Another Medicaid Fraud Story: Psychiatric Drug-Induced Movement Disorders in Young Children

The Makings Of Michigan’s Dark Secret: Medicaid Fraud In Child Welfare.

In Michigan, Medicaid fraud is a free-for-all multi-billion dollar racket.

With a strawman Medicaid Fraud Control Unit doing absolutely nothing but paying 90% of its salaries from federal dollars to look the other way, and FOIA exemptions and exclusions keeping the records secret, universities publishing false research paid by pharmaceuticals, you have the makings of Michigan’s dark secret.

Michigan Lawsuit Uncovers Psychiatry’s Dark Secret:
Psychiatric Drug-Induced Movement Disorders in Young Children

by Ben Hansen – From the Spring 2007 newsletter of the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology ( http://www.icspp.org).

Last month the New York Times exposed yet another example of unethical marketing practices by pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly. The front page story, In Some States, Maker Oversees Use of Its Drug, focused on Lilly’s efforts to coerce Medicaid officials into placing Zyprexa on preferred drug lists in at least 25 states. Eli Lilly was caught in broad daylight with its hands in the “Medicaid cookie jar,” yet the story behind the scenes is deeper than that.

For over a year I’ve been investigating Eli Lilly’s subversion of Michigan’s Medicaid program, and through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit I obtained nearly a thousand pages of documents showing how Medicaid is being milked like a huge cash cow by the pharmaceutical industry. In July 2006 I alerted the New York Times to Lilly’s antics in Michigan. I provided several key documents and solid leads to the reporter covering the story, Stephanie Saul. Overall I was pleased by the way Ms. Saul reported the Lilly/Medicaid scandal, but there’s another part of the story the Times didn’t mention.

The purpose of my FOIA lawsuit in Michigan is not simply to embarrass one pharmaceutical manufacturer — my aim is to gain access to data that will blow the lid off the entire psychiatric drug industry. This may be why the State of Michigan has fought me every step of the way, beginning with my first FOIA request in November 2005. Instead of joining my attempt to shed light on Michigan’s corrupt Medicaid system, the state attorney general’s office has tried to block the release of the documents I’ve requested, even filing a motion to have my lawsuit thrown out of court.

Thankfully, a respected attorney has taken my case pro bono, and we’re mapping a strategy to outmaneuver our opponents. The lawsuit, “Ben Hansen vs. State of Michigan Department of Community Health,” boils down to a fight over the release of records that show a list of each patient’s psychotropic drugs by drug NAME, not just by drug CLASS. For example, we know at least one Michigan Medicaid patient is currently on a total of 17 different psychiatric drugs, but the State of Michigan doesn’t want us to know the names of the drugs in the 17-drug cocktail!

By the time the next ICSPP newsletter is published, I hope to report a successful outcome to this ongoing legal battle. For now I wish to share a sampling of the psychiatric prescribing data I’ve obtained so far. The numbers speak for themselves.

During a 10-month period from January 2006 to October 2006, Michigan Medicaid statistics show:

100% increase in children under age 18 on 3 or more “mood stabilizers”.
100% increase in children age 6-17 on 4 or more psychiatric drugs.
79% increase in adults on 5 or more psychiatric drugs.
67% increase in adults on 3 or more psychiatric drugs.
49% increase in adults on 2 or more insomnia agents.
45% increase in children under age 18 on a benzodiazepine for at least 60 days.
45% increase in children under age 18 on 2 or more antipsychotics.
According to Michigan Medicaid records from 2005, the top 5 psychiatric drug classes prescribed to children under 5 years old were:

Anxiolytics/Sedative Hypnotics (1,265 patients under age 5).
Antidyskinetics (972 patients under age 5).
Anticonvulsants/Mood Stabilizers (933 patients under age 5).
Sympathomimetics/Stimulants (408 patients under age 5).
Atypical Antipsychotics (322 patients under age 5).
The most recent data on children under age 5, from February to December 2005, shows a 100% increase in children under 5 prescribed antidyskinetics (also called antiparkinsonians) for movement disorders such as dystonia, dyskinesia, tics, and tremors. This is perhaps the most disturbing statistic I’ve uncovered so far. If the same trend continued through 2006, it would mean the prescribing of antidyskinetics to children under 5 years old has quadrupled in the last two years!

If the increased prescribing of antidyskinetics is the direct result of an increase in the diagnosis and treatment of “mental disorders” in American toddlers, then we could be witnessing a public health disaster of monumental proportions. Drug-induced movement disorders in very young children are increasing at an astonishing rate, yet little if any mention of this is reported in the news. Certainly this is not something the pharmaceutical industry and its servant, the American Psychiatric Association, wishes to see publicized. It is the urgent task of organizations like ICSPP to uncover this dark secret and shine a light on it for the world to see. Ben Hansen is a psychiatric survivor and activist who serves on the Michigan Department of Community Health Recipient Rights Advisory Committee. A member of ICSPP and co-founder of MindFreedom Michigan, Ben is also founder and president of the wickedly satirical Bonkers Institute for Nearly Genuine Research. Visit his brilliant web site: http://www.bonkersinstitute.org

Dr. Bruce Perry, makes the prediction that unless this nation addresses the exponential growth in the problems of at risk children and their families, within this generation we will approach twenty five percent of our entire population qualifying as “special needs”.

http://www.beverlytran.blogspot.com

http://beverlytran.blogspot.com/2010/09/makings-of-michigans-dark-secrect.html

Democrats destroying social security

A headline at CNN back on August 13th proclaimed “Democrats to use Social Security against GOP this fall”.

There is just one problem.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that it is Barack Obama’s own debt commission that intends to destroy social security as we know it.

In addition to raising the retirement age, which is now set to reach age 67 in 2027, specific cuts under consideration include lowering benefits for wealthier retires and trimming annual cost-of-living increases, perhaps only for wealthier retirees, people familiar with the talks said.

On the tax side, the leading idea is to increase the share of earned income that is subject to Social Security taxes, officials said. Under current law, income beyond $106,000 is exempt. Another idea is to increase the tax rate itself, said a Democrat on the commission.

I’m sure this won’t stop the Democrats from demagoguing the issue and the Republicans will be too stupid to leave the Debt Commission or point out it is the President’s Commission doing the destroying, but the facts won’t change.

The Democratic President set up a debt commission and that commission intends to mess with social security. It is not the Republicans.

And here’s the thing: if the Democrats really do attack the GOP and demagogue on social security, the GOP members of the commission should quit. It’s that simple. They won’t though. Judd Gregg wants to leave the Senate having arrived at a lame duck bipartisan compromise to screw the country so he can be proclaimed “great” by the fringe we call the political class.

www.redstate.com

Social Security Funds Being Used to Fund Child Welfare Fraud

A major concern in foster care has been the number of placements a child must experience. Children are often moved multiple times during the length of stay in foster care. There are community organizations which design programs to assist with the emotional moves of these children. Children’s Rights has advocated for a reduction in the number of foster care placements in the courts.

Now, let’s step back and take a look at other possible reasons for multiple foster care placements of children.

Fraud. Yes, fraud.

Under Title IV-E methodologies, the relocation of a foster child to another foster home is an administrative cost. These costs, rarely found outside of the eyes of the child placing agencies, are false.

Title IV-E is a Federal Entitlement program for poor and destitute children to provide these children with food and shelter. Funding is taken from social security funds. Yes social security funds. Unlike other entitlement programs, this is an open ended program meaning that there are unlimited funds not subject to any cap. So there has been a concerted effort to maximize funds from Title IV-E because it’s an endless pit of funds as deep as social security itself.

The Title IV-E a/k/a social security fraud works like this: A child is placed in a foster home, then, the child is moved, for whatever reason a case worker can conjure, and placed in a new home. That administrative placement activity is then, billed, under Title IV-E payment rates.

Children are often placed in stranger foster parent homes rather than with relatives as relative placements do not fall under foster care payment structures. In English, if a state places a child with a relative, it loses out on foster care Title IV-E aka social security money. So the incentive is to place a child with strangers and move the child around (at least on paper) to jack up administrative costs reimbursed by the Feds (aka taxpayer) rather than place the child with family. Thus the main reason why states have been unsuccessful in adopting policies where a child is placed with family rather than strangers is that the State makes more money placing the child with strangers. Therefore child welfare practices is what’s good for the State’s budget, not what’s good for the child.

How States Take the Fraud Further and Maximize Their Theft of Taxpayer Monies While Failing to Provide for the Foster Child

Placing children with strangers is such a simplistic reimbursable cost activity that the administrative actors then take it to the next level. A child is placed with strangers and then the State falsifies the child’s documents by reporting that the child necessitated multiple placements thus jacking up the administrative expenses associated with placing the child, when, in actuality, the child remained in one placement.

To validate these allegations, one must possess the authority to contemporaneously review court case files and the child placing agency administrative cost filings to the state. As the court documents are, in some instances, under seal, or impossible to access due (i.e. shredding, lost, misplaced, stolen, FOIA). Thus the massive amounts of fraud in child welfare is being shield by child secrecy and protection laws thus the laws intended to protect the child are being used to hide the fraud taking place at the expense of the child and taxpayers.

Then, layer this with the name of God and impenetrable iron curtain of child welfare destroying the innate concepts of transparency and accountability, and you have the makings of a fraud scheme in child welfare. All billing in child welfare is a secret.

Package this particular “revenue-maximization scheme” in the lack of state administrative oversight of these privatized contracts and rates (see p.4 allegation #4), and you have identified the financial incentives for multiple placements in foster care (whether true or false claims).

www.bevertran.blogspot.com

Welfare, Unfunded Pensions; Government Borrowing from Social Security Will Lead to America’s Financial Collapse

Government takes money from Social Security and transfers, by giving the Social Security Trust Fund an IOU, American’s social security money into the general fund to meet current spending obligations. The Social Security “Lock Box” has not only been unlocked, it has been looted by the government and now lies open and empty.

2010 Social Security Trustees Report: Reform Needed Now

Published on August 11, 2010 by David C. John
www.heritage.org

Abstract: The 2010 annual report by the Social Security trustees has been released. It comes as no surprise that the Trustees Report predicts massive—and permanent— yearly deficits if the Social Security system is not reformed.

What Is the Trustees Report?

The Social Security Act requires the trustees of the Social Security Trust Funds to issue an annual report on the financial status of those trust funds. The report includes not only current financial information but also projections about the funds’ ability to finance promised benefit payments in the future. If the report shows that the trust funds will be unable to finance all of these payments (which is the case in all recent reports), the law requires the trustees to recommend ways to make up the shortfall. However, this requirement is regularly ignored.

Which Year Counts Most—2010, 2015, or 2037?

The year when Social Security begins to permanently spend more than it takes in—2015—is the crucial year. From that point on, Social Security will require large and growing amounts of general revenue money in order to pay all of its promised benefits. Even though this money will technically come from cashing in the special-issue bonds in the trust funds, the money to repay those bonds will come from other tax collections or borrowing. The billions that go to Social Security each year will make it harder to find money for other government programs, thus requiring large and growing tax increases.

The second-most important year is 2010. Beginning this year, the annual Social Security surpluses that Congress has been borrowing in order to spend on other programs will disappear. Because the recession has both reduced Social Security payroll tax revenues and increased the amount of payments, Congress will have to either find other sources to replace the money that it borrows from Social Security, or scale back spending. This year, Social Security will have a cash-flow deficit of about $41 billion, followed with a predicted deficit of $7 billion next year. Although the Trustees Report predicts small surpluses for 2012 through 2014 as the economy recovers, Social Security surpluses can no longer be used to mask the real size of the deficit and finance other spending.

Compared to 2010 and 2015, 2037—the year in which the Social Security trust funds run out of special issue bonds—has little importance. Even though the end of those bonds will require a 22 percent benefit reduction, Congress would have been paying about $250 billion a year (in 2010 dollars) to repay those bonds for about seven years by the time the trust funds run out. Congress will have to do this through some combination of other spending cuts, new taxes, or additional borrowing. These are the same choices Congress would face without the existence of the trust funds.

Do Politics Influence the Trustees Report?

No. Social Security Administration (SSA) Chief Actuary Stephen Goss and his staff of non-partisan experts are the source for the data in the Trustees Report. They are respected professionals who never were, and are not now, subject to political pressure. Goss has been at SSA since 1973 and is internationally renowned. Although members of the President’s Cabinet serve as trustees, they have little influence over the numbers. The 2010 numbers are substantially similar to those in the Trustees Reports issued during the Clinton and both Bush Administrations.

When Will Social Security Begin to Run a Cash-Flow Deficit?

According to the 2010 Trustees Report, the year that Social Security will begin to spend more in benefits than it receives in payroll taxes is 2015—one year sooner than predicted in last year’s report. The year the “trust funds” are exhausted remains at 2037, the same as in last year’s report.

What It All Means

• Good news for seniors. The benefits for current retirees and those close to retirement remain completely safe. Even allowing for the predicted cash-flow deficits this year and next, the 2010 report shows that the program will have enough resources to pay full benefits until 2015. Despite political scare tactics, seniors can rest assured that their benefits are safe for five more years and that they will receive every cent that they are due, including an annual cost-of-living increase.
• Bad news for younger workers. Unfortunately, younger workers have a great deal to worry about. Any worker born after 1970 will reach full retirement age after the trust fund is exhausted. Unless Congress acts soon, younger workers can look forward to paying full Social Security taxes throughout their careers only to receive 78 percent or less of the benefits that have been promised to them. In addition, younger workers will have to pay to re-fund the surpluses that have been borrowed from the Social Security trust fund, an expense that will total almost $6 trillion by the time the trust fund is exhausted in 2037.

David C. John is Senior Research Fellow in Retirement Security and Financial Institutions in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

Kansas SRS Accused of Kidnapping Kids to Raise Child Welfare Money

Kansas SRS is making billions off of snatching and selling children

Not In 25 Years, Social Security Is Bankrupt Now

By Bill Frezza

This just in from the trustees that issue the annual report on the health of those two pillars of the modern entitlement state: Medicare and Social Security. For the first time in its history the Social Security program will pay out more money than it takes in. This watershed event will occur this year, to the tune of $41 Billion dollars. Under any rational accounting standards this makes the Social Security program bankrupt. And that’s right now, not in 25 years when the so-called Trust Fund becomes insolvent.

You see, most pension programs hold income producing assets in their Trust Funds. Stocks, bonds, real estate, oil and gas partnerships, that sort of thing. A fully funded pension program owns enough of those assets to pay its liabilities even if the company closes its doors and not a penny more of new money comes in from current employees.

Social Security plays by a different set of rules enshrined under the New Deal and Great Society programs. These are the same rules that landed Bernie Madoff in jail. Although the Social Security system has been regularly taking in billions for decades and socking it into its Trust Fund just like a normal pension plan, Congress has just as regularly been draining the money out for current spending. All of the money collected from every American’s paycheck throughout all of our careers is now gone. In its place are not stocks, bonds, real estate, and oil and gas partnership. In its place are IOUs from Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Charlie Rangel, and Barney Frank. $2.5 Trillion dollars worth of IOUs.

Now, imagine if a private company had a pension plan that its executives had completely drained wining and dining Congressmen in return for IOUs. What do you think would become of those executives when word got out that the only way they could make pension payments was to beg a flat-broke Congress for money?

Tar and feathers come to mind.

So after years of telling us this problem is decades away the fateful day has finally arrived when Congress has to make good on that giant pile of IOUs. The same Congress that just massively expanded “access” to healthcare for all Americans regardless of their ability to pay. The same Congress that bailed out Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, General Motors, and AIG. The same Congress that can’t resist festooning every spending bill with earmarks for essential programs like butterfly gardens. And all of this right in the middle of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression

Wake up you little princess and princesses. It’s time to face the music.

And where are these trusted paragons of fiduciary responsibility going to get all that dough? The same place they get the rest of the money they spend that they don’t have. First, they grab what they can from current taxpayers. But, oops, income tax payments are way down thanks to the jobless recovery served up by the geniuses who believe we can spend our way back to prosperity. So the next stop is to borrow the money, again, mostly from the Chinese. For reasons known only to Confucius, Chinese Communists think it’s a good idea to keep lending our Congressmen money. These people deserve each other, don’t you think?

The Social Security commissioner, Michael J. Astrue, sanguine about his awesome responsibilities, was quoted as saying this is “not a cause for panic.” The man would have made a perfect captain of the Titanic.

With the confidence of a cardsharp that thinks he has his rube flummoxed, the liberal pundisphere received this annual report with brassy spin. “Medicare Stronger, Social Security Worse in the Short Run,” blares the New York Times. The short run? Ah yes, the Obama recovery is right around the corner. Just close your eyes, spend, spend, spend and sing Happy Days are Here Again.

This story gets worse if you look at Medicare, which has taken the crown from Social Security as our largest runaway entitlement program. The trustees’ report predicts that thanks to payment cuts included in the new healthcare bill, Medicare won’t go broke until 2029. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner claims this shows “some very positive developments.” But these are the same cuts that have been eliminated every year in the so called Doc Fix required to keep doctors from refusing to see Medicare patients. Medicare’s chief actuary, Richard Foster, doesn’t believe for a minute that those cuts are going to stand. You see, a Congress that has to borrow money from China to keep Granny from being thrown into the street doesn’t want to have to explain why her doctor won’t see her anymore.

How much longer the American people are going to let the lunatics run the asylum remains to be seen. But the longer it takes to throw the bums out the tighter we are going to have to cinch our belts to dig out of this hole. At least for those of us that don’t depart for better climes.

My prediction: public pensions will be used to pay for current debts. Where else can Congress steal the money from?

Bill Frezza is a partner at Adams Capital Management, an early-stage venture capital firm. He can be reached at bill@vereverus.com. If you would like to subscribe to his weekly column, drop a note to publisher@vereverus.com.