Report: Wisconsin Republicans Fabricated Fraud Charges out of Clerical Mistakes, Paperwork Errors

Photo: Coburn Dukehart /Wisconsin Center for Investigative
Journalism —  Helu Wang and Dee J. Hall report on
Republican effort to use machinery of government to
harass citizens unpopular with Republicans for
participating in state Medicaid-funded programs.
"Wisconsin Department of Health Services’ Office of
Inspector General has aggressively sought to recover
money for clerical errors instead of legitimate fraud
from personal care providers who help bathe,
feed and clothe roughly 16,000 disabled or elderly clients,"
report Wang and Hall.

Punitive state audits based on clerical errors drive caregivers out of their professions, and terrorize disabled and older people receiving humane care in their homes

Madison, Wisconsin — Gov. Scott Walker's (R) corrupt and perversely hostile use of state government has generated victims across Wisconsin.

An early Scott Walker initiative, (see Executive Order #2 (2011)), is a hysterical cry against "Waste, Fraud and Abuse" in state-administered programs that Republicans just happen to not favor, such as Medicaid serving 1.2 million Wisconsin people.

A Republican strategy uses the Republican-led Wisconsin Dept of Health Services Office of the Inspector General (OIG), (established by Gov. Scott Walker (R) in 2011), to target participants in state-administered programs, politicizing and criminalizing legitimate use.

Walker subsequently trumpets how well the dubious effort is performing in helping the tax-payer against the demonized people using FoodShare and Medicaid.

The Republican initiative mirrors a federal effort begun in the Bush-Cheney adminstration targeting veterans and their families who received veteran disability benefits, in a long game to privatize the United States Department of Veterans Affairs through false and politically motivated cries of 'fraud.'

The Republican false cries of fraud extend to citizens' voting as warnings to minority and non-Republican-voting citizens.

In an investigative report in WisconsinWatch published this weekend, Helu Wang and Dee J. Hall report the Republican effort has become widespread, increasingly hostile and still generating victims as state officials divine fraudulent intent from clerical omissions and state glitches.

Write Wang and Hall:

[The state seeks to] take back huge sums of money from companies and individuals who provided health care services but had minor paperwork errors. ...

The [IOG] has steadily increased the number of audits of Medicaid providers to more than 2,000 a year. ...

Wisconsin Department of Health Services’ Office of Inspector General has aggressively sought to recover money for clerical errors instead of legitimate fraud from personal care providers who help bathe, feed and clothe roughly 16,000 disabled or elderly clients,"

Patients, parents and nurses describe Republican efforts as a nightmare.

"The Fraud Investigation, Recovery and Enforcement (FIRE) Section in the OIG now has 30 staff, including 23 positions to support Medicaid and FoodShare Program fraud prevention and detection activities," crows Walker in a standard press release.

The message to Wisconsin citizens is: Use and you lose.

No such scrutiny or targeting exists in the Republican-created and scandalous Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) used heavily by Walker donors.

What Gov-elect Tony Evers (D) and Attorney General-elect Josh Kaul (D) will do to correct Republican injustices remains to be seen.

Paul Ryan, Republicans Are Against HealthCare, It's That Easy

Never has a domestic political issue beckoned so brightly for decent Americans as the Republican Party's attack on healthcare.

Here is an issue on which the good guys can finally win.

Healthcare as an political issue should make Republicans anathema to the electorate to a degree that California Republicans became the Hate Party after promoting the infamous, racist Proposition 187 in 1994, (CNN).

Paul Ryan and the Republicans face similar political waters should Democrats and progressives competently push a pro-healthcare message and legislative agenda.

Republicans love the idea of healthcare for themselves. As for Americans, well, healthcare is an earned privilege and not a right, Republicans believe unanimously.

The religious right follows along with some version of Jesus is against Medicare for all and the health insurance industry is going to heaven.

One hopes every opportunity to extol the virtues of healthcare is seized upon by the Dem Party pols and progressives, particularly Wisconsinites disgusted by Scott Walker, Paul Ryan and what in past decades would see Republicans devastated by their perverse anti-healthcare commitment.

Bernie Sanders has been touting MediCare for All of course, sounding a sentiment widely shared among the population.

Will the corporatist, neo-libs get on board?

GOP Freak Show Is On, Ignorance and Corruption Lead

Wisconsin has joined the list of states prohibiting the use of the terms, climate change and global warming, in a government Board on state land management (Ivey, Capital Times).

This is a crazy policy, and is representative of the grotesque and diverse freak show coming everywhere Republicans rule in government.

The religious right's continuing attack on gay Americans is SOP for the GOP. (Ford, ThinkProgress and Jenkins, ThinkProgress)

The success of ObamaCare in helping lower income Americans can gain healthcare is a crime for Republicans. (Krugman, NYT)

Then there is the Republicans' most despised phenomenon in American life—even more than gays, blacks, women and the science behind climate change—Medicare and Social Security.

Medicare and Social Security are still pronounced as "unsustainable" by Paul Ryan and the GOP that has been trying kill these programs for decades. (Schaaf, Racine Journal-Times) (Krugman, NYT)

Ryan and the Republicans will be saying this until the day they retire on taxpayer-financed pensions.

Crazy policy on behalf on the Koch brothers and other special interests.

To beat the plutocrats, all progressive Democrats have to do is come out not only in defense of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security but propose expanding these earned social insurance plans for all Americans.

The idea has been around for years but only a handful of politicians and writers are pushing the idea. (Krugman, NYT)

Republicans hate the idea that blacks and other minorities get something, get anything despite a lifetime of work.

If Republicans were honest, gays, blacks, Latinos would just go (self-deport or die) and leave America for whites.

If voters ask Hillary Clinton her position on expanding Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, the terms of the 2016 presidential campaign will be set and the sensible center can slaughter the freak show.

Scott Walker's Sabotage of Healthcare in Wisconsin

Sowing fear and confusion 

You would think intentionally obstructing healthcare for families would be some sort of a crime.

It's not, it's Scott Walker's policy, and it is the position of the Republican Party.

Robert Kraig and Kevin Kane of Wisconsin Citizen Action have the scoop on the results of Scott Walker blocking healthcare, a report that has received far too little publicity.

Walker has blocked information about healthcare rates; blocked $100s millions in Medicaid with the assurance that most Wisconsin media will go along with the Walker charade that he just cares so much about the Wisconsin people that he needs to block their families' access to healthcare.

Walker and his family have been living on tax-payer-financed healthcare since Walker was 24-years-old and hungry for a public position. Walker moved to the Milwaukee suburb of Wauwatosa so he could run for an open GOP-leaning district in 1993. That's 20 years of tax-payer-supported healthcare for Scott Walker.

Shouldn't Governor Walker and his family abide by the same rules for healthcare that he is proposing for everyone else?  Shouldn't all public officials?

Now, Walker spends his time raising money from fat-cats and living on the public dime, while ranting against and blocking anything providing for the common good of the Wisconsin people -- like easy access to healthcare for other peoples' families. Walker says God tells him what to do.

Consumer activists and the Obama administration remain busy trying to put out information, such as Helping Consumers Understand their Coverage Options, from Coast to Coast.

For those looking for specific rate information who live in states such as Wisconsin with a healthcare-hostile governor, where do you go now?

You can try your local county healthcare site, until the federal web site is more reliable.

You have to wait for the national site to function because private contractors built the HealthCare.gov site, as healthcare industry whistleblower Wendall Potter points out.

 I would have liked to have single payer healthcare for everyone, but that is too much to ask in this dysfunctional Congress.

Scott Walker meanwhile is raising even more money; still living on publicly-funded healthcare for his family, and now a John Doe probe is looking into how Walker and his party raised all that money in the 2012 Recall election.

Scott Walker Blocks Federal Money for Healthcare in 'Crazy' Move

Scott Walker: "I care too much about the people of this state
not to empower them to control their own destiny."
(Stein. Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Feb. 13, 2013) 

Update: Walker's Rubik Health Care Solution Cruel Update

'Major step backwards for working parents in Wisconsin seeking healthcare' as Ayn Rand devotee, Scott Walker, echoes Mitt Romney's "47 percent" crack

What do we expect from Scott Walker who blocked Wisconsin from receiving $810 million for funding for a labor-intensive [lots of jobs] project to improve and expand its rail road system?

We expect, in the words of Citizen Actions of Wisconsin's Robert Kraig: the same governor to block "billions of ObamaCare dollars that would have extended BadgerCare to over 170,000 additional Wisconsinites, created over 10,000 jobs, and saved the state millions."

Ideological opponents to Medicaid like Walker are counting on the corporate media to muddy the waters and pretend Walker really just loves health care, as Walker pretends to offer another health care plan in an announcement this week that he says allows people to 'choose.'

Walker made his announcement to the rightwing Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce group this week.

Even industry analysts critical of ObamaCare are shaking their heads at Walker.

Writes Scott Bauer in an AP piece picked up around the state, but buried inside local papers:

Gov. Scott Walker's plan to move more people off state Medicaid plans and onto private insurance through a federal marketplace won't result in cutting the number of uninsured Wisconsin residents in half as promised, an independent analyst said Thursday.

Walker's numbers are inflated because poor people near the poverty line won't be able to afford private health insurance that requires individuals to pay for annual deductibles and other cost-sharing expenses, Bob Laszewski, a Washington-based insurance industry consultant, told the Associated Press after reviewing the Republican governor's plan.

"To me this is crazy policy," said Laszewski, president of Health Policy and Strategy Associates and a frequent critic of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.

"These exchange plans were never designed for Medicaid-eligible people. They're designed for middle-class people who can afford deductibles and co-pays," he said.

Walker is adopting the rightwing think tank High Deductible-Health Savings Accounts positions hatched in the late 1990s, and designed to phase out Medicaid and Medicare by ideologues opposed to the popular opinion that health care is a right.

Joe Tarr at Isthmus quotes advocates who work at getting healthcare for families, and are skeptical and often hostile to the motives of health insurance companies:

Jon Peacock, research director with the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families, said that many of those plans will have very high deductibles and copays that will make it difficult for poor people to afford.

"Congress didn't intend for the exchanges to be servicing families just above the poverty level," Peacock said. "Even with the subsidies, the exchanges aren't affordable for many low-income families. And not all families will be eligible for the exchanges."

For instance, if people can get insurance through their employers -- even if they can't afford it -- they won't be eligible for the exchange. ...

Bobby Peterson, executive director of ABC for Health, said it looks like Walker is making a political calculation to set himself apart from other Republicans who might have hopes of higher office. "He's trying to distinguish himself from the Republican crowd," Peterson said.

Peterson joined numerous health care advocates and Democrats in condemning Walker's proposal.

"We think it's a major step backwards for coverage of low-income working parents in Wisconsin," Peacock said

Citizen Action's Kraig explains why Scott Walker's rejection of $12 billion in federal Medicaid money is crazy below:

Mitt Romney-Paul Ryan privatization schemes shining through now

Romney-Ryan on earned social insurance:
Let 'em die

George W. Bush's audacious scheme to phase out Social Security in 2005 died a sudden death as an array of political forces joined to defend the popular social insurance program.

Still, this election cycle the Mitt Romney-Paul Ryan privatization schemes targeting not just Social Security, but also Medicare and Medicaid are being revamped as the GO-Tea Partiers repeat the billionaries' cry that these programs are unsustainable.

The AARP, with the ready backing of many allies, is 100-percent behind protecting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid against the newest efforts to destroy these popular programs, and that includes Tommy Thompson's promise to do wway with Medicare and Medicaid..

And the AARP is mobilized to politically strike at the heart of Romney-Ryan and the party's plan to destroy these programs, to save them, they now say.

Open GOP ridicule of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid is playing with fire. Hence the "save" language.

Check out the AARP's 2012 election coverage, and watch the debates.

You've earned a say on the future of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, the powerful AARP says.

Even if Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan disagree.

Tommy Thompson taking hits on hostile stance against Medicare, Medicaid

Trashing popular social insurance programs is not working for Tommy Thompson and GO-Tea Party.

From Daily Kos:

Thompson's poll numbers have suffered an epic collapse and now to make matters worse, he's had his own version of Mitt Romney's "47%" video, specifically a video from a Tea Party event in June dug up by the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel where Thompson bragged about "finishing off welfare" and said he'd "do away" with Medicaid and Medicare. And not too surprisingly, Tammy Baldwin and her campaign are all over it:

"Tommy Thompson now says he wants to 'do away with Medicare,'" Baldwin spokesman John Kraus told TPM. "He supports the Republican plan on Medicare that will provide billions in new profits for big insurance companies and a voucher for seniors instead of the guaranteed benefit they paid for...It's clear Tommy is not for Wisconsin anymore."

Kraus swiped Thompson, formerly the state's governor and President Bush's Secretary of Health and Human Services, as a "quarterback for George W. Bush on a sweetheart deal for drug companies."

Paul Ryan Is Apt Pick as GOP's Targets Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security

Romney and Ryan 2012

GOP extremism on display

"If you think Paul Ryan and his Ayn Rand-worshipping colleagues aren't after your Social Security and Medicare, I am here to disabuse you of your naiveté," said Mike Lofgren, a Republican legislative grunt who retired in June 2011 in dismay and anger at the Tea Party-GOP's radical plans to dismantle the most successful and popular social insurance programs in American history.

Now, Rep. Ryan has been enlisted by Mitt Romney to carry the torch as GOP nominee for the vice presidency.

It's a perfect fit.

Recommend James Vega, John Nichols and the Paul Ryan Watch for important insights on who Paul Ryan is and what he plans for our country.

Paul Ryan toasts Medicare cuts with $350 bottles of wine

Paul Ryan lives large - Photos via AP/Susan Feinberg

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin), budget-hawk and free-spender, wines and dines with buddies, [A Hedge Fund Manager and a University Of Chicago Economist; Cliff Asness and John Cochrane], downing two $350 bottles of wine, as witnessed by Rutgers Prof. Susan Feinberg. Outrage follows Ryan consuming $100s in wine while Congress tries to cut seniors' safety net. "F—— her," said one of Ryan's companions referring to Feinberg.

Update: Ryan now (late October 2015) positioning himself as the next Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.

From Jim Rowan's comment on TPM's piece by Susan Crabtree:

At the swanky Bistro Bis restaurant, where a website gushes:

An award-winning destination restaurant in Downtown Washington, DC, Bistro Bis is the place to savor and be seen - where Capitol Hill powerbrokers and politicians enjoy innovative interpretations of classic French bistro cuisine.

Owned and operated by renowned Chef Jeffrey Buben, this non-smoking, downtown DC restaurant is next to The Hotel George on the slope of the world-famous Capitol Hill. Senators, congressman, celebrities, entertainers and leaders come to experience bold French fare in the refreshing ambiance and chic luxury of one of he most enticing restaurants in downtown Washington, DC

More from the account of the dinner, the confrontation and a subsequent interview, from Talking Points Memo:

Ryan and anti-working class friends live it up

Susan Feinberg, an associate business professor at Rutgers, was at Bistro Bis celebrating her birthday with her husband that night. When she saw the label on the bottle of Jayer-Gilles 2004 Echezeaux Grand Cru Ryan's table had ordered, she quickly looked it up on the wine list and saw that it sold for an eye-popping $350, the most expensive wine in the house along with one other with the same price-tag.

If you're a fiscal hawk, life is good in DC.

If not full of contradiction - - a long way from Janesville, Wisconsin, aina.

Wall Street, GOP Want Your Social Security

These people are unbelievable. Henry M. Paulson says in a New York Times op-ed (Feb. 15, 2010) the biggest problem facing America is Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Paulson, former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Goldman Sachs and the Secretary of the Treasury 2006-2009, manages to work this gem into his column suggesting how to watch the banks.

We must also tackle what is by far our greatest economic challenge — the reduction of budget deficits — a big part of which will involve reforming our major entitlement programs: Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

That means privatize and reduce benefits, an effort tried by Bush in 2005 that failed miserably in a rare political victory for the American people over capital. Nothing is beyond those dedicated to making Wall Street richer and the rest of us poorer. In Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan loves the idea.

Paul Craig Roberts sets the record straight.

Wall Street Targets the ElderlyBy PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

Hank Paulson, the Gold Sacks bankster/US Treasury Secretary, who deregulated the financial system, caused a world crisis that wrecked the prospects of foreign banks and governments, caused millions of Americans to lose retirement savings, homes, and jobs, and left taxpayers burdened with multi-trillions of dollars of new US debt, is still not in jail.

He is writing in the New York Times urging that the mess he caused be fixed by taking away from working Americans the Social Security and Medicare for which they have paid in earmarked taxes all their working lives.

Wall Street’s approach to the poor has always been to drive them deeper into the ground.
As there is no money to be made from the poor, Wall Street fleeces them by yanking away their entitlements. It has always been thus. During the Reagan administration, Wall Street decided to boost the values of its bond and stock portfolios by using Social Security revenues to lower budget deficits. Wall Street figured that lower deficits would mean lower interest rates and higher bond and stock prices.

Two Wall Street henchmen, Alan Greenspan and David Stockman, set up the Social Security raid in this way: The Carter administration had put Social Security in the black for the foreseeable future by establishing a schedule for future Social Security payroll tax increases. Greenspan and Stockman conspired to phase in the payroll tax increases earlier than was needed in order to gain surplus Social Security revenues that could be used to finance other government spending, thus reducing the budget deficit. They sold it to President Reagan as 'putting Social Security on a sound basis.'

Along the way Americans were told that the surplus revenues were going into a special Social Security trust fund at the U.S. Treasury. But what is in the fund is Treasury IOUs for the spent revenues. When the “trust funds” are needed to pay Social Security benefits, the Treasury will have to sell more debt in order to redeem the IOUs.

Social Security was mugged again during the Clinton administration when the Boskin Commission jimmied the Consumer Price Index in order to reduce the inflation adjustments that Social Security recipients receive, thus diverting money from Social Security retirees to other uses.

We constantly hear from Wall Street gangsters and from Republicans and an occasional Democrat that Social Security and Medicare are a form of welfare that we can’t afford, an 'unfunded liability.' This is a lie. Social Security is funded with an earmarked tax. People pay for Social Security and Medicare all their working lives. It is a pay-as-you-go system in which the taxes paid by those working fund those who are retired.

Currently these systems are not in deficit. The problem is that government is using earmarked revenues for other purposes. Indeed, since the 1980s Social Security revenues have been used to fund general government. Today Social Security revenues are being used to fund trillion dollar bailouts for Wall Street and to fund the Bush/Obama wars of aggression against Muslims.