Goliath comes in many forms~
It is time to stop the devastation to innocent families which is occurring daily across the country.
My Family Rights Affiliation

Disclaimer

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Hold Wall Street Accountable


We've seen what can happen when big banks and corporations on Wall Street aren't forced to play by the rules: millions in lost jobs, billions in taxpayer-funded bailouts and trillions in lost retirement savings.

That's why AARP is leading the call for urgently needed consumer protection that reforms the financial industry and holds Wall Street accountable for reckless behavior that puts our economy at risk.

But we all know that Congress won't take on these powerful forces unless we make them.

Click here to tell your members of Congress to pass strong financial reform that protects consumers!

GranPa Chuck

http://nfpcar.org/Grand

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Proposed bill asking 10 Million for an Abuse Study in 2010???

A CRITICAL POINT TO PONDER

Families Already Know the Answers, but Child Protective Agencies have hindered the Families Advice. Plus 80% of the substantiated abuses, were actually not Abuse according to the Statutes of the States.

emails Comments on bill

From: joaneheff@aol.com <joaneheff@aol.com>
Subject: Re: PROPOSED BILL
To: jane@abusefreedom.com
Date: Friday, January 15, 2010, 9:35 PM

From the looks of this, it appears they want to allocate $10,000,000 to put together a task force to study the problem of children's issues (abuse/foster care, etc.). Then they want to turn over the results/ recommendations to HHS Sec. Kathleen Sebelius, the queen of "deny, delay, deceive, do nothing?" All I can say is, what a waste of money...

Joan Farr Heffington, C.E.O.
Association for Honest Attorneys
P.O. Box 558
Derby, Kansas 67037
Ph: 316.788.0901
Fx: 316.788.7990
www.assocforhonestattys.com

"The answer to world peace is to eliminate arrogance."

~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Bill

http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc111/s938_is.xml

111th CONGRESS
1st Session
S. 938

    To require the President to call a White House Conference on Children and Youth in 2010.


IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
April 30, 2009

    Ms. Landrieu (for herself, Mr. Burr, Mr. Dodd, Mr. Levin, Mr. Begich, Mrs. Hagan, Mr. Bayh, Mr. Johnson, Mr. Casey, Mrs. Lincoln, and Mrs. Gillibrand) introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions


A BILL

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. Short title.

This Act may be cited as the “White House Conference on Children and Youth in 2010 Act”.

SEC. 2. Findings and policy.

(a) Findings.—Congress finds the following:

(1) In 2006 there were over 3,000,000 reports of child abuse and neglect. Only 60 percent of the children from the substantiated reports received follow-up services, and 20 percent of such children were placed in foster care as a result of an investigation.

(2) Each year there are nearly 900,000 substantiated reports of child abuse and neglect.

(3) Each year approximately 60 percent of such substantiated reports are reports of neglect, 30 percent are physical or sexual abuse reports, and more than 20 percent are reports that involve other forms of abuse.

(4) Each year child abuse and neglect costs the United States an estimated $104 billion.

(5) Over 500,000 children (including youth) were in foster care at the end of fiscal year 2006 and nearly 800,000 spent at least some time in foster care during the year.

(6) While 51,000 children are adopted from the foster care system each year, more than 125,000 children are waiting to be adopted.

(7) Each year approximately 25,000 youth leave the foster care system not because they have found permanent placements, but because they have reached the age at which foster care ends.

(8) The child welfare system includes State and local governments, tribal governments, child welfare agencies, child welfare caseworkers, private agencies, social workers, the courts, volunteer court-appointed special advocates, mental health, public health and health care professionals, educators, and advocates.

(9) There is an overrepresentation of certain populations, including Native Americans, African-Americans and Hispanic populations, in the child welfare system.

(10) Rural communities face special barriers to addressing human service needs including a lack of providers, the challenge posed by attempting to serve a widely dispersed population over a large geographic area and cultural differences.

(11) The number of children being raised by grandparents and other relatives is increasing and exceeds 6,000,000 children. The Government recognized that kinship care is a permanency option through the enactment of the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997.

(12) The State courts make key decisions in the lives of children involved in the child welfare system, including decisions about whether children have been victims of child abuse, whether parental rights should be terminated, and whether children should be reunified with their families, adopted, or placed in other settings.

(13) The child welfare system will never fully address its primary mission unless the courts are an integral and functioning component of a statewide system of care and protection.

(14) The child welfare system has an important role to play in preventing abuse and neglect from occurring in the first place, but is often unable to support prevention efforts due to funding and regulatory constraints.

(15) Key indicators of child health indicators demonstrate declining health of our Nation's children including increased rates of chronic disease among children, preventable deaths from childhood injury, and the potential for children born in this generation to not live as long as their parents.

Link to total bill: http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc111/s938_is.xml


FYI: Is This Medicare Fraud???

Just an article, I received via email... Plus, there has been alot about Medicare Fraud and Health reform.. Here is the article. and at the end of this post, if you know of any fraud, I've included links

pharma

http://www.miamiherald.com/business/v-fullstory/story/1428212.html

Miami Herald

HEALTHCARE | DR. FERNANDO MENDEZ-VILLAMIL

Miami psychiatrist defends his record over prescriptions

A state senator said a Miami psychiatrist `should be a poster boy' for tougher enforcement, while the doctor says he's been unfairly targeted

January 16, 2010

By John Dorschner

A Miami psychiatrist who wrote 284,908 prescriptions over the past six years has cost Florida taxpayers $43 million, and a state senator said Friday that ``he should be a poster boy'' for a legislative inquiry into whether ``tougher enforcement provisions are needed.''

The practices of Fernando Mendez-Villamil, who has an office on Coral Way, came to light last month when Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, complained about him to federal authorities for writing prescriptions at a rate of 150 a day, seven days a week. Grassley, like many in Congress, is concerned about reducing America's high healthcare costs to reform the system.

The Florida Agency for Health Care Administration has released data showing that those prescription-writing practices were expensive, too -- since the patients had Medicaid, the state-federal insurance for the poor.

State Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Destin, chairman of the Senate healthcare committee, told The Miami Herald on Friday that the Legislature has ``a tough law already on the books'' that requires state regulators to investigate outliers like Mendez-Villamil, who writes twice as many anti-psychotic drugs as any other doctor in the state. But his case may mean the law needs to be tougher.

Mendez-Villamil prepared a lengthy response to Grassley, defending his record. He said he is a dedicated doctor helping many poor patients, often working 11 or 12 hours a day, six days a week.

``I may be an oddity as a physician because I do not play golf, I do not have a boat and I seldom leave my practice for extended vacations,'' Mendez-Villamil wrote in the letter provided to The Miami Herald by a publicist. ``That is not to solicit sympathy or to appear `noble.' I am simply committed to my patients, profession and enjoy what I do and do not seek distractions.''

Mendez-Villamil also disputed earlier Herald stories, which said that he was under investigation by state regulators and that Medicare, the federal program for the elderly and disabled, had stopped paying his claims because of the investigation.

``The information received from this agency [AHCA] advised that I am not under any sort of investigation,'' Mendez wrote in a letter dated Monday, Jan. 11.

However, AHCA on Friday forwarded The Herald a letter sent Thursday to Robert Pelier, the doctor's lawyer, stating ``an agency investigation is underway.''

Pelier told The Herald on Friday that AHCA was sending out mixed signals. He pointed to the first Herald story on the doctor, published Dec. 17, in which an AHCA spokeswoman said the high prescription rate does not ``indicate that there is anything improper regarding his prescribing.''

A day later, the state told The Herald there was indeed an investigation.

Mendez also wrote: ``I was very surprised to read in The Miami Herald [in a Dec. 18 story] that Medicare had supposedly stopped payment for my services; and I am very pleased to confirm with Medicare officials that this was NOT true.''

Pelier, Mendez's lawyer, said Friday that the doctor as late as Dec. 21 had received a Medicare payment.

Medicare spokesman Peter Ashkenaz said Friday, ``When I said he wasn't being paid back in December it was because we were reviewing all of his claims. It's likely that he received a Medicare payment, but nonetheless, we are continuing to review all of his claims because he has not been excluded from Medicare by the OIG,'' the Office of the Inspector General.

The Mendez-Villamil case comes at a time when reformers are seeking to reduce the nation's healthcare costs, which are twice as much per capita as in European countries. Reformers believe these costs can be reduced without affecting quality of care.

Grassley has pressured the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which provides Medicare and Medicaid funding, for an explanation on how one doctor could write so many prescriptions. So far, HHS has yet to respond to the senator.

On the state level, Sen. Gaetz said he has long been concerned with Medicaid expenditure patterns that seem to make no sense -- such as the average Miami patient getting five times as many home healthcare visits as a similar patient in Ocala.

Gaetz said he views the Mendez-Villamil case as a way of revealing whether the present law is adequate of if it's an ``enforcement problem and the state agencies are not doing enough.''

If the law needs tightening, ``then we will tighten the screws as many times as necessary'' because ``providers like him should not be draining money out of the pockets of taxpayers,'' Gaetz said.

Pelier, the attorney, said that the state was wrongly preoccupied with saving money on the atypical anti-psychotics, which can cost more than $800 for a month's supply per patient. He said that only 1 percent of the doctor's patients are hospitalized. If they weren't taking the drugs and ended up in the Jackson psych ward, for example, the cost to taxpayers would be far higher.

State records indicate that Mendez-Villamil was paid $46,238 by Medicaid to see patients in 2007 and $31,735 in 2008. He received $14,579 in the first quarter of 2009, but then payments dropped down to $3,472 in the third quarter.

``I want you to know that I take very good care of my patients,''' the doctor said in his letter. ``My top priority is to improve their conditions. In more then 10 years of practice I have worked with thousands of afflicted individuals.''

Voice Your Concerns

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May YOU find Strength in YOUR Higher Power, GranPa Chuck
Never Give Up PS: I am not a Lawyer. Just an ol'guy who has shared many experiences.

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Grandparent's Rights Activity Live

ABUSE FREEDOM LIVE SHOW THIS WEEKEND!

January 17, 2010

Time: 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time

This Sunday’s special guests are the following:


Lola Bailey, President of Grandparent’s Rights

FORMER Foster Care Victims share their stories

And other special guests!!!

GUEST CALL IN NUMBER

646 595-2134

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/abusefreedomlive

THIS IS ONE SHOW YOU MUST NOT MISS!!!

LOT’S OF INFORMATION!!!!

SHOW HOSTS: Josie and Jane of Abuse Freedom United

http://www.abusefreedomunited.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

May YOU find Strength in YOUR Higher Power,

GranPa Chuck
Never Give Up
PS: I am not a Lawyer. Just an ol'guy who has shared many experiences.

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Government Waste???

I received a big handout in the mail and I had to share this response....
Not even going to say what party it is....
but here is my short and sweet response to the politician, fyi:

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Yesterday, I received, in the mail a double sided heavy paper copy entitled:

How do we fix:
  • Rising Unemployment
  • Exploding National Debt
  • Out-of-Control Spending.

Then on the upper left hand corner I saw in very small print "This mailing was prepared, published and mailed at the taxpayers expense"

How ironic is this????

The issues above are NOT POLITICAL.. Instead, we as a nation should come together and do the right thing, THE FIRST TIME for our families.. and not be controlled by the second government, BIG BUSINESS.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you know of any fraud, mis money management, here are links you may want to consider:

Voice Your Concerns

This information is found on our NFPCAR webpage: http://nfpcar.org/Reform/

I don't know about everyone else's budget, but in my household, every penny counts....
ie where is our Bail Out Monies????
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
May YOU find Strength in YOUR Higher Power,
GranPa Chuck
Never Give Up
PS: I am not a Lawyer. Just an ol'guy who has shared many experiences.