, include child support enforcement in 7 and child welfare programs. Marketing a profit-sharing approach to welfare overhaul and recently won contracts with two Canadian provinces.

Electronic Data Systems

$12.4 billion informa-tion technology services company founded by Ross Perot.

SPECIALITY -- Began to computerize Medicaid billing and welfare eligibility 20 years ago and gets about 12 percent of its revenue from contracts in 30 states.

Lockheed Martin Information Management Servies

A nonmilitary division of the publicly traded $30 billion-dollar Lockheed Martin.

SPECIALITY -- Child support enforcement contracts in the District of Columbia and 16 states, including New York, and contracts in 20 states to convert welfare benefits to an electronic debit card system. LaunchING a new "welfare reform/self-sufficiency line of business," with a bid for $563 million in welfare agency functions in Texas. (pg. 26)

LOAD-DATE:
September 15, 1996

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Minnesota Medicaid Conundrum

If there are only 10 Minnesota Medicaid fraud investigators and they are all working on the State billing errors in dealing with disabled home health care, then who is trying to stop Medicaid fraud in child welfare?

Well, it sure in hell is not Representative Michele Bachmann nor is it the University of Minnesota.

STATE BILLING ERRORS, BY THE NUMBERS

10 Medicaid fraud investigators at Minnesota Department of Human Services

21 Days the state paid for personal care attendants who supposedly worked more than 24 hours a day since July

98 Times the department approved payments for attendants who exceeded the monthly limit of 275 hours

465 Times the department approved payments for attendants who surpassed the 16-hour daily limit

164 Percent increase in spending for state's Personal Care Assistance program from 2002 to 2007

119 Suspected Personal Care Assistance fraud cases referred to state Attorney General by Department of Human Services since 2007

57 Criminal cases involving personal care assistants pursued by attorney general since 2007; another 31 investigations are ongoing

4,000,000 Home care bills reviewed by Star Tribune

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Michigan Compassionate Policies

Unfortunately, it takes major legal action in Michigan before compassionate polices are created.

I am still developing the final component: Michigan Medicaid Fraud Control Unit Model

Michigan Corrected Mediciaid Final Departmental Review for Crawley Lawsuit

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Baby LK Report May 23, 2010

Baby LK recaps the week in news for the child welfare industry.

Rule of Construction

The general public has been only allowed to be informed on one small component of Social Security Title IV-E, and that is foster care placement reimbursement.

Similar to the concept of child support, Title IV-E funds the "food and shelter" portion of the care of the child, but Title IV-E is entails much more than this. A major, mostly unspoken component of Title IV-E is training.

Very little is known outside the inner circles behind the iron curtain of child welfare regarding the rule of construction.

The rule of construction is, in essence, how a state interprets the federal mandates regarding Title IV-E funding, how data are to be collected and warehoused, and how a state may stay in substantial compliance.

In 1980 Congress revised foster care provisions of the Social Security Act (SSA) (Public Law 96-272) to create what we know today as Title IV-E (42, US Code, Sections 670-675).

SSA Title IV-E reimburses States the federal portion through the Federal Financial Participation (FFP) rate, the same rates found in Targeted Case Management called Federal Medical Assistance Percentage (FMAP). But for administrative costs, the FFP is 50% for eligible costs.

Here is a list of eligible Title IV-E administrative expenditures:
  • (i) Referral to services;
  • (ii) Preparation for and participation in judicial determinations;
  • (iii) Placement of the child;
  • (iv) Development of the case plan;
  • (v) Case reviews;
  • (vi) Case management and supervision;
  • (vii) Recruitment and licensing of foster homes and institutions;
  • (viii) Rate setting; and
  • (ix) A proportionate share of related agency overhead.
  • (x) Costs related to data collection and reporting.
In order for the Feds and the States to split the costs, the States must be in substantial compliance.

Substantial Compliance
Substantial compliance basically means that when the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and its Regional and Central Offices come to do an on-site review of the State agency for Title IV-E eligibility of children, it must come within 0.10% of statistical significance in random sample of cases reviewed.

TRANSLATION: The ACF allows a state agency a maximum of 8 children out every 88 simple random sampling to be taken from their homes, placed in foster care, Parental Rights Terminated, and adopted out when they were never eligible.   Substantial compliance means a state is allowed to make so many administrative mistakes, such as fictitious billing, over medication and unnecessary medication, phantom services, ineffective services, improper and unnecessary removals, waste and abuse of funds, defalcation, embezzlement, sexual abuse, physical abuse, torture, murder, human trafficking, oh the list goes on and on but the idea of a "state mistake", I believe, is understood.

So what happens if the state agency is not in substantial compliance?

A state determined to be in “non-compliance” has to develop a Program Improvement Plan and go through a secondary on-site review with a sample of 150 cases taken from the most recent Adoption and Foster Care Automatic Reporting System (AFCARS) submission to come within 0.10% statistical significance.

That means that the second time the feds review the state Title IV-E eligibility, they are allowed to get away with more mistakes

Even though the number of children may go from 8 to 15 who were found not eligible for foster care, it is still considered a 10 percent error of the random sampling.

Basically, States send up case level information, whenever and however they want, to the ACF and its contracted entity, that is eventually used for research and purposes of funding. As it has been seen here, it does not matter if children are improperly or unnecessarily removed from their homes or even tortured in foster care, because the numbers still get crunched by those who never hear about the "mistakes behind the iron curtain":
Child Welfare League of America
Children's Rights
Child Welfare Gateway Information
National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect
Quintessentially, all data and methods by which these data are handled, are false and suspect in child welfare due to "substantial compliance."

This is fraud.

There is a reason why the ACF, U.S. DHHS and its Regional and Central Offices allow the fraud to happen and it has a name:

RULE OF CONSTRUCTION

The Rule of Construction says:
Sec. 478. [42 U.S.C. 678] Nothing in this part shall be construed as precluding State courts from exercising their discretion to protect the health and safety of children in individual cases, including cases other than those described in section 471(a)(15)(D).
TRANSLATION: States can train its people to do whatever they want and there is nothing Federal can do to stop them.  Sometimes there are those who must suffer for the benefit of all, for child welfare is an industry.

The following are examples of child welfare training that are not acceptable for Title IV-E reimbursements:

  • CPR is not eligible for Title IV-E training.
  • Cornell's TCI training is not eligible for Title IV-E training.
Cornell Lead Title IV -E Training for County of Santa Clara Social Services 2009

Cuomo Kicks Kids to the Side of His Political Campaign Road

As promised, here is the actual New York Kiddy Kickbacks complaint.

What should be noted is that, even though the State had been put on formal notice on numerous occasions, detailing the levels of violations and abuse, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo did absolutely nothing to help these children, many of whom should never have been placed in these residential institutions.

In addition, General Cuomo has not, even to this day, lifted a finger to aggressively recoup the false claims of Medicaid fraud.

Sadly enough, this continues to happen every day across the nation, and States Attorney Generals are kicking kids to the side of the political campaign road in favor of a successful bid for Governor.

Legal Aid v. Carrion.New Yo... by Beverly Tran on Scribd

Wisconsin Shares Fraud Recovery

If child care fraud was going on to the tune of $45 million, just think about the amounts of fraud that are going on in foster care and adoption.



$100 billion dollars in fraud, in the last few years seems about right.

Dept. of Children and Families: Secretary Reggie Bicha’s statement on Wisconsin Shares Savings
5/21/2010

Contact: Erika Monroe-Kane, Department of Children and Families, 608-266-9000

Today, the Department of Children and Families (DCF) announced $45 million savings in the Wisconsin Shares program. DCF Secretary Reggie Bicha issued the following statement:

We are excited to announce a $45 million savings in the Wisconsin Shares program. This savings is primarily a result of the Department’s work to find and stop fraud.

In addition to making child care safer for children, DCF is saving taxpayer dollars by preventing and stopping fraud.

Using just a quarter of these savings, DCF will improve the quality of care Wisconsin children receive by launching YoungStar, a child care rating and improvement system.

Background

The projected savings of $45 million in Wisconsin Shares payments is in the fiscal year 2010 of the biennial state budget.

The savings are primarily a result of DCF work to recover funds from fraudulent providers, from payments being stopped to providers suspected of fraud, and due to a deterrent effect of the DCF crack down on fraud.

The Department of Children and Families has rebuilt the foundation of child care in Wisconsin and is now building on this to improve the quality of child care. $10 million of the savings in Wisconsin Shares will be reinvested to improve quality, through the YoungStar program.

U.K. Child Welfare Propaganda

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING CROCK OF NON-COGENT SHIT IS NOT SUITABLE FOR THINKING MINDS

From the arses who inspired "The truth is always uncomfortable in child welfare" and UK social workers can make medical diagnoses we have another imperialistic morality propaganda parade for job retention and organization sustainability.

Adopted children face anguish as birth parents stalk them on Facebook

Social networking sites being used to flout rules leading to 'intrusive and unplanned' contact


The natural parents of adopted children are increasingly using Facebook and other social networking sites to track down their offspring, flouting the usual controls and safeguards.

Adoption agencies are reporting huge numbers of calls from "deeply distressed" adoptive parents whose children have been contacted out of the blue...more

Ok, so what is wrong with this picture. First off, the comment section was not included because they are well aware of the power of the gang blog and info-sharing on the social networks. Just ask Tom Corbett.

Next, in the wake of technology, this is the second time this so-called public relations firm has complained about free speech and fighting to the death to keep an original family together.

What would you do if someone took your child and told you you would never see them again, sit there like a good dog, or fight until your last dying breath?

Of course, the adoptive parents would be alarmed. The original parents may expose the truth behind the entire process of child protection. Original parents contact the children to pass on the legacy, something that cannot ever be terminated.

So here we have it. Either the child welfare system must come into the 21st century and stop hiding behind the iron curtain, or it can keep pumping out scare tactics to continue human trafficking and deal with force of Legally Kidnapped.

Oh, those wacky Brits!  What will they come up with next to keep the child welfare propaganda flowing?

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Laugh With Corbett As He Tears Up Complaints


http://www.pahouse.com/pr/Images/prTopImage2.jpg
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
State Rep. Louise Williams Bishop
D-Philadelphia
www.pahouse.com/Bishop
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 Bishop urges Senate to approve bill to protect foster children from abuse and neglect

HARRISBURG, May 10 – State Rep. Louise Williams Bishop, D-Phila., said she is urging members of a state Senate committee to approve legislation that would help to protect foster children in Pennsylvania.

The House passed the legislation (H.B. 2338), which she co-sponsored. The bill is part of a package of four foster care bills that would improve the outcomes for children in foster care and ensure an on-going relationship with siblings, adult relatives and grandparents.

Bishop said under the bill, private and public agencies would be required to explain grievance policies and procedures to foster children and their families.

"It is important that foster children have access to routine medical care, have the opportunity to get a quality education and most importantly, be free of harassment, punishment or physical and mental abuse," Bishop said. "This bill would require foster children and their families to be informed so they are aware of their rights."

Meanwhile, Bishop, who is chairwoman of the House Children and Youth Committee, said the remaining three bills still await consideration by the full House.

Bishop is the prime sponsor of one of those. She said that bill would require the state to implement transition plans for youth aging out of foster care and permit the court to extend foster care for youth after they turn 18 up to age 21 if they meet the criteria.

The other two bills would require the county children and youth agencies to make reasonable efforts to place siblings together in foster care and allow for court-ordered visitation if joint placement is not feasible, and require the agencies to notify adult grandparents and adult relatives within 30 days after a dependent child is placed in foster care.


Wait, does this mean when a youth under the auspices of Pennsylvania or a person of consanguinity or affinity files a grievance, that the grievance will actually be investigated?  And when the investigation finds violations of material provisions of law, there will be referrals to Attorney General Tom Corbett, the same person who oversees the State's Medicaid Fraud Control Unit?  

Does this mean Tom Corbett will actually aggressively prosecute and recover funds that were reimbursed through false claims in child welfare or will he tear them up and laugh?

Friday, May 21, 2010

Medicaid Exclusion Program Has Loophole

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS), Medical Integrity Group (MIG) published the memorandum report: Excluded Medicaid Providers: Analysis of Enrollment, OEI 09-08-00330, providing information on States' enrollment procedures for eligible Medicaid providers.

What the report focused on was a review of the background of Medicaid providers to determine whether providers with questionable financial and criminal histories gained entry into Medicaid.

The report went further to look and see if ownership of the providers was reported and if there were any tax liens against the provider.

Needless to say, it was not pretty.

Even though there is a comprehensive plan for program integrity, let's take this time to do our own analysis of the exclusionary program.

First, the States Medicaid Director is housed in a different venue than the State Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, which removes and prevents any conflict of interests, but there exists an issue of reporting compliance.

In the arena of child welfare, there is no State provision that penalizes a State Medicaid Director for not reporting violations of law, including Medicaid fraud, to the Attorney General, who heads up the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit.  Therefore, violation of the material provisions of federal or state laws would not necessitate exclusion from the Medicaid providers program.

Even if a child placing agency, as Targeted Case Management is a component of Medicaid, if noticeably found to have violated federal and/or state laws, States do not mandate the reporting to the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit.

It is the authority of the States Attorney General to prosecute and recover Medicaid fraud, but not all States have False Claims Acts, or False Claims Acts that encourage reporting from the general public or whistle blower protection from government employees.

The heaviest weighted reason there is no backgrounds for Medicaid provider eligibility or exclusionary database for child welfare providers is, under FOIA exemptions, any information dealing with a child is protected under seal.  In this way, there is no possibility for verification of the criminal history and owners of the child welfare agency.  Furthermore, child welfare agencies are, for the most part, non-profit, meaning they are automatically excluded from any external audit or standard review of operations.

In the event a child welfare agency was found to be ineligible as a Medicaid provider, the remedy is to reorganize under a different name, with the approval of the Attorney General, and continue to provide services.

In child welfare, it is the Attorney General who has the overseeing authority to protect children.  Even though the models vary from State to State, for the most part, it is the States Attorney General who ultimately protects the contractual arms of the private and public child welfare agencies in a court of law.

Simply put, it is the obligation of the States Attorney General to represent child welfare agencies in legal matters when the issue of Medicaid fraud surfaces, and, in the same breath, it is the obligation of the States Attorney General to prosecute child welfare agencies that engage in criminal activities which would make them ineligible to be a Medicaid provider.

Unfortunately, the States Attorney Generals will neither a friend or foe be to CMS.  By allowing Medicaid fraud in Child Welfare to flourish, States are not faced with the challenge of excluding providers.  What we have here is a pervasive ethical issue dealing with no-bid contracts.  There are no contractual debarment, license revocation, sanctions or prosecution for child welfare agencies who are found to have criminal backgrounds or engage in Medicaid fraud.

In traditional sense, there are limited child welfare service providers, as many have intertwined financial incentives and personal interests with the local and state governments.  By this I mean the more children who come into care, the more Targeted Case Management funds come down, which, eventually off-sets any federal financial penalties incurred for non-compliance.

If just one child welfare agency was excluded as a Medicaid provider, it would be financially detrimental to a local child welfare system with the levels of publicity and funding opportunities.

That's the loophole, States Attorney General do not incorporate child welfare Medicaid Fraud as a legitimate component of the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, and the States continue to tap into the uncapped Targeted Case Management reimbursement funding structures.

MEDICAID EXCLUSION PROGRAM LOOPHOLE: Nobody is excluded and the States pass Federal reviews of its child welfare systems.

Here is my solution:
If they can put us on a central registry; then I say we can put them on a central registry.

For many years the Congress of the United States has worked diligently to protect the health and welfare of the nation's elderly and poor by implementing legislation to prevent certain individuals and businesses from participating in Federally-funded health care programs. Legally Kidnapped has mandated that the health and welfare of the nation's children and families must  be protected by including Child Welfare Agencies in this exclusion database.  Foster Care and Adoption Agencies should be banned from entering contracts using federal funds if the bases for exclusion have been met.

Bases for exclusion include for child welfare program-related fraud, child abuse, child deaths, licensing board actions, improper and questionable claims, false reports.

The effect of not being able to participate in federally funded contracts is:
  • No payment will be made by any Federal child welfare program for any items or services furnished, ordered, or prescribed by an excluded individual or entity. Federal foster care and adoption programs include Medicaid Targeted Case Management, and Social Security Title IV A, B, D, and E, Maternal and Child Health Services Block Grant (Title V), Block Grants to States for Social Services (Title XX), State Children's Health Insurance (Title XXI) and all other plans and programs that provide health benefits for foster care and adoption funded directly or indirectly by the United States.
OIG Excluded Medicaid Providers: Analysis of Enrollment 2010

Pennsylvania General Corbett Goes To The Moon

Twitter Fighting Pennsylvania Subpoena Seeking Names of 2 Tweeters

Pennsylvania’s attorney general is demanding that Twitter unmask two of its users, a move that civil liberties groups say violates free speech.

A grand jury subpoena issued on May 6 ordered Twitter to disclose the identities of “casablancapa” and “bfbarbie,” two users who criticized the Pennsylvania attorney general, Tom Corbett...nmore

@bfbarbie & @casablancapa: This one is for Pennsylvania Attorney General...

Since 1965, the costs of the Medicaid program have spiraled out of control with double-digit inflation almost every year. While there are many legitimate reasons for the rising costs, a tremendous amount of money is lost to fraud and abuse.

Members of Congress and those involved in individual state Medicaid programs identified a need to establish independent fraud units staffed by coordinated teams of attorneys, investigators and auditors, solely dedicated and trained in the prosecution of Medicaid fraud.

In response, Congress enacted Section 17 of the Medicare-Medicaid Anti-Fraud and Abuse Amendments of 1977 (Public Law 95-142) which established and funded the state Medicaid Fraud Control Unit to investigate and prosecute provider fraud in the Medicaid program. In 1978, in response to the new law, the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General formed its Medicaid Fraud Control Section (MFCS).




Now, more than 30 years into the future, General Tom Corbett, protector of the children of the state, does absolutely nothing but continues to tell science fiction stories of how the state goes after Medicaid fraud. General Corbett is too busy covering up Medicaid Fraud in Child Welfare.
Pennsylvania Medicaid Fraud Control Unit


Not one word, not one reference to children.  If we can put a man on the moon, we can end Medicaid Fraud in Child Welfare.

Thank You, Dominique For Changes

Check out the video of poet Dominique Garay http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kav5fDVDStQ

From the AMES HERITAGE ROOM READING SERIES - echopoetico, Dominique Garay and Oscar Rios Pohirieth.

Excerpt:

When I was a kid…

You did not label me, so thank you…

Thank you for listening and not passing me off to the psych

Because the labels you get there don't peel off,

Because the drugs they would have given me would have destroyed my creativity…

SCOTUS Child Welfare Activities Escalate

The Supreme Court of the United States has been busy rendering opinions dealing with child welfare.

This should be considered significant as there are multiple layers to muddle through just to get a case to the highest court of the land. If one is successful, then it has to make it past the clerks.

The clerks are the ones who decide if a case is of a significant public issue, then passes it on to their boss, being the justice. In the last few months, I have had an increase in traffic from SCOTUS as well as the U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General, U.S. Social Security Administration, various States Attorney General Offices as well as U.S. Department of Defense, numerous Army Bases and U.S. Naval Intelligence.

The significant public issues surrounding child welfare are finally coming into the public eye by being catapulted with my exposure of Medicaid Fraud in Child Welfare.

I have a very small, yet specifically targeted audience that is listening intently to me. For that, I thank each and everyone of your for joining me to bring transparency and accountability to child welfare.

The Constitution prohibits the imposition of a life with-out parole sentence on a juvenile offender who did not commit homicide. A State need not guarantee the offender eventual release, but if it imposes a sentence of life it must provide him or her with some realistic opportunity to obtain release before the end of that term. The judgment of the First District Court of Appeal of Florida is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.

Graham v. Florida SCOTUS Opinion

SCOTUS Soon To Learn About Parens Patriae

It seems I am not the only one who finds the lack of sophistication regarding parental rights issues with the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS).
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ALERT: SCOTUS IS UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT

For those following the Supreme Court and Federal Court decisions in general it is no surprise that the Courts have been making up law for years. There is no oversight. Bad judges stay on the Court for life, and the right to petition the government and courts for redress has been virtually eliminated as the Supreme Court takes less than 1% of all cases and has absolutely discretion on what cases it will review.

In fact Supreme Court Justices have stated that it is more important to be consistently wrong then to actually get the law right.

Citing unapproved treaty is ‘act of most fundamental reordering of legal system. The fundamentals of the U.S. Constitution possibly have been shoved one step closer to irrelevance by the U.S. Supreme Court, which yesterday cited an international treaty that has not been adopted in the U.S. as support for its opinion...more 
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I have nothing against guns but the parental rights groups equate gun rights to parental rights ("own a gun; own a kid, both my property") There is no correlation based upon my statutory investigation of current parental rights and individual property rights theories. They are two distinct and exclusive issues. It is like comparing guns to butter.

This is why there is contention with the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child. The U.S., along with Somalia, which, at the time of the signing did not have a recognized government, were the only 2 countries that did not sign the Convention.

The U.S. did not sign because of the language and the application. See, there is language to the effect that would dismantle the current child welfare system, such as "legal orphans", and there are standard, universal definitions to "reasonable efforts" and "best interests". The US would no longer be able to statutorily apply "failure to provide for the necessary needs of the child" as grounds for removal and the Convention provides language where it is the responsibility of government to provide assistance when that assistance cannot be provided by the parent.

Also, there are issues with the Convention application to child sexual predators because the US is far behind the nations with regard to enforcement, falling under human trafficking.

Then, lest we not neglect to mention that the U.S. is notorious for using child labor issues as grounds for noncompliance of international economic and environmental concerns as a reason not to sign a treaty. An example of this can be seen with the non-signing of the Kyoto Treaty.

Citing of the Convention, would make sense, to me at least, as there is no mention or reference to children in the Constitution. Children were considered chattel at the time of the drafting of the Constitution. Children were considered persons at the time of the drafting of the Convention.  Another example of trying to compare of guns to butter.  The relationships are causal, not comparative.

In the case of Abbott v. Abbott, I feel it is my duty to point out the egregious interpretations of the opinion by the parental rights groups.  The Convention that was referenced was the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction (Convention), Oct. 24, 1980, T. I. A. S. No. 11670, S. Treaty Doc. No. 99–11. The United States is a contracting state to the Convention; and Congress has implemented its provisions through the International Child Abduction Remedies Act (ICARA), 102 Stat. 437, 42 U. S. C. §11601 et seq. The Convention provides that a child abducted in violation of “rights of custody” must be returned to the child’s country of habitual residence, unless certain exceptions apply. Art. 1, S. Treaty Doc. No. 99–11, at 7 (Treaty Doc.).

The Abbott v. Abbott SCOTUS opinion was not referencing the Convention on the Rights of the Child, but the Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Abduction by applying the codified statute.
Abbott v Abbott SCOTUS Opinion                                                            

Ignorance has fueled parental rights groups to confuse "guns with butter" as it is now clarified that the "Convention" is the Civil Aspects of International Adoption and not the Rights of the Child(emphasis added).

Ignorance has left SCOTUS reliant upon populist opinion regarding parental rights, which is repugnant to current law.

Knowledge of parental rights may only be gained through the release of this upcoming book.


The doctrine called parens patriae translates to father of the nation or father of the country. This is where the king or in america the state (or sovereign) assumes a parental role over all children. Under this theory which the U.S. (and SCOTUS) apparently now subscribes to, children do not belong to the parents, but are in essence lent to the parents by the state (or sovereign) as long as the parents conduct themselves in a manner acceptable to the state. Thus under this theory parental rights are derived from the government where government has the power to grant the gift of custody and guardianship to the keepers of the child (whoever the state determines the keepers of the child should be). Thus the state also has the power to terminate that grant of gift of custody. Thus the grant or gift becomes movable and children chattel or property.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Y'All Busted On ADHD

Check out the music video on ADHD here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDWP37mysBc

Pass the word!

Lyrics below:



Chill E.B.

Y’ALL BUSTED Lyrics

(Moderator, Dr. David Kupfer, M.D., University of Pittsburgh, Consensus Conference Panel Chair): “…I would like, uh, any member of the panel to describe a typical ADHD in terms of symptomatology. Mark, would you like to…since you see them in your practice?”
(Psychiatrist Marc Vonnegut): “There are…uh, I mean, I think the panel has been frank – in you know the difficulities here are immense in terms of – um…of uh…ummm…these I mean, it is hard, it’s very hard to know how to answer this question.
Okay!
Here’s a little story ’bout this girl named Faye.
She has a project due to turn it in a couple days.
She studying to be a shrink and she want’s a good grade.
They send her to the schools to watch the kiddies at play.
She jots it all down everything they do and say.
One’s chewing a pen and she writes it right away.
One, they talking to and she looks the other way.
Joey he in the chair can’t sit still gotta sway.
Oh no, she sees it’s a problem, writes ‘em all down on a list so they can solve ‘em.
Label ‘em all trouble and then we can resolve ‘em.
The list goes to the teachers with a line of parents to call ‘em.
Gon tell the parents that their kids are ill.
Gon fix up Jonny so he can finally learn to chill.
When he swingin’ them legs make him pop a couple pills.
Label them all problem even though it ain’t real.
CHORUS: Ah Duh Huh? … DuhBuh, um.
So to end dis, we bustin’ you, y’all busted………Y’all Busted.
Okay!
Here you go coming home from working all day.
The teacher calls you up with somthin’ else she gotta say.
Talking bout your kid in a messed up way.
He’s gotta see a shrink and you just might have to pay.
If he ain’t livin’ in the hood then it’s probably all good, Mama says, Oh yeah? Oh, you really think he should?
Now this here, just aint right the psychs got ‘em so tight they don’t put up a fight.
Now if this was the hood I don’t think you could.
Just come up and say dat? Yo, I wish you would.
Mama don’t play that, yo she cut you cuzz. Better tell her what ADHD is and what is does.
(Psychiatrist Marc Vonnegut): “There are…ummm…they can not um…even when, um…they are as if driven by a motive – there are some good clinical descriptions”
CHORUS
Free your mind from mis-education, misenterpretation yo they tryna control.
You and me both with dose after dose.
A comatose and roast ya, enslave the culture.
Insulin shock 10,000 had to die to stop.
Lobotomy cuttin’ up brains 11,000 dropped.
And you wanna know who gansta? Who da dope man?
Pack ‘em up, pack ‘em up, man fast as you can.
Got the shelves on lock. commercials non-stop.
Label everybody’s problems so they all gon cop.
Some will scream when they hear that we exposing the wolves screw ‘em, let ‘em stand in our way, well run through ‘em.
Using legality to hide the reality.
Oh there goes sanity Em don’t be mad at me.
You on my side I see heard it on my TV.
Together we gon bring out the truth bout ADHD.
CHORUS
So, let’s be real, man! What’s it all about, man?! From your own mouth, man .
(Psychiatrist Marc Vonnegut): “I think, you know, we – uh, I, I, I do, I think, Uh, part of the problem is the profession keeps changing the diagnosis…”
We gon foil your plans our tax dollars ain’t yours, Hip hoppers and black America the first to say, “Up yours!”
CHORUS
(Moderator, Dr. David Kupfer, M.D., University of Pittsburgh, Consensus Conference Panel Chair): “At this time we do not have a diagnostic test for ADHD. Therefore the validity of the disorder continues to be a problem.”

+++

Please note the song is available for download on Chill E.B’s label Kathartic Music Group. Go to Amazon.com and click on MP3 downloads….search for Chill E.B., or simply click the link: http://tinyurl.com/ya-ll-busted

29,227 petition signatures http://www.petitiononline.com/TScreen/petition.html Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfU9puZQKBY

Medicaid Fraud Whistelblowers Wanted!



Now this is how they do it in child welfare.




Tweet, tweet.

Medicaid Fraud Whistlebower Program

As you read the following New York Times article on whistle-blowers, replace the word "tax" with "Medicaid ". Then replace the I.R.S. with the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (DHHS OIG) and you have the makings of a child welfare Medicaid fraud whistle-blower program.

Whistle-Blowers Become an Investment Option for Funds

Hedge funds have found a new market to invest in: whistle-blowers.

Informants who turn in tax cheats have to wait years to get their share of any reward from the I.R.S.’s recently expanded whistle-blower program. So hedge funds, private equity groups and other big investors are offering an alternative. They are essentially agreeing to buy a percentage of those future payouts in exchange for a smaller amount upfront to the whistle-blowers, David Kocieniewski reports in The New York Times.

The surging size of the potential awards is driving all the interest. Three years ago, the I.R.S. began offering bigger rewards — 15 percent to 30 percent of whatever money the government recovered — in a move that has turbocharged the agency’s whistle-blower program...more