Michigan May Have 'Cash For Kids' Scams

Is it just me or does something sound hauntingly familiar, here.

It was only a while ago when the Michigan Judicial Tenure Commission took action of a judge regarding children being questionably placed, in a contained environment, called Children's Village because they refused to have lunch with their father.

Then, you have another national case where it seems, almost identical medical issues, and the state removes the child then accuses the parents of not only providing medical instruction for surgery, but was able to get the insurance company to pay for the procedures.

So instead of going after the doctors who engaged in medical malpractice, supposedly, Michigan is going after the  mother for medical neglect.

And of course, everyone remembers the "Kids for Cash" case where the judge was sending youth to a facility which used to get him kickbacks.

Youth may stay under the auspices of the state until the age of 25 in certain situations, such as this one, with costs reimbursed, at some of the maximum rates. through Medicaid.

Children's Village looks like it may have found a new population from which to profit: older youth.

Of course, the Attorney General can not even investigate Children's Village as it is already representing them in the Child Protective Services case, and layer that fact with the recent policy changes where these state contracted child placing agencies are now, on "self-report" as an end result of deregulation.

I also know for a fact that The Children's Center of Detroit is preparing to expand its operations and get into the education programming and community-based, home-based services under the Medicaid Expansions.

I also heard Vista Maria has been constructing its new child welfare model by making the campus a contained environment for their kids who have kids, like a miniature city, to treat cognitive and psychological developmental challenges.

Since there is a national call for new models in dealing with child welfare, there also needs to be a balance in how these organizations operate.

There are no civil rights in child welfare, just remember that.

Mom says CPS took her daughter because of medical mystery

BLOOMFIELD HILLS, Mich. (WXYZ) - A Bloomfield Hills mom says her daughter was “medically kidnapped.”

Child Protective Services has forced 17-year-old Leiani McMichael to live in Oakland County’s Children’s Village. CPS is accusing mom of failing to give her proper medical care.

Rebecca Campos says as her daughter Leiani enjoyed a music lesson at her house in early November, she saw Child Protective Services workers walking up to her home.

She had to tell her daughter they were there to take her.

“She said, ‘Take me? What does that mean mom?' I said, 'I don’t know,’” said Rebecca.

Rebecca says the terrifying thing is that she still doesn’t know what it means.

“Up until February 2015, Leiani was completely healthy, an amazing, thriving child,” said Rebecca.

The now 17-year old started complaining. Her stomach hurt. Doctors then diagnosed her with hernias, cysts, and removed her appendix. When she couldn’t keep food down, they gave her a feeding tube.

“Nobody could answer. Nobody knew why it got so extreme that a feeding tube had to be in place,” said Rebecca.

Then there was a problem with the feeding tube as Leiani visited her father who lives in California. Leiani needed surgery.

"After surgery Leiani didn’t wake up. She went into a coma,” said Rebecca.

She remained unconscious for days. When she did finally wake up, mom says Leiani was weak, needed a wheelchair, had memory problems and started having seizures.

She took her to doctor after doctor searching for answers. Then, one doctor at the University of Michigan diagnosed her with conversion disorder. The doctor said Leiani didn’t need a feeding tube or a wheelchair. The problem was in her head.

"I said okay,” said Rebecca  “How do we fix this?”

The doctor at the University of Michigan contacted CPS. She said abuse could have caused the possible conversion disorder. Rebecca says different doctors disagreed. She says as she tried to figure it out, CPS showed up.

“I miss her so much,” said Rebecca, who hasn’t been allowed to even have a supervised conversation over the phone with her daughter.

Documents filed by prosecutors say, “Numerous physicians have performed unnecessary surgeries, diagnostic procedures, and other medical treatment based upon the parent's false or exaggerated reports.”

Court documents claim Leiani’s health is improving now that she is in the care of Children’s Village. She is having fewer “episodes” that her mother called seizures.

“Leiani was previously wheelchair bound. Leiani is now standing and taking steps. Leiani was previously on a feeding tube and would spit out table food, despite being viewed eating food at ties with no problems, when unaware of observation. Since removal, Leiani has kept food down, such as bread and a cookie,” says a document filed by the Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office.

Leiani’s mom says her daughter has been showing improvement since coming out of the coma.  She was walking and eating what she could while at home as well.

She now is hoping a trial next month will prove her innocence and reunite her with her daughter.

“I have never done anything to make her sick, and I always have done my best,” said Rebecca. 

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Michele Bachmann admits children in foster care are lab rats

To a great surprise to many, Michele Bachmann has made a public admission that children in the United States foster care system are subject to medical experimentation.

Even though her powerful message was unintentionally ensconced within the hate-platform of non-American child protection, the meaning is evident with her legislation inspired by Justine Pelletier to end funding of medical experiments on foster children.

As a side note, this deals with psychotropic medications.  Foster children as young as 6 months are being subjected to overmedication.

The overmedication leads to suicides, violent behaviors and death, which is subjectively not mandated for reporting.

Michele Bachmann admits to Medicaid fraud in child welfare and I thank her.

Now, what are we going to do about this besides assist her in clarifying her message to protect ALL children?

Michele Bachmann: Government Wants To Experiment On Undocumented Children

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) believes that the United States government wants to use thousands of undocumented immigrants for medical experiments, she said on the radio show "WallBuilders Live" on Wednesday.

“And now President Obama is trying to bring all those foreign nationals, the illegal aliens to the country, and he has said that he will put them in the foster care system," Bachmann said in the interview. "Well, I will tell you from personal experience, we don’t have enough foster parents now in the country for the kids in America. We certainly don’t have enough foster parents for all of the illegal aliens that the president is trying to bring in right now." The progressive group People For the American Way posted the audio on its Right Wing Watch blog Wednesday afternoon.

Bachmann said that hospitals could "get millions of dollars in government grants if they can conduct medical research on somebody," suggesting that the hospitals could do that research on undocumented children. "A little kid can’t say no if they’re a ward of the state," said Bachmann. "So here you could have this institution getting millions of dollars from our government to do medical experimentation and a kid can’t even say no. It’s sick.”

But Bachmann hasn’t always expressed concern for children who are brought to the U.S. illegally. In 2011, when asked what she would do for the children of undocumented immigrants, Bachmann said she “would not do anything for them.”

"Their parents are the ones who brought them here ... they did not have the legal right to come to the United States," she said in 2011. "We do not owe people who broke our laws to come into the country. We don't owe them anything."

Bachmann, the parent of 23 foster children, made her most recent comments while urging support for a bill she introduced called Justina’s Law, which would prohibit federal funding for “any treatment or research in which a ward of the State is subjected to greater than minimal risk to the individual’s health with no or minimal prospect of direct benefit.”

UPDATE: Dan Kotman, a Bachmann spokesman, sent the following statement to HuffPost on Thursday:

This is a classic case of liberal media outlets once again twisting the Congresswoman’s words. As a foster mom of 23, she has a long track record of standing up for foster children and orphans. Her concern was that our foster care system, which is already short on foster care parents, would not have the capacity to handle this surge of unaccompanied children. And a child without parents to advocate on their behalf could be vulnerable to what Justina Pelletier experienced as a ward of the state, which is why the Congresswoman introduced a bipartisan bill to help protect our most vulnerable. Your sensational headline is a gross misrepresentation of what she actually said and what Justina’s Law actually does.

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Lawmakers aim to curb research on foster children

Be still my beating heart. Congress is finally getting the message.

Justina’s saga inspires bill

In the wake of the Justina Pelletier custody saga, a bipartisan group of House lawmakers have introduced a bill to limit federal funding for medical research involving foster children.

“Sixteen months ago, Justina was a figure skater. Today, she cannot stand, sit or walk on her own,” Rep. Michele Bachmann, Minnesota Republican, said of the bill, dubbed “Justina’s Law.”

“It is unconscionable what happened to Justina, and we must do all we can to prevent it from ever happening again. Removing federal funding from such experimentation is an important first step,” said Mrs. Bachmann.

“Foster children are particularly vulnerable because they may not have parents to advocate for them,” said Rep. Karen Bass, California Democrat, who is co-sponsoring the bill with Rep. Jim McDermott, Washington Democrat, and Rep. Tom Marino, Pennsylvania Republican.

All four lawmakers are co-chairmen of the Congressional Caucus on Foster Youth in the House of Representatives.

Justina, 16, spent 16 months in custody of Massachusetts’ child welfare agency, which placed her in a hospital psychiatric ward for several months. Justina was released to her family in June after a two-state battle involving a juvenile court and political leaders.

The House bill would tell hospitals and other research organizations they can’t “just do what they want” with children who are separated from their parents, said Daniel Schmid, an attorney with Liberty Counsel, which worked to win Justina’s release from state care.

Under U.S. Department of Health and Human Services rules — which are often adopted by hospitals and other institutions — wards of the state may sometimes be included in risky research that doesn’t benefit them.

The Justina bill “heightens the standard” by disallowing foster children from being involved in taxpayer-funded research that carries “greater-than-minimal risk with no or minimal prospect of direct benefit,” Mr. Schmid said.

Liberty Counsel said Friday that when Justina, then age 14, was taken by her mother, Linda Pelletier, to Boston Children’s Hospital in February 2013, a doctor changed her diagnosis from mitochondrial disease — a physical ailment — to somatoform disorder — a mental illness. A hospital psychologist who was researching somatoform disorder under a federal grant agreed with the new diagnosis.

When Justina’s parents objected and sought to move her to another hospital, they were reported to Massachusetts child welfare officials for medical child abuse, and Justina was taken into state custody.

Hospital and state officials have noted that they cannot discuss details of Justina’s case due to privacy and confidentiality rules. A spokesman for Boston Children’s Hospital said recently that Justina’s diagnosis and treatment plan were “thorough and in accordance with best practices” by an team of specialists in several disciplines, in and out of the hospital.

The Rev. Patrick Mahoney, a Pelletier family advocate and friend, said Friday that Justina is “180 degrees different, for the positive” since coming home to West Hartford, Connecticut. Sadly, her reading level has dropped several grades, but she is enrolling in school as soon as possible, he said.

The federal legislation is necessary to protect families, said Mr. Mahoney. Scores of people around the country have reported problems with foster care, and “all along, there was this sense that Justina’s case was, if you will, a canary in the coal mine” with respect to parents seeing their rights usurped by government entities.

Justina wants to tell her own story, Mr. Mahoney added. Recently, she said, unsolicited, “I want to go down to Washington, D.C., and speak,” he said.

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Justina Pelletier ruling is a joke

This is the best example of of a fallacious judicial ruling I have read in quite some time.

For those who do not read it, here is the summary:

Because parents took Justina to Tufts Medical doctors for years of surgery and treatment, Massachusetts  charged them with medical abuse.  As Connecticut, the state of the family's residence, refused to open a child abuse case, Massachusetts kept the girl in protective custody.  Due to the fact that the parents have announced they are going to sue everyone involved, they are no longer allowed to see their daughter again.

Judge Joseph Johnston needs to be removed from the bench.

The parents should get creative and sue the insurance company for authorizing payment for the medical treatment and sue Tufts University for medical malpractice based on this ruling.

That is how you bring in the big guns.

Justina Pelletier ruling by jason_howerton1

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Linda Pelletier should run for public office

I have been watching this case and for those of you who do not know about it, here it is in a nutshell:

Kid was sick.

Parents called kid's Tuft's University doctor.

Kid's doctor said to see old friend doctor in next State.

Parents went to Massachusetts Boston Children's Hospital.

Boston Children's Hospital said kid's doctor was quack and Massachusetts kept kid.

Court gagged Pelletiers and kept kid.

Here is why Linda Pelletier should run for public office:

1. When the Court issued a gag order, Linda for a way to access free speech by fainting and being taken out by stretcher and ambulance which was splattered over the front page of national newspapers.

   

   Justina Pelletier’s mom faints after hearing decision to place sick teen in foster care

   
   

2. Running for public office makes one a public figure where speech is protected and put into historic record.  She can officially curse the hospital staff and courts in public and there is nothing they can do about it except to read the front page of the paper.
3. While campaigning she can push for compliance of the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children and publicize the horrors and financial fraud of foster care by building her database of contacts and advocacy groups.
4. If she wins, she can build a caucus of other elected officials to call for a full scale investigation on the conflict of interest with the relationship between Boston Children's Hospital and Department of Children and Family Services.

Unfortunately, Justina will never go home.  There is too much money involved and potential lawsuit against the hospital.  As long as the child is under the custody of the state, the original parents have no legal recourse of the child.  This is how a state protects itself and makes money, lots of it.

Linda, you have until 4:00 p.m. EST, April 22, 2014 to collect and submit 1,000 valid nomination signatures to run for Congress.

Lou, you run the campaign and be the spokesperson.

It does not matter if you win or loose, it is the public exposure.

Parents of Justina Pelletier to Appeal Judge’s DCF Custody Decision

Liberty Counsel is to follow every possible legal process to return Justina Pelletier to her parents in Connecticut so she can get medical care, access to a priest, and an education. This follows a court order late yesterday granting the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families (DCF) continued custody of the desperately ill teenager until at least June 20 this year. In a press release issued last night, the international nonprofit organization said it would be filing a habeas corpus petition or an appeal against the judge’s custody decision.

Mat Staver, chairman of the Florida-based Liberty Counsel and the lawyer who will lead the appeal, described the situation as a “tragedy” and said the DCF was holding Justina prisoner after they “essentially kidnapped” her in February last year. Staver said he had “never seen a more barbaric overreach by a state agency.” It was not acceptable that the court was yet again “kicking the can down the road,” he said.

The ongoing saga began when Lou and Linda Pelletier took their daughter, Justina to Boston Children’s Hospital (BCH) in February last year so she could be seen by gastroenterologist, Dr. Alejandro Flores who had previously treated her at Tufts Medical Center (also in Boston) for severe gastrointestinal problems caused by mitochondrial disease (mito). Instead doctors at BCH decided her problems were psychiatric and not medical, and changed the diagnosis to somatoform disorder, which is psychosomatic but with physical symptoms. Justina was not examined by Dr. Flores, who knew her medical history, and the doctors at Tufts were not consulted.

The court custody battle was initiated by the Pelletiers over a year ago; this is the first ruling in writing that has been issued by the judge, Joseph F. Johnston. The Pelletiers have been waiting for a final decision from Judge Johnston regarding custody since mid-December last year. He had postponed making any decision six times, until yesterday, when he issued the disposition order regarding the “care and protection of Justina Pelletier.”

It is understood that Staver’s application to be admitted officially onto the case as the Pelletier’s lawyer was also denied. He needs court approval because he is from another state and would be taking over from existing counsel, but has said that this is usually a formality. Nevertheless Staver was quick to announce his intention to appeal the judge’s DCF custody decision on behalf of Justina’s parents, stating that she has been refused “adequate medical care,” access to “clergy or communion,” and has not been given “any meaningful education” in the past 13 months.

Judge Johnston’s Disposition Order

Judge Johnston outlined the history of the case and his findings in a four-page written ruling faxed to relevant parties, ultimately stating that he was granting continued custody of Justina to the MA DCF. This order was subject to “the parties right to a review and redetermination” six months from December 20, 2013, which is when the custody case ended and the decision regarding custody should have been made. So the ruling is not “permanent” as stated in some media reports.

Judge Johnston repeated the finding he made on December 20, 2013, that there was “clear and convincing evidence” that Justina was “a child in need of care and protection” because of the “conduct and inability of her parents” to provide for her “necessary and proper physical, mental, and emotional development.”

He ruled that it was necessary for “the parents” to be psychologically and clinically evaluated by the Connecticut DCF. However he stated throughout the report that the CT DCF has refused to become involved in the case from day one. Firstly it refused to accept the case when it was originally filed in Massachusetts 13 months ago, he said. Then it refused to take action when the MA DCF filed a “report of neglect of Justina” by her parents, maintaining the case was “under investigation.” Although the CT DCF notified the court in December that it had “substantiated the parents for neglect,” it would not take responsibility for the case and declined to file in the Connecticut court. In February it was agreed by all parties, including Lou and Linda Pelletier, that the CT DCF would be given temporary custody of Justina Pelletier pending transfer of the case to her home state, he said. But the Connecticut court refused to get involved stating there was no action pending in Connecticut.

The judge maintained that Justina was “ready for discharge” from BCH in June 2013, but was not discharged because her parents “significantly hampered” efforts of the MA DCF to find somewhere suitable to place her. He claimed that since “adjudication,” when the custody case had been heard and a finding was to be given, he had considered granting the Pelletiers “conditional custody.” He said he had decided not to due to the parents’ conduct that included verbal abuse, calling hospital personnel “Nazis,” using “profanity directed at the MA DCF personnel in Justina’s presence,” and claiming “the hospital was punishing and killing Justina.” He also blamed the Pelletiers for the inability of the DCF to be able to place her in a facility in Connecticut, where she would be close to home.

The judge ended the ruling by stating that the MA DCF must make “heightened efforts” to transfer Justina to Connecticut and transfer “both the clinical and legal case to Connecticut.” The court would, he said continue to “assist in the return of Justina to her home state of Connecticut.”

Lou Pelletier Speaks Out

Directly after Judge Johnston’s custody ruling was released, Lou Pelletier was interviewed on Fox TV in Boston. He said he was “very angry” but not surprised because this judge had continually ignored overwhelming evidence. He said Justina needed to be home, because “she is mentally, and more importantly, physically dying” under the care of the state of Massachusetts, the BCH and the MA DCF.

Asked why this was happening, he said, “It’s happening because it can!” All the hospital has to do is have its child protection team call the DCF; and in Massachusetts, the DCF does not have its own medical director which they are required to by law, so they rely on BCH. There were two reasons the child protection team stepped in to their case, he said. Firstly they were not prepared to follow the hospital’s protocol by agreeing Justina be taken off all her medication (including a vitamin cocktail and medicine for a rapid heart rate) – “which no sane person would do.” Secondly, because they were accused of “medical child abuse.” He said Justina had two surgeries, one to remove a congenital band that had become wrapped around her colon and appendix several years ago. The other was to insert a port into her colon. These procedures and all other medication had been prescribed by doctors at Tufts and approved by insurance, he said.

On a positive note, he said the ground swell of support had reached record numbers, with between 13 to 15 million hits on Twitter because, “the country is fed-up with what is happening.” He said “it is a national tragedy” that happens in some hospital every day. People “go down this rabbit hole with no recourse to get recovery.” At least by making people aware of what was happening, they could not ignore Justina’s declining physical condition, he said.

Lou Pelletier said the whole situation was an “infringement of our parental rights” and that the Government was “intruding into people’s lives for no reason.” He said he had absolutely no doubt that Justina suffers from mito, especially since her older sister Jessica has the same condition – confirmed by a muscle biopsy.

Commenting on their decision to appeal the judge’s DCF custody decision, the father of Justina Pelletier said they would go to Massachusetts Supreme Court, the Federal Court, and to the court of public opinion. “The country is enraged” and all parents need to be aware of what is happening, he said.

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