Thread regarding Ascension Health layoffs

Meanwhile, the "masters-of-the-universe" pocket more and more and more and more and more...

https://www.statnews.com/2022/07/18/health-care-ceo-compensation-2021/

Retired Adrian College professor Hank Cetola summed it up:

"So why do we not have single-payer healthcare yet pay more than twice that of comparable countries? Scare tactics, unconstrained lobbying, political contributions and GREED."

https://www.monroenews.com/story/opinion/columns/2020/03/04/greed-other-reasons-why-u/1577605007/

Well, you've hit on the mains reason why the United States of America is the only so-called "civilized" nation in the world without universal healthcare: greed and corruption.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/31/health/us-health-care-spending-global-perspective/index.html

This is why universal healthcare will probably never happen in the United States. It's also the reason other countries have vast high-speed trains and we don't. It's also why other countries have enough housing and we don't. It's also why our formerly great colleges and universities have turned into corporate ripoffs.

Until the people of the United States deal with the greed issue, they'll never be free.

As somebody stated earlier in the thread: "When America ceases to be good, it ceases to be great."

Everybody is in on it. Greed is the "God" of the United States.

Wow.

"The registered nurse who reported Qin to authorities in 2015 was stunned that the criminal charge was dropped."

“A wealthy doctor bought his way out of jail,” whistleblower Mark Favors told Reuters in his first public interview about the Qin case. “How many people get a deal like that?”

"The answer, it turns out, is plenty."

"Over the last decade alone, at least 540 doctors and healthcare practitioners collectively paid the government hundreds of millions of dollars to negotiate their way out of trouble via civil settlements, then continued to practice medicine without restrictions on their licenses despite allegations that included fraud and patient harm, a Reuters investigation found. That figure is the result of the first-ever comprehensive analysis of federal civil settlements and state disciplinary actions."

"Separately, more than 2,200 hospitals and healthcare companies likewise negotiated civil deals to sidestep prosecution for alleged offenses that included paying bribes, falsifying patients records and billing the government for unnecessary patient care, the Reuters analysis shows. In many of those cases, the physicians, staffers and top brass who purportedly committed those misdeeds were not named publicly by prosecutors or forced to pay settlements themselves. Federal enforcers said they sometimes withhold names of individuals in these situations because of ongoing or planned investigations."

• The U.S. government collected more than $26.8 BILLION in healthcare-related civil settlements and judgments from 2013 to 2022, the Reuters analysis found.

At least Reuters showed some backbone by publishing this revelation:

"Medical practitioners and providers paid $26.8 billion over the past decade to settle federal allegations including fraud, bribery and patient harm, a Reuters investigation found. Paying up means staying in business and, for some, avoiding prison. U.S. prosecutors helped them do it."

Yes, they're ALL in on it.

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-healthcare-settlements/

Money, money, and more money:

"In total, 24 doctors, nurses and other medical professional as well as executives for a pharmaceutical wholesale distribution company and telemedicine businesses were among those charged, the Justice Department announced Wednesday."

"At least $1.1 billion was actually paid out in these cases, agency officials said."

"In a separate case, Lazaro Hernandez of Miami pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 15 years in prison for illegally reselling more than $230 million in medications, including HIV dr-gs. Hernandez and his co-conspirators illegally received huge quantities of leftover prescription dr-gs from patients who didn't use the medication. They included HIV patients who resold their dr-gs on the street to him, according to court documents."

"Hernandez and others then resold those medications to pharmacies across the nation, usually hiding the origins of the dr-gs. In multiple occasions, Hernandez sold bottles filled with the wrong medicine, broken pills or even pebbles."

https://www.npr.org/2023/06/28/1184795720/78-people-face-charges-for-2-5-billion-in-attempted-health-care-fraud-doj-says

Don't forget about this one:

Ascension Michigan and its related hospitals will pay $2.8 million in a settlement to resolve claims alleging healthcare fraud.

The settlement, announced Thursday, is meant to address legal allegations that for a period of six years from 2011, the provider knowingly submitted false payment claims to the federal government and billed for medically unnecessary treatments. There has been no determination of liability, and the name of the doctor involved in the case has not been publicly disclosed.

“When hospitals receive payment from federal health care programs for medically unnecessary surgical procedures, they cannot simply retain those payments; they have an obligation to return them,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Brian M. Boynton of the Justice Department’s Civil Division in a statement. “We will continue to ensure that taxpayer funds are used appropriately for the important programs that they support.”

Ascension had previously settled claims relating to hematologist-oncologist Farid Fata, who ran a cancer treatment clinic and purposefully misdiagnosed or poisoned with cancer treatment more than 550 patients across seven locations through his practice. In 2016, more than three dozen patients won an $8 million settlement in a malpractice suit against Fata, which involved one of Ascension Michigan’s hospitals and two other providers. Fata is serving a 45-year sentence in federal prison.

https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/regulatory/ascension-michigan-to-pay-nearly-3-million-latest-settlement-to-resolve-healthcare-fraud

Just the tip of an incredibly big iceberg that the weak, impotent news media of the United States can't seem to expose.

Meanwhile, the news media turn a blind eye to a health care industry rife with fraud so that they can also scam us with nothing but meaningless culture war coverage. America is a joke.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/two-florida-doctors-convicted-31-million-medicare-fraud-scheme

Yep, and -- guess what -- they're all in on it:

https://www.kxan.com/news/local/austin/3-ascension-texas-hospitals-to-pay-20-9-million-in-fines-for-alleged-kickbacks/

Think about it next time you see your "humble" physician pull up to the curb in his/her Mercedes, Tesla, or Porsche.