Here's what's wrong with our current welfare system: A local TV station has done an investigative study and found that several local dental groups are recruiting new, young patients at food stamp distribution centers around Dallas. Paid recruiters are promising parents cash kickbacks and even iPod's if they'll bring in their small children for exams and treatment. (NOTE: The report pointed out that state law prohibits paying recruiters for soliciting new patients, but it happens. They have it on video.) It seems if a licensed dentist declares a poor child needs treatment it will be paid for through state Medicaid funds, no questions asked.
There is no follow-up to see if the treatments are actually needed, so the dental centers have been giving little 2 and 3 year old kids root canals and steel caps on their baby teeth, etc, which dental school experts later reviewed at the request of the TV station and agreed were unnecessary. Just one dental group billed the State of Texas over $6M last year, more than all state funds spent on kids Medicaid dental care in the entire state of Florida. (Statewide the Texas total was $145M.) Despite this, there is no ongoing state investigation. The state just officially looks the other direction. (Official collusion?) You can watch the entire report here for yourself.
Abuse is rampant. If there's this much fraud in just one area in one city covering just this one medical treatment, can you imagine how much there is nationwide? Our country is so big, so populous, and the numbers of $$ involved are so large, it's easy to slip tens (hundreds?) of millions of dollars through unnoticed.
We're a compassionate people, and of course we want to provide dental care for poor children. But this goes way beyond that. The taxpayers are getting screwed again. This is one example of why the conservative movement has gained such a strong and growing following. This abuse, like all government waste, needs to be addressed, and when that happens liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, can sit down together and effectively govern. Right now we're too polarized to do much of anything except fight amongst ourselves.
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I don't think things will ever de-polarize. Not in this age of talk radio and social media. We pretty much in a sound byte culture where everything has to be parsed into 30-second sound bytes or 140 characters. The days of cooler heads prevailing are over, evidenced by moderate Republican senator Olympia Snowe quitting despite that she would have run re-election because she can't stand her own party anymore.
ReplyDeleteThat's just sick using toddlers that way. I find it amazing that a dentist would risk their license on unnecessary treatments. It would only take one person to report them...one would hope. It doesn't make much sense how medicaid is allowing that to occur. A root canel on a 2 year old would be very suspecious and then if you have several being billed..that would be a red flag.
ReplyDeletePoliticians would find more ways to crack down on these abuses if they treated this money as their own instead of the taxpayers. Wait a minute; scratch that. Politicians already treat our money as if it's their own. I should never comment on politics.
ReplyDeleteGrumpy....I wouldn't disagree with you about us ever de-polarizing. Both parties have a vested interest in keeping the pot stirred. They DON'T WANT us to ever get along.
ReplyDeleteHi Cindy....Thanks for visiting. Understand, the people being abused here (the poor) are the very ones LEAST likely to complain. This is not about providing dental care, but about making LOTS of money.
Steve....Light bulb just go off there, did it Steve? :)
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I find it sad that politicians want to cut Medicaid and Medicare (or even eliminate it) when so many problems could be solved by just cutting the abuse.
ReplyDeleteThe current administration has hired accountants to investigate such fraudulent charges and they have recovered millions. My husband, the accountant, dryly remarks, "Bean counters who make $40,000 per year and recover millions...not a sexy story. Will never make the headline news." Plus, it's not politically correct to hire MORE government employees.
But the saddest part is the unnecessary treatment on kids. For crying out loud!!!