Nancy-Ann DeParle, She Knows Medicare Fraud - From WSJ.com's Political Diary

Obama's Expert on Medicare Fraud

It turns out that President Obama's Health Care czarina, Nancy-Ann DeParle, knows a lot about all that Medicare waste, fraud and abuse that Mr. Obama wants to weed out.
Mr. Obama says he can free up $500 billion to pay for an expanded middle-class health care entitlement by eliminating waste and fraud in Medicare. Many are skeptical, but at least he has an underling who knows all about the subject.

Ms. DeParle ran the Medicare program under Bill Clinton, then left to serve on the boards of several medical care companies that later were charged with Medicare fraud. Five of the companies subsequently paid out $566 million in fraud or product liability settlements, with Medicare often being the victim of the alleged fraud. Meanwhile, she earned millions of dollars in board fees.

We can thank Investigative Reporting Workshop of the American University School of Communication for this information. It conducted a multi-month investigation. In one case, Ms. DeParle joined the board of Specialty Laboratories Inc., a California medical testing company, just two months before "federal investigators suspended Medicare payments and threatened to revoke Specialty's license to operate. The company agreed to pay a $700,000 fine. . . . Specialty was also sued this year by the state of California which seeks to recover hundreds of millions of dollars for the state's Medicaid program for what [California Attorney General Jerry] Brown termed 'massive . . . fraud and kickbacks' over the past 15 years."

One should be careful in jumping to conclusions about true culpability for alleged Medicare fraud. It's not infrequent that regulators bully firms into paying penalties to avoid legal costs or remain in good standing as government contractors. In some cases, the DeParle-connected firms did not admit to fraud or the cases are still unsettled.

But the bottom line, according of the AU Reporting Workshop, is still hard to jibe with the Obama administration's verbal war on the evils of lobbying: "In touting DeParle's accomplishments when he appointed her in March, Obama didn't mention the lucrative private-sector career she built since September 2000, when she left her government job running Medicare for the Clinton administration. Records show she earned more than $6.6 million since early 2001 . . . And the public wasn't told that much of that corporate career was built at companies that have frequently had to defend themselves against federal investigations. Critics see DeParle's re-emergence as a classic case of Washington 'revolving door' syndrome, despite Obama's suggestions that he would shut that door."

By the end of the Clinton administration, Medicare fraud was estimated by the U.S. General Accounting Office to costs taxpayers tens of billions of dollars a year. This happened on Ms. DeParle's watch. It makes one wonder how this czarina is going to root out waste when so much of it piled up the last time she was in charge.

-- Stephen Moore

Under 40 Grassroots GOP We Are doing It for Ourselves!!! We are not Waiting!!!!

Sooner or later it was bound to happen! The way we get our message out Peter Cowman!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPF9-o-YHGM

A Health Care Bay of Pigs? - WSJ.com's Political Diary

Stuck on Health Care

President Obama is getting a clear message from his allies that he may have to scale back his health care goals in order to win passage from Congress. Even his own Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told NBC's "Meet the Press:" "Our Democratic friends are having a hard time selling this to their own members, a very difficult time."

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, one of Mr. Obama's earliest supporters in his 2008 campaign, has also weighed in with some advice not to demand too much from Congress, based on his own experience inheriting implementation of his state's "universal" health care plan -- which was passed in 2005. Mr. Patrick recently had to impose cuts in the program, which has seen large cost overruns.

"The untold story about the Massachusetts experiment has been that we finally recognized that there were more than just the usual two choices, which were to have a perfect solution or no solution at all," Gov. Patrick told ABC News at the National Governors Association meeting in Biloxi, Mississippi. "There is a cautionary tale for Washington because people are going to fret over a perfect solution and because there isn't one, we're going to get stuck -- or we are at risk of being stuck."

Concern about the floundering Obama health care plan is rooted in memories of HillaryCare, the Clinton administration's bold attempt to remake health care in 1993. First Lady Hillary Clinton was offered several compromise solutions that would have gotten her much, but not all, of what she wanted. She insisted on "all or nothing." The result was a plan that never made it to a Congressional vote and resulted in a political debacle for Democrats.

Mr. Obama is smart enough to scale back his ambitions to win passage of something from Congress and then declare "victory." From the comments of his allies, I detect the first effort on their part to prepare liberal diehards for the fact they may end up with less than a full loaf this year.
-- John Fund

Top Secret Stimulus - Post from WSJ Political Diary

Democrats apparently are in a mad rush to pass their stimulus bill before the public or Members of Congress have much chance to read it. Just a few days ago the House overwhelmingly passed a new procedural rule requiring 48-hour public notice before any bill faces a roll call vote. The idea was to allow voters to review bills online before they are approved by Congress. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been crowing about this new era of transparency.

But the stimulus bill, which numbers more than 700 pages and was just renegotiated by the House and Senate Democratic leadership, may be voted on less than 24 hours after the agreement was reached. Last night, House Republicans were vocally complaining that they still didn't know the line-by-line details of the biggest spending bill to hit Capitol Hill since World War II. We also hear that House Blue Dog Democrats are furious with Ms. Pelosi for forcing a vote that clearly violates the party's own brand new sunshine rule.

Many squeamish House Democrats who represent mostly Republican districts are getting slammed back home for voting in favor of the original House stimulus bill. These moderates are also angry that the Democratic leadership bill made more room for pork by slicing Barack Obama's much-heralded tax cut for families by 20%. Couples were supposed to get $1,000, now they will get $800 off their income taxes.

A House Republican leadership staff member tells me: "Yep, looks like they will waive that [disclosure] rule even before the ink is dry on it." Rep. Dave Camp, ranking Republican on the Ways and Means Committee, adds: "Frankly, because this process has been so rushed, we are literally flying blind."

One rumor is that Democrats want to speedily enact the bill in the House without public vetting because Nancy Pelosi has to fly to Italy over the weekend. Democrats in the leadership are also getting weary of this stimulus debate. They're aware of the shrinking public approval and want to strong-arm the bill through Congress before rank-and-file House members get cold feet.

So the era of transparency and openness on Capitol Hill has come and gone. Mr. Camp pleads: "The American people have a right to know what's in this bill." Ms. Pelosi thinks it best that they learn about the bill's contents only after Barack Obama has signed it into law.

-- Stephen Moore

How Important is Coal to Pennsylvania? Obama-Biden Does not get it!

How important is coal to Pennsylvania? Here are some facts.

Most anthracite coal is found in Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania has 29 billion tons of coal reserves, or 6.1% of the country's reserves.
The combined direct and indirect contributions of the coal industry to Pennsylvania's economy are more than $10 billion.
Using more than 57 million tons, Pennsylvania ranks fourth in coal use.
Pennsylvania employs more than 9,300 miners.
Pennsylvania distributes more than 75 million tons of coal each year.
Pennsylvania has 82 underground mines and 225 surface mines.
About 58% of the electricity used in Pennsylvania is produced by coal.
Pennsylvania produces about 7% of the country's coal supply.
Pennsylvania has 23 coal-fired power plants.

Source American Coal Foundation

Recently, Mr. Biden made some comments(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rXyTRT-NZg ) about coal and where they stand...YIKES! and he says he is from Scranton??? Maybe he forgot what happened to Scranton when the coal industry fell.

And they want the huddled masses to think that McCain doesn't get it?
There is so much that this ticket does not and will not ever understand about this country and the people they wish to "lead". They want to make us feel that the government will save us, when all the while for decades, as we seek to re-tool out communities and extend infrastructure and technologies to the "last mile", we have long been abandoned by that government, and have fended for ourselves.
Well, Mr. Biden and Mr. Obama, let me help you "get it". We are a resilient people. We believe in ourselves, our families and our country. We have small businesses and we help our neighbors. We care for our old and feed our poor. We go to church. We believe that roosters always come home to roost, and a person is always held accountable for their own actions. This is the end of your belittling the people who live on Main Street, because on November 4, 2008, we who are called to a cause greater than ourselves will be voting for McCain-Palin. That cause is not about making history, but more about putting Country First.