Sting Nets Felony Charges Against 5 Michigan Physicians

Five Michigan physicians are facing felony charges after a joint investigation by federal and state authorities uncovered an alleged kickback scheme in which the physicians received illegal payments for referring their Medicare and Medicaid patients to a specific network of healthcare facilities.

Three nonphysicians (the owner, manager, and administrator of the healthcare network) have also been charged.

US Attorney Donald A. Davis and Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette announced the charges as part of a joint investigation by the Health Care Fraud Division of the Michigan Attorney General, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Office of Inspector General.

via Sting Nets Felony Charges Against 5 Michigan Physicians.

Medical device firms critical of proposed tax

An estimated $40 billion tax on the medical device industry, proposed in the health system reform bill passed by the Senate Finance Committee Oct. 13, would result in a doubling of the tax burden already faced by these companies and would likely contribute to a growth in overall health costs. That’s according to a new analysis released by the Advanced Medical Technology Assn., a device company trade group based in Washington, D.C.

The analysis, released by AdvaMed on Sept. 30, concludes that the tax will divert economic resources away from the medical device industry and likely result in its contraction, which would have detrimental effects on the output of innovative technologies.

On Sept. 16, Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus (D, Mont.) introduced his version of a health system reform bill, and language proposing the 10-year tax on the medical device industry stayed in the final bill passed by the committee.

“These disturbing findings reaffirm that the $40 billion tax on medical devices over the next decade is neither sound health policy nor tax policy, will result in higher costs for patients and will cost jobs in this sector,” said Stephen J. Ubl, AdvaMed’s president and CEO. “We urge Congress to reject the $40 billion tax.”

This tax includes such frivolous luxuries as pacemakers, stents, artificial heart valves, defibrillators, automated wheelchairs, mechanized artificial limbs, replacement hips and knees, surgical gurneys, laparoscopic equipment, and the like.

Robert Reich: What An Honest President Would Say About Health Reform

You can find the complete web-cast here: web-cast

# Younger people should pay more

# Healthier people should pay more

# Older people should just die- they’re “too expensive”

# There should be “less innovation” in medical technology

# You should not expect to live longer than your parents.

People cheering and clapping at the fact that grandmas going to be denied care and die.

more about “Robert Reich: What An Honest Presiden…“, posted with vodpod

H1N1 sends healthy adults to hospital – Washington Times – Mozilla Firefox

Nearly half of adult patients hospitalized to date with this year’s novel H1N1 flu were healthy and had no known underlying condition such as asthma or a chronic illness.

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Swine flu’s bigger impact on blacks and Hispanics is not being addressed

During all their swine flu briefings the past few months, city and federal health officials have been virtually silent about the outsize impact the pandemic appears to be having on blacks and Hispanics.

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