Lott Resigns as Majority Leader

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Actually, that would make me 100% right.

Actually I was being charitable. Please show me where in my post I stated that he ran for President. Running for Vice President is still running.

[Zkribbler]

I found this news release from the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights on the net:

NEWS RELEASE
Dec 20, 2002

CONTACT: Jamie Court - 310-392-0522 x327
Leadership of Senate Should Not Go From Racist To Corporate Crook
Frist's Ownership of Columbia/HCA Should Prevent Him From Taking Leadership Post

Santa Monica, CA -- Senator Bill Frist's ownership of and entanglement with one of America's biggest corporate criminals, Columbia HCA, should prevent him from leading the US Senate, the nonpartisan, nonprofit Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights said today. HCA, formerly Columbia HCA, has been one the largest corporate payers of federal criminal and civil penalties in American history. Frist's family founded hospital chain Columbia HCA and he owns at least $25 million in stock. His wife owns more than $1 million in stock, according to Senate disclosure statements.

On Wednesday HCA, formerly Columbia/HCA reportedly paid more than $880 million to settle the US government's inquiry into health care fraud. In total, the company will pay more than $1.7 billion in civil and criminal penalties -- the largest amount ever in a health care fraud case. The government's case was that Columbia/HCA hospitals kept two sets of books and fraudulently billed the government.

"The Senate should not replace a racist with a principle backer of one of the largest corporate swindles ever perpetrated against the American public," said Jamie Court, executive director of FTCR. " Senator Frist should step aside because he owned and profited from one of America's worst corporate criminals. In the Senate, he has used this influence to further HCA's cause by stopping a strong patients' bill of rights, gridlocking a mandatory Medicare prescription drug benefit, and promoting caps on damages for victims who sue negligent hospitals like HCA. If Frist was a patriot first, he would have sold his HCA stock a long time ago ."

For more information on FTCR, visit www.consumerwatchdog.org

[Zkribbler]

And here's a news release from the U.S. Dept. of Justice:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CIV

FRIDAY, MARCH 16, 2001

(202) 514-2007

https://WWW.USDOJ.GOV

TDD (202) 514-1888



JUSTICE DEPARTMENT SUES HCA - THE HEALTH CARE

COMPANY AND ITS HOSPITALS FOR FRAUD



WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Justice Department announced today that it has filed civil complaints in eight False Claims Act whistleblower lawsuits alleging fraud by HCA - The Healthcare Company (formerly known as Columbia/HCA), the largest for-profit hospital chain in the United States. The lawsuits charge that HCA, over the past decade, has systematically defrauded and unlawfully claimed hundreds of millions of dollars from Medicare, Medicaid and other federally funded health care programs. The lawsuits address three broad categories of fraud schemes - the payment of kickbacks to physicians to increase the numbers of government-insured patients, the inflation of hospital cost reports to increase Medicare and other government reimbursement and kickbacks and inflated cost reports for wound care services.

In December 2000, a partial settlement was reached with HCA in connection with a number of other fraud allegations, involving laboratory billing, upcoding of inpatient diagnoses - the practice of using billing codes that provide higher payment rates than the codes that actually reflect the service furnished to patients, home health overbilling and charging of other non-reimbursable home health costs disguised as management fees and community education. HCA agreed to pay $745 million to settle those claims and at the same time settled its corporate criminal liability, paying $95 million in criminal fines.

The lawsuits are pending in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, where 28 qui tam suits filed around the country have been consolidated. A number of the pending qui tam cases will be resolved or partially resolved by the December settlement. The complaints filed today address the government's civil claims that HCA did not settle with the December agreement, including damages for some of the conduct to which HCA companies pled guilty in January 2001.

Healthcare Corporation et al.; United States ex rel. King v. Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corporation et al.; United States ex rel. Mroz v. Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corporation, et al. the government alleges that, from the time one of its predecessors, Columbia Hospital Corporation, was formed in 1987 in El Paso, Texas, many of HCA's hospitals engaged in a pattern and practice of paying kickbacks to physicians to induce and reward patient referrals and tying the financial interests of certain physicians to the success of the hospital. The government alleges that the kickbacks and financial relationships violated the Anti-Kickback Statute, and a provision of the Social Security Act commonly known as the Stark Statute. Both laws were enacted to ensure that health care providers do not make treatment decisions based upon improper financial considerations rather than the necessity, reasonableness, quality and effectiveness of services. Congress sought to deter healthcare providers from making utilization decisions based upon improper incentives created by kickbacks and by their financial interests in and relationships with other healthcare providers. The complaints allege that HCA hospitals submitted false claims to the government to receive payments for services rendered to patients referred to the hospitals by the physicians who received kickbacks and other improper financial incentives. An HCA subsidiary pled guilty to certain charges of the Anti-Kickback Statute on January 11, 2001.

In United States ex rel. Alderson v. Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corporation and United States ex rel. Schilling v. Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corporation, the government has alleged that HCA and its predecessors engaged in a pattern and practice of knowingly including unallowable charges in cost reports, unlawfully shifting costs from hospital departments paid flat rates set by Medicare to departments reimbursed on cost, and committing a variety of other accounting improprieties, all designed to extract from Medicare and other government programs money to which the HCA hospitals were not entitled. Many of these schemes were known to HCA management and documented on internal documents known as "reserve cost reports." An HCA subsidiary pled guilty to certain of these charges on January 25, 2001.

In United States ex rel. Marine v. HCA-The Healthcare Company et al, the government has alleged that by improperly shifting home health costs from Cedars Medical Center to HCA's other Miami area hospitals through their cost reports, HCA received government funds to which it was not entitled.

Two of the lawsuits, United States ex rel. Parslow v. Curative Health Services, Inc. et al., and United States ex rel. Lanni v. HCA-The Healthcare Company et al., allege that 56 HCA hospitals across the country operating outpatient Wound Care Centers committed fraud by knowingly including claims for unallowable expenses on Medicare cost reports. In Parslow, the government alleges that HCA and Curative engaged in a scheme to disguise and include unallowable advertising costs on the hospitals' costs reports. An HCA subsidiary pled guilty to these charges on January 25, 2001. The government also alleges that certain HCA hospitals paid kickbacks to Curative, also in the guise of management fees charged to Medicare on cost reports, for recommending and arranging for wound care patients to receive services at HCA hospitals. Separately, in Lanni, the government alleges that HCA and some of its hospitals improperly and knowingly included the cost of Procuren, a proprietary wound salve manufactured by Curative, on Medicare cost reports even after the Department of Health and Human Services declared the product to be one Medicare would not pay for because it had not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

Under the qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act, individuals may sue on behalf of the United States and allege violations of the Act and potentially receive a share of any recovery to the treasury. The government has the opportunity to investigate the case, and intervene in it and prosecute the action, or decline it and let the private plaintiff litigate the case. The complaints filed today are in cases in which the government has intervened.

The Department also announced that in filings made since the December 14 settlement and today, the government has informed the court that it declined to intervene in a number of the pending qui tam cases. The government has also asked for dismissal of the claims of five whistleblowers, in both declined and intervened cases, on the grounds that the False Claims Act bars their actions.

The government filed these complaints, notices and motions on March 15 according to the terms of a scheduling order entered in the consolidated proceeding pending before U.S. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth.

###


01-111

[Imran Siddiqui]

So Frist owns $25 million in stock in a corporation that had to pay large penalties . What a non-story.

And a really non-partisan group that Rights group is. Non-partisan like the NRA or the NAACP, right?

[mindseye]

Imran wrote:

And Lott was how old when Thurmond ran for President?

You have to be a contemporary to understand or sympathize with a politician's public policy positions? So, I take it that you have absolutely no idea what James Madison's or Karl Marx's or Ronald Reagan's publicly stated opinions were? What a bizarre argument!

Could it be he was refering to the positions Thurmond backed when Lott was in the Senate with him?

Well, given that he clearly referred to Thurmond's presidential campaign ("When Strom Thurmond ran for president we voted for him. "), I guess the answer is "no".

Could it be he was paying Thurmond a compliment? No, no one would ever pay him a compliment .

Uh, clearly he was - is anyone disputing that? The problem is that in the process he inadvertantly made clear his own opinions.

I assume then you'll want to throw Byrd out on his ass as well, because he was a member of the Klan. Oh WAIT! You accept his change of heart, but not Lott's? I see.

Um, where exactly was Lott's "change of heart"? Byrd's public voting record shows he has clearly repudiated those opinons of long ago. Lott's voting record, political associations, writing, speeches, and plenty of other evidence all clearly show that he still holds them. Sorry, I'm not prepared to accept his half-hearted CYA apologies as a "change of heart", apologies that were offered only after it was clear that standing by his comments was politically untenable.

[Sava]

this Frist guy is a tool... just another corporate puppet, but this time for the Pharmaceutical Industry rather than oil like Bush and his cronies.

[Capt Dizle]

Originally posted by mindseye
Imran wrote:

And Lott was how old when Thurmond ran for President?

You have to be a contemporary to understand or sympathize with a politician's public policy positions? So, I take it that you have absolutely no idea what James Madison's or Karl Marx's or Ronald Reagan's publicly stated opinions were? What a bizarre argument!

Pardon me butting in. Actually you are quite wrong. It is not at all bizarre to say that you have to be a contemporary to understand a politician's public policy stances.

One of the silly sins perpetrated by the young posters here is pretending that because they have a 25 cent education and have read a few books that they can even begin to contemplate such things.

For example, the vast majority of persons here abhor slavery and racism and yet if born white and well to do in the South of the USA in the early 1800s ninety five percent of them would have been slaveholders.

Its exceedingly vain to pretend to understand and be able to put into context the political journeys of men like Ike, Thurmond, Byrd, and Lott.

The whole flap over Lott is just one more instance of a bunch of scared white guys kissing America's collective brown ass.

Now, call me a racist.

[Boris Godunov]

You're a racist.

[Capt Dizle]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
You're a racist.

Thank you. Having spent most of my adult life in the pursuit of helping low income persons, three quarters of which were minorities, I am left wondering what the labelers and hatemongers like you have done for anybody.

Twit.

[Capt Dizle]

I am sick to death of people who play the race card for personal gain, including those here who more or less are just sticking their thumb in the pie to show what good boys they are.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by jimmytrick


Pardon me butting in. Actually you are quite wrong. It is not at all bizarre to say that you have to be a contemporary to understand a politician's public policy stances.

One of the silly sins perpetrated by the young posters here is pretending that because they have a 25 cent education and have read a few books that they can even begin to contemplate such things.

For example, the vast majority of persons here abhor slavery and racism and yet if born white and well to do in the South of the USA in the early 1800s ninety five percent of them would have been slaveholders.

Its exceedingly vain to pretend to understand and be able to put into context the political journeys of men like Ike, Thurmond, Byrd, and Lott.

The whole flap over Lott is just one more instance of a bunch of scared white guys kissing America's collective brown ass.

Now, call me a racist.

Context is only a partial determinent of character. There were Southern abolitionists, after all -- the Grimke sisters spring immediately to mind. And by 1948, there were plenty of voices articulating well-reasoned positions in contrast to the Dixiecrats, including those of politicians (like Hubert Humphrey, who was responsible for the civil rights plank in the Dem platform that caused Strom to bolt) and civil rights leaders like A. Phillip Randolph. Strom, and Lott, were just plain on the wrong side of history, not unlike Adolph Eichmann. And as Hannah Arendt showed with Eichmann, understanding how they got there is one thing, but excusing it is quite another.

[Boris Godunov]

You asked, I obliged. What's the problem?

[Shi Huangdi]

Originally posted by jimmytrick


Pardon me butting in. Actually you are quite wrong. It is not at all bizarre to say that you have to be a contemporary to understand a politician's public policy stances.

One of the silly sins perpetrated by the young posters here is pretending that because they have a 25 cent education and have read a few books that they can even begin to contemplate such things.

For example, the vast majority of persons here abhor slavery and racism and yet if born white and well to do in the South of the USA in the early 1800s ninety five percent of them would have been slaveholders.

Its exceedingly vain to pretend to understand and be able to put into context the political journeys of men like Ike, Thurmond, Byrd, and Lott.

The whole flap over Lott is just one more instance of a bunch of scared white guys kissing America's collective brown ass.

Now, call me a racist.

None of that matters. What matters is keeping Trent Lott as majority leader would have been politically damaging to the GOP because it would have tarnished our image. It was decided that it would be more politicaly useful to have someone else as Majority leader, so Lott had to go. Simple as that.

[Capt Dizle]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly


Context is only a partial determinent of character. There were Southern abolitionists, after all -- the Grimke sisters spring immediately to mind. And by 1948, there were plenty of voices articulating well-reasoned positions in contrast to the Dixiecrats, including those of politicians (like Hubert Humphrey, who was responsible for the civil rights plank in the Dem platform that caused Strom to bolt) and civil rights leaders like A. Phillip Randolph. Strom, and Lott, were just plain on the wrong side of history, not unlike Adolph Eichmann. And as Hannah Arendt showed with Eichmann, understanding how they got there is one thing, but excusing it is quite another.

Perfectly good sounding arguement other than the fact that it is wrong. Sure, you can always find a few people who are exceptions but to accept your arguement you have to condemn just about every Southerner and just about every German, just about every Mongol, and just about every Soviet, and just about every Chinese Communist, and so forth.

Man, get off your high horse. Does it make you feel special to sit in judgement of others? Snobbery is the least flattering of all vainglories.

[Boris Godunov]

Not only that, but many Republicans were dissatisfied with his leadership anyway and were more than happy to see him go.

Lott's ouster is the fault of his own incompetence and GOP back-biting more than anything else.