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Showing posts with label Rick Scott. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rick Scott. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 24, 2019
Monday, November 12, 2018
Cocktails & Popcorn: Marc Elias Is Coming In For A Landing In Detroit, Right After Broward County Election Recount
Previously, on Cocktails & Popcorn, Florida Broward County had some issues with voter ballots and its clerk where the call was put out to remove the County Clerk from office, immediately, and put the office in federal receivership, exactly like they do in child abuse and neglect cases.
Something tells me the same thing is about to happen to Detroit, but, hey, what do I know?
Back to Florida.
It dawned on me that Marc Elias, "Legal Genius" (trademark pending) of Perkins Coie Sucks is about to deal with his own election interference Office of the Special Prosecutor indictment in Detroit, so I thought it best not to tell his tale, because that would just ruin another cocktails & popcorn moment.
Stay tuned and get more popcorn.
We are coming in for a landing in Detroit.
Something tells me the same thing is about to happen to Detroit, but, hey, what do I know?
Back to Florida.
FLORIDA’S RECOUNT BEGINS AMID ALLEGATIONS OFFICIALS TAMPERED WITH BALLOTS
Then, this happened.
Then, this happened.
Then, this happened.It dawned on me that Marc Elias, "Legal Genius" (trademark pending) of Perkins Coie Sucks is about to deal with his own election interference Office of the Special Prosecutor indictment in Detroit, so I thought it best not to tell his tale, because that would just ruin another cocktails & popcorn moment.
Stay tuned and get more popcorn.
We are coming in for a landing in Detroit.
#perkinscoiesucks
Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©
Saturday, February 17, 2018
How Poorly We Treat Children: The Nikolas Cruz Investigation
A few days ago a pattern began to emerge in traffic on my blog with these tags: 'Florida' and 'pharmaceuticals', right before the Florida school shooting, but why?
George Sheldon Is A Person Of Interest In Privatized Child Welfare Fraud & Trafficking Tiny Haitians
The media and internet lit up excoriating everyone from FBI to gun control advocates, from the advocates of weaponizing schools to demonic possession.
Murder and mayhem of children is a not just a crime, it is a moral turpitude and I feel the pain of the families, more than one would ever wish to know, but no one asked the most important question.
Why would a youth do such a thing?
The first thing I saw was a young man smart enough to survive being one step away from living on the streets like the majoritiy of kids who age out the child welfare system.
Then I saw an older couple who took in foster kids for the money.
Then I saw an older couple who took in foster kids for the money.
Then I saw an adopted child who struggled with mental health issues, and was probably under psychiatric care, which probably amounted to seeing his registered physician practitioner once a month for his refills of his antipsychotropic medications to make sure the adoption subsidies keep flowing.
But then his adoptive parents died.
Where was CPS?
Why did the school kick him out without referral to services, or let alone provide services?
Was he going through withdrawl of his psychotropic medications?
Was he over prescribed psychotropic medication?
Was he going through withdrawl of his psychotropic medications?
Was he over prescribed psychotropic medication?
Why was he living with friends, after losing his inheritance, or shall I call this the theft of his trust fund?
Why did the State of Florida fail this boy?
How is it this young lady was able to speak to the suspect while shooting was heard from a distance?
Then came a deeper look into the life of Nikolas Cruz where this may be a case of human trafficking.
Then, there were news stories about the shooting, hours before the shooting, which is not the first time this has happened.
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| The screenshot was taken 6 hours after the shooting. The story was published 9 hours before the shooting. |
No matter what the investigation finds, or who is to blame, there needs to be a full scale investigation because this is a pattern far too familiar in schools, including how poorly we treat children in the U.S. child welfare system.
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| Nikolas Cruz |
Adopted at birth by a loving older couple, Nikolas Cruz seemed to struggle in recent years. His dad died when he was much younger and the 19-year-old’s mom died just 3 ½ months ago, neighbors, friends and family members said.
The portrait that emerged of the suspected gunman in the mass shooting was of a troubled former student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School who was expelled for disciplinary problems.
Cruz was arrested without any serious incident at a nearby house very shortly after the shootings, which left 17 people dead and several more injured, Sheriff Scott Israel said.
The AR-15 used in the mass shooting was legally bought by Cruz, attorney Jim Lewis told the South Florida Sun Sentinel. Cruz already owned the gun when he moved in with his friend’s family in northwest Broward around Thanksgiving, Lewis said.
“It was his gun,” Lewis said. “The family made him keep it in a locked gun cabinet in the house but he had a key.”
The family did not see him shooting the AR-15 but did see him shooting pellet guns, Lewis said.
Cruz’s mother, Lynda Cruz, died Nov. 1. She was 68.
Family member Barbara Kumbatovich, of Long Island, N.Y., said she heard media reports about the mass shooting in Florida but had no idea the suspect was the son of her recently deceased sister-in-law, Lynda.
“Oh my God,” Kumbatovich said.
Lynda and her husband, Roger, who died many years ago, adopted Nikolas and his biological brother, Zachary, after the couple moved from Long Island to Broward County.
Kumbatovich said she met the boys only once, when they were very young and attended a family funeral in New York. Lynda was a stay-at-home mom and her late husband, who died when the boys were younger, had worked in advertising.
Lynda had always wanted to have children and the couple adopted later in life, Kumbatovich said: “I think it was just something she really wanted to do.”
The boys were left in the care of a family friend after their adoptive mom died Nov. 1, she said.
“I know she had been having some issues with them, especially the older one. He was being a problem. I know he did have some issues and he may have been taking medication. [He] did have some kind of emotional problems or difficulties,” Kumbatovich said. “[Lynda] kept a really close handle on both boys. They were not major issues, as far as I know, just things teenagers do like not coming home on time, maybe being disrespectful.”
Another relative, who spoke on condition of anonymity over the sensitive matter, said Nikolas had been diagnosed with autism.
Lynda, who died of pneumonia, adopted Nikolas the day he was born.
Nikolas’ father died from a heart attack, the relative said, and Lynda had sought counseling for Nikolas at a young age: “She did her best getting him any help he needed.”
After their mom died, Cruz and his brother lived with a family friend in Palm Beach County but Cruz wasn’t happy. He asked a friend, who he knew from his time at Stoneman Douglas, if he could move in with the friend’s family in northwest Broward, said Jim Lewis, an attorney speaking on behalf of that family. The lawyer would not identify the family.
The family let Cruz move in around Thanksgiving, gave him his own room and urged him to attend adult education classes, Lewis said. Cruz also got a job at a local dollar store, he said.The family were fully cooperating with investigators, he said. Detectives were getting a search warrant to look for evidence in Cruz’s room late Wednesday, Lewis said.
Another home, in the Lantana area, was also being searched late Wednesday.
Janine Kartiganer, who lives two doors down from Cruz’s former home, said Cruz looked “very troubled.”
“He wore a hoodie and always had his head down,” she said. “He looked depressed.”
Emily Sucher, 16, a junior who lives in Parkland, was in her TV Production class when an administrator announced over the intercom to evacuate the building.
She had seen the suspect, Cruz, around school last year and remembers him as an “off kid” who would “smile weirdly, make weird comments.”
Sen. Bill Nelson said on MSNBC that Cruz wore a gas mask and had smoke grenades. “He set off the fire alarm so the kids would come out into the hallways and thus he had the opportunity with a crowded hallway to start picking off people.”
Trevor Hart, 16, who knew Cruz in Spanish class at Marjory Stoneman, said they ate together once in a while in the cafeteria.
“It seemed like he didn’t really like school,” Hart said.
Cruz participated in Army ROTC at the high school. Cruz had “a bunch of weapons” and talked about shooting lizards, squirrels and frogs, Hart said.
Cruz seemed “a little off,” Hart said.
Shelby and Richie Speno moved on to the street where the Cruz family lived in 2005.
Shelby Speno said she’d been warned that Nikolas had caused trouble, such as biting a child and stealing neighbors’ mail. One time, he threw eggs at Richie’s car while he was driving.
“The family is devastated, they didn’t see this coming. They took him in and it’s a classic case of no good deed goes unpunished,” Lewis said. “He was a little quirky and he was depressed about his mom’s death, but who wouldn’t be?”
“Lynda the mom was always apologetic. She had her hands full,” Shelby said.
“They were very much on their own. The kids seem to roam around and come and go as they pleased,” Richie Speno said.
Police were called out numerous times, and Shelby said Cruz was seen shooting at a neighbor’s chickens.
“I told my husband I was so glad they moved. I’m afraid he was the kind of kid who would do something crazy,” Shelby said. “The older he gets, the worse kind of trouble he got into.”
Jonathan Guimaraes, 17, said he and Cruz were in JROTC together: “He was normal. He didn't have any issues.”
Cruz liked to go hunting a lot but Guimaraes said he thought Cruz only used non-lethal airsoft rifles.
Cruz was wearing a wine-colored ROTC polo shirt, black pants and black boots, when he was taken into custody. He was placed on a gurney and taken away in an ambulance. At 4:47 p.m., he was wheeled in to Broward Health North hospital in Deerfield Beach.
A short time later, he was brought to Broward Sheriff’s Office headquarters in a marked agency car that was part of a short convoy.
Handcuffed and wearing what looked like a light blue hospital gown, he was led into the building by deputies.
Math teacher James Gard said Cruz, a junior at the time, was in his class last year.
“He was a pretty quiet kid,” Gard said. “He was a very well-behaved kid in my class. He was never a behavioral problem in my class.”
Malcolm and Christine Roxburgh were neighbors of the Cruz family for many years.
“It was a wonderful idea. Two older people to have two little boys to look after. They were just kind people.”
Christine said Lynda asked her daughter, who lives up north, to take the kids when her husband died, but she refused.
He used to get into trouble and harass neighbors, the Roxburghs said. The police came to Cruz’s house many times, they said.
A neighbor across the street kept little pigs as pets.
“He didn’t like the pigs and didn’t like the neighbors so he sent over his dog over there to try to attack them,” Malcolm said.
Christine said one time she saw Nikolas peeking in her window.
“I said what are you doing here? He said he was looking for golf balls. I said ‘this isn’t the golf course,’” Christine said.
A neighbor once spotted Nikolas trying to steal a bike from the garage when the door was open.
Christine said when the boy didn’t want to go to school, he would bang his head against a cement wall.
When their daughter was driving to work, Nikolas “slammed his book bag into the side of her car. She got out and said don’t you ever do that again.”
“He could have killed any of us,” Christine said.
Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©
Monday, October 6, 2014
Florida Rick Scott Called Out For Medicare Fraud
Medicaid fraud in child welfare has been going on for years.
This goes on in many states, including Michigan.
Rick Scott, along with the other Republican State Governors who were opposed to Medicaid expansion, knew it was not in compliance with its Medicaid Fraud Control Unit in overseeing Medicaid fraud. Scott found out how profitable and launched the welfare drug testing program for which his company got the state contract in order to fraudulently bill.
There is so much more to the story.
Below are filings.
Now, go get the fraud in child welfare, #DOJ.
Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©
This goes on in many states, including Michigan.
Rick Scott, along with the other Republican State Governors who were opposed to Medicaid expansion, knew it was not in compliance with its Medicaid Fraud Control Unit in overseeing Medicaid fraud. Scott found out how profitable and launched the welfare drug testing program for which his company got the state contract in order to fraudulently bill.
There is so much more to the story.
Below are filings.
Now, go get the fraud in child welfare, #DOJ.
HCA whistleblower revives claim that Scott knew of fraud
Schilling, a registered Republican from Collier County, helped to expose the $1.7 billion Medicare fraud at Columbia/HCA that brought down several executives and forced Scott's resignation from the mammoth hospital chain he built.
None of these charges are new, however. Scott was never charged with a crime or fined, and voters were barraged with reports of the charges in 2010 when he narrowly defeated Democrat Alex Sink.
Scott admitted responsibility for the fraud in a 2010 television ad when he was running in the primary against then-Attorney General Bill McCollum, but the Crist campaign has revived the narrative, claiming it is indicative of a pattern of abuse of the law by Scott.
The Florida Democratic Party is running national news clips from the period on a web site named The Fraud Files.
“The McCollum crowd says the hospital company I started was fined by the government the Medicare fraud. Unfortunately that’s true. ’’ Scott said in the 2010 television ad dubbed "Truth" and is available here. "I was in charge and even questioned by authorities. But that’s not what matters. What matters is that the company made mistakes and as CEO I take responsibility and learn from it.” Schilling, who won a $100 million judgment with another former HCA official as a result of his whistleblower lawsuit, is now the founding partner of Naples-based Ethics Solutions LLC, a consulting company that specializes in health care fraud investigations and works and supports other whistleblowers with cases similar to his.
“The fraud at Rick Scott’s company hurt seniors, it hurt taxpayers, it hurt everyone,'' Schilling said Monday, as he read from a statement. "It was stealing from the American taxpayers and eroding the Medicare program designed to care for the elderly. “He likes to say he wasn’t questioned but I am a witness and I was an FBI informant. Fraud was in the DNA of Rick Scott’s company from the very beginning and he was the father.”
Schilling said that within six months of being hired in 1993 to be supervisor of reimbursmenet services in the Southwest Florida division in Fort Myers he learned that the company kept two sets of books – one a cost report, stamped "confidential" for the management and one for the regulators. The first set was never to be shown to Medicaid auditors, he said.
"It resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars of ill-gotten gains for Columbia/HCA,'' he said. After 18 months of trying to "rectify things internally – tried to talk to management, get them to change their practices,'' he said. "I was told to be quiet. I was told our jobs were on the line if this gets out. I did meet some management that did agree with me that this was fraudulent, that they were trying to work with the corporate office but it fell on deaf ears."
He said that instead of making easy changes to the accounting practice, it "mushroomed into a massive civil and criminal health care fraud investigation. I would spend weeks, months, years, side-by-side with the Department of Justice and the FBI."
He was wired to record meetings, covertly taped phone calls, mapped out offices and "provided the FBI investigators with a wealth of operational information about the company." He said his role led to the government's search warrant of 36 Columbia/HCA locations in six states.
"Within weeks, four managers were indicted of criminal healthcare fraud and Rick Scott was ousted from the company,'' he said.
The ultimate settlement led 14 criminal convictions and Columbia/HCA forfeiting $1.7 billion in fines for fraudulent Medicare overpayments. The fraud included "several types of fraud under Rick Scott's leadership,'' he said. The fraud included: cost report fraud, physician kickback fraud, upcoding on inpatient emissions, upcoding on lab procedures and inappropriate lab and in-home visits.
He said that as a Republican and father of three children "it sickens me that Rick Scott used the money that he reaped from ripping off the seniors to promote himself and, by most accounts, to buy the governor's office."
Schilling left the company in 1995 and sought whistleblower protection. In 1996, the FBI persuaded him to get back into Columbia/HCA so he could serve as an undercover informant.
He said he has no firsthand knowledge that Scott was involved but he believes he was not only aware of the fraudulent practices, he sanctioned them.
“I did not have day-to-day communication with Rick Scott. I had only met him once or twice while I was an employee there,’’ Schilling said.
“I’m basing my belief that he knew what was going on based on that he was as very hands on CEO of the company, that he was very involved in the organization and in communicating with employees. I knew that, working with government investigators, they thought he was a target and that he was orchestrating criminal conduct.”
The Scott campaign would not respond to Schilling’s comments but noted that the event was coordinated by Crist’s campaign and they called it a “desparate attack.”
“As Charlie realizes that no one is buying what he is selling, he is becoming increasingly angry and nasty in his personal attacks on the governor,’’ said Greg Blair, Scott’s communications director.
Crist spokesman Kevin Cate noted that one year Scott vetoed $1.5 million set aside by Republican legislators to increase health care fraud investigations.
However, Schilling noted after the press conference that Florida has a weak record when it comes to health care enforcement, even when Crist was governor.
In 2008, he was retained by the state of Florida to work with an investigator in the Agency for Health Care Administration to investigate fraud at a Trinity Community Hospital in the North Florida Community of Jasper.
Investigators there found misuse of both state and federal Medicaid funds. The hospital was soon closed.
“Even at that time, the enforcement was not real strong and the investigator that I had been working with expressed concern that they do lack enforcment action in this state,” he said.
Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Governor-elect's team says move helps reform Medicaid
Governor-elect's team says move helps reform Medicaid
BY MARY ELLEN KLAS
HERALD/TIMES TALLAHASSEE BUREAU
Consolidate health agencies, team tells Scott
TALLAHASSEE -- Medicaid reform should be such a top priority of Florida's new governor that he should consolidate all Florida's health care agencies to do it and use his first state of the state address to talk about the ``financial storm ahead'' because of the explosing Medicaid budget.
Those are some, but not all, of the very specific recommendations delivered to Gov.-elect Rick Scott by his health care transition committee this week. Scott, who takes office on Jan. 4, is meeting in Fort Lauderdale this week with the leaders of his six transition teams.
By consolidating the health agencies, Scott would reverse the work of Gov. Lawton Chiles 20 years ago, who pushed for the separation of the state's massive Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services into the Agency for Health Care Regulation, the Department of Children & Families and, later, the Department of Elder Affairs, the Department of Health and the Agency for Persons with Disabilities.
Scott's healthcare advisory team recommended consolidation of all those agencies -- with the exception of the child welfare focus of DCF -- into a large Department of Health and Human Services, according to the 68-page report released Monday. The goal of the mega-agency would be to better coordinate overlapping functions now handled by the single-mission agencies as the state attempts to reform the delivery of Medicaid services.
The Health and Human Services Transition Team contained 45 members but bears the reformist voice of Alan Levine, who helped shepherd the Medicaid reforms first implemented by former Gov. Jeb. Bush. The team was charged with ``finding ways to lower healthcare costs, transform the delivery of health services and better meet the needs of those most vulnerable in the state,'' but the most sweeping proposal calls for changing how the state delivers Medicaid and urges a continuation of many of the programs advanced by Levine under Bush.
Levine, who once headed of the North Broward Hospital District and formerly served as Health and Hospitals secretary under Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, urged Scott to hire a ``quarterback'' in his office who could coordinate health policy and management and ``be capable of working closely with the Legislature.''
Levine predicted that consolidating so many agencies would take ``at least a year to plan and implement'' but is needed to improve policy coordination.
The Department of Health Transition team, headed by Jason Rosenberg, a medical doctor, had harsh criticism of the Department of Health, saying it lacked leadership and a sense of mission. It echoed the call for agency consolidation and suggested that the state should get out of the business of allowing county health departments to provide primary care when other facilities are available in a region.
Rosenberg's committee also recommended merging the Agency for Health Care Administration with the Department of Health and recommended closing AG Holly tuberculosis hospital in Palm Beach County. The team also likes the idea of asking private, for-profit entities to run now-public functions. Among the functions the report recommends the governor steer to the private sector: healthcare licensing, health education programs and the operation of the state's three mental health hospitals in Macclenny, Gainesville and Chattahoochee.
Other recommendations:
• Merge the Agency for Persons with Disabilities with the Department of Elder Affairs and have it be a division within a larger health and human services agency.
• Keep child welfare programs separate from a larger health department.
• Continue to fight for repeal of the federal health care reform act because it is ``very costly for Florida at the very time we cannot even afford to operate the Medicaid program in its current form.''
• Expand Medicaid reform from the pilot projects in Miami-Dade, Broward and three other counties to statewide.
• Adopt Medicaid reform that includes an ``organized, coordinated network'' of care for the elderly that uses the private sector to give people ``services they need'' and not necessarily ``services they want.'' The state would be responsible for providing ``proper oversight to ensure needed services are not systemically denied.''
• Give doctors immunity for treating Medicaid patients.
Scott also received a report on regulatory reform and will receive reports on education and prison reform and how to shrink the size of government.
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/12/21/1983463/governor-elects-team-says-move.html#ixzz18m91vsNZ
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