Carter Wrenn posted on July 05, 2009 10:36
Here’s a case study of how politicians cover-up their mistakes.
In April Senator Doug Berger cut home care for 20,000 Medicaid patients – then, 8 days later, voted to spend $25 million to build the Taj Mahal of fishing piers.
Now no one outside the walls of the legislature knew that -- until The Association for Home and Hospice Care put it in a TV ad, then Berger ended up on WRAL and in the News and Observer so now his constituents know he’s in Raleigh voting against eighty year old home care patients and for fishing piers – and Berger’s fighting mad and shooting back.
By saying he’s fighting waste and fraud. That home care is riddled with fraud. And that fishing pier is just fine.
Now consider this: To get home care a patient must suffer from at least two physical handicaps, and be recommended for care by his doctor. So for Berger to be right doctors had to make 20,000 mistakes – one every time they recommended a patient for home care. Plus the Department of Health and Human Services’ own statistics show less than 3% of Medicaid home care claims involve allegations of fraud.
There’s more: In 2007 when The Home and Hospice Care Association asked Senator Berger to support a bill to prohibit Nursing Homes, Rest Homes and Home Care providers from hiring felons – Berger turned thumbs down; then introduced his own bill to allow felons under 21 to have their records expunged. So a Nursing Home could hire a felon (convicted of, say, stealing from a ninety year old patient) and never know it.
Senator Berger is steaming full speed ahead, putting out a Jellicoe-like smoke screen of political rhetoric and, while he’s covering his tracks, his $25 million fishing pier is getting built and 20,000 elderly patients are still wondering if they’ll have home care next month – or be moving into Nursing Homes.
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