Replies

Knockout!

Hey man, why are you promoting attacks on capitalism? /s

Anyone lets a VC near their company gets what they deserve.

I remember the good old day when a DUI could almost cost you the general election. Why is this man still running in a primary?

Romney's bad behavior Exposed by Seamus

"Romney Loses Nomination Over Dog Abuse? - Romney was traveling that summer with his wife, five sons, and Seamus to his parent's cottage on Lake Huron. But hours into the ride, Seamus apparently suffered diarrhea, which ran down the back window of the car. .David Kravitz wrote on BlueMassGroup, a liberal blog. "It also strikes me as classic Romney: it solves a problem efficiently, in a business-like manner, and with no regard whatsoever for the suffering that the solution may cause."

"But the details of the event are more than unseemly - they may, in fact, be illegal. Massachusetts's animal cruelty laws specifically prohibit anyone from carrying an animal "in or upon a vehicle, or otherwise, in an unnecessarily cruel or inhuman manner or in a way and manner which might endanger the animal carried thereon. "An officer for the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals responded to a description of the situation saying "it's definitely something I'd want to check out." The officer, Nadia Branca, declined to give a definitive opinion on whether Romney broke the law but did note that it's against state law to have a dog in an open bed of a pick-up truck, and "if the dog was being carried in a way that endangers it, that would be illegal."

"Dog on Roof? What Was It Like for Romney's Pooch? - Scientists Say Dog Likely Experienced Wind-Whipped, Uncomfortable Trip - "Before beginning the drive, Mitt Romney put Seamus, the family's hulking Irish setter, in a dog carrier and attached it to the station wagon's roof rack. e'd built a windshield for the carrier, to make the ride more comfortable for the dog,".. Jordan Kaplan, the owner of Petaholics, a dog walking service in New York City,
and a lifelong dog owner and dog lover, said Romney's actions were uncalled for"

"Romney's dog - This is a distinction Mitt Romney probably could do without, but he is surely the first presidential candidate to be attacked for putting a dog with diarrhea in a carrier and tying it to the top of a station wagon. Romney's defense: Seamus liked it. [like the citizens under Romney's RomneyCARE, etc.?] "

"As the oldest son, Tagg Romney commandeered the way-back of the wagon, keeping his eyes fixed out the rear window, where he glimpsed the first sign of trouble. ''Dad!'' he yelled. ''Gross!'' A brown liquid was dripping down the back window, payback from an Irish setter who'd been riding on the roof in the wind for hours. As the rest of the boys joined in the howls of disgust, Romney coolly pulled off the highway and into a service station. There, he borrowed a hose, washed down Seamus and the car, then hopped back onto the highway."

"Story about dog on car roof comes back to bite Romney - 200 comments from readers complaining of animal cruelty"

Mitt Romney was a director of Damon not an executive. Four executives at Damon were indicted for conspiracy: Joseph Isola, Beno Kon, William Thurston and Gerald Kullen. None of the directors were indicted (I don't know how the executives explained the immediate and sustained increases in tests performed and revenues, as discussed below, and whether the board should have known).

I do remember when this happened, because I practice in this area of the law, but I had no idea Bain was involved, because Damon was owned by Corning at the time it was fined.

Damon's the 25th largest False Claims Act (31 U.S.C. §§ 3729–3733) settlement in history. At the time, the criminal penalty portion was the largest ever recovered in a health care fraud prosecution and the largest criminal fine ever in Massachusetts.

The $119 million represented $35.2 million as a criminal fine and $83.7 to resolve related civil liabilities for $25 million in fraudulent billing.

(By comparison, I settled a FCA/Stark/Medicare Anti-Kickback claim for a client a few years earlier for under $15 million for claims of many, many multiples of $25 million, but there wasn't blatant fraud involved.)

The settlement includes the treble damages - three dollars recovered by the government for every fraudulent dollar billed - under the FCA.

What did Damon Labs do? For one, when a physician ordered a common blood panels, Damon bundled three extra tests in the blood panels even though the physician did not request the extra tests. Then Damon billed Medicare for the panels, and charged separately for the three tests.

And Damon did more. From one of the appellate cases in the government's prosecution of Thurston:

he essence of the scheme charged was that Damon, through Thurston and others, bundled the ferritin blood test-previously ordered by doctors less than two percent of the time-into a panel of blood tests known as the LabScan, which was ordered thirty to forty percent of the time. When doctors or patients (instead of insurers) paid for the bundled LabScan, Damon provided the ferritin test for free, leading doctors to believe there was no extra charge for this test. Doctors were not told that, when Medicare paid for the bundled LabScan, Medicare was charged extra for the ferritin test. Indeed, both a letter and marketing materials indicated the added ferritin test was “free”; that is, that there was no charge beyond the standard LabScan charge.
Those unnecessary ferritin tests were not free to Medicare.
Damon charged Medicare roughly $21 per ferritin test on top of the approximately $24 charged for the LabScan. Nor were doctors told that the ferritin test could be ordered separately; the test requisition form did not offer that option. The physicians, then, were induced to order and to certify as medically necessary a large number of ferritin tests that were not medically necessary.

Thurston was found guilty and for sentencing purposes was found to be "an organizer or leader of extensive criminal activiity" (a level-four enhancement). So he would be the organizer or leader of a fraud that the government said "involved literally millions of fraudulent claims" over a period of years - but wouldn't plead guilty as another defendant did because he would be shunned.

So: Mitt wasn't an officer or executive, he was a director, and only the executives were indicted and found guilty. However, the board would have seen increases in the number of tests ordered ("literally millions", per the goverment) and $25 million in revenues. Officers of the corporation would have explained these to the Board.

However the Board may have failed in its duty if there was no compliance plan and no compliance officer.

Mitt is lying when he says the company stopped the practice when he was on the board. According to the Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, "[t]he global settlement was reached with Corning, Inc., which earlier had purchased Damon and stopped the illegal billing."

Is the fact that this isn’t broadcast on Fox news or on the Rush Limbaugh show supposed to be some sort of sign of brilliance?

I’ve always had the feeling “fair and balanced” was just a trick. But what about “excellence in broadcasting?” Does “excellence” mean the ability to give Romney a pass and still call yourself conservative?

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