Hyperbole? I don't think so. Seminole Dem posts quite often very good diaries starting out " My stupid state" but I am going to really light the fuse here on just how backwards and ridiculous it is. People need to know how Florida has totally jumped the shark and best be afraid..very afraid.
Everything I am going to post is the truth and documented either by actual events, newspaper, and experience. There are other Kossacks on here from other states, veteran advocates who KNOW this to be the truth and holding some documentation. To
day I asked for a meeting with a high official in DC.
I hope I get it because this high official is in the administration. If my source cannot make the meeting happen, I will go to another avenue to meet with people who can help the people of Florida. Not all residents are republicans but even those in the non democratic column are getting screwed depending on their wealth status.
The gem from the article from Reuters
It's because Florida is doubling down on revised procedures, introduced last year under Republican Governor Rick Scott, that workers' rights groups say have made it more difficult for Floridians to access unemployment benefits.
The state, already saddled with what critics describe as an increasingly frayed social safety net, ranks among the stingiest in the country when it comes to providing jobless benefits for the unemployed.
The Labor dept has gotten involved but this is just one of many things happening in Florida. There is enough that it keeps Sem Dem and me both busy writing diaries.
Last Thursday, one of the most frustrating days of my life hit me square on with a letter from the Kids Ease Chip program that my little 7 year old is on. I also got some disturbing news from the VA which is regionally run and State coordinated . It was frustrating and I am trying to outline just how screwed we are down here. Moving is not the answer. Change is.
I will get to the Vet problem but I am saving it as it is beyond sick and very very scary when a state is run by businessmen with unethical behavior. Scott is one such man. so is Romney.
Latest ...regarding unemployment insurance...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
It doesn't seem designed to help generate new jobs but to keep me from being able to collect my unemployment," Taylor said. "The system is not designed to help the individual," he said. "It's just designed to fill a blank in any form."
Randy Brazer, an unemployed 42-year-old hospital and health care administrator based in Miami, said she too found the online benefits process cumbersome at best. "It's a fraudulent system," she said.
Brazer complained she had been denied four weeks of benefit pay because of failing to meet a deadline for taking the 45-question skills test
Moving right along....
The Childrens Health Care and Medicaid Issue
Last Thursday, one of the most frustrating days of my life hit me square on with a letter from the Kids Ease Chip program that my little 7 year old is on. I also got some disturbing news from the VA which is regionally run and State coordinated . It was frustrating and I am trying to outline just how screwed we are down here. Moving is not the answer. Change is.
The card I was sent said that my daughter's insurance that I pay for keep in mind had changed primary care physicians and that her very good pediatrician was no longer in the list of providers. I checked into that. Bad story there. I love her doctor. He is thorough, experienced, a pillar of the community for healthcare for years but obviously is not profitable enough for Scott's idea of affordable federally mandated programs such as CHIP. The person at Kid's ease enlightned me and I dropped CHiP with his slip of the truth that the doctor did not drop CHIP but they got a lower bidder in my area. LOWER BIDDER...Sounds like my kid is stock doesn't it?
I called her pediatriacian and wanted to know what was going on. I told them she was assigned an HMO 17 miles from the house and that I was not changing docs if possible.
The doctor and staff were upset as they told me they had lost many patients over this deal and the doctor just got a letter stating his services were no longer required by the program. Many families were upset and he was trying to work payment arrangements out for parents upset over this
nonsense of people who do did not have private insurance.
There were some who could not afford a 40 dollar doctor visit and no prescription coverage. I have another alternative so I am more fortunate but still may have to pay out of pocket first. This will lead right into the Vet problem but again this needs to be explored a little deeper.
This is not the first time at the rodeo for Rick Scott and Medicaid and Medicare inquiry nor his lucrative health care debacles. Check here.
http://www.newsmax.com/...
Here are the key points made in the article:
"
However, federal investigators found that Scott took part in business practices at Columbia/HCA that were later found to be illegal -- specifically, that Scott and other executives offered financial incentives to doctors in exchange for patient referrals, in violation of federal law, according to lawsuits the Justice Department filed against the company in 2001.”
"The doctor payments were among 10 different kinds of fraud identified by the Justice Department in its 10-year probe of the company, records show. Three years after Scott left Columbia/HCA, the company admitted wrongdoing, pleading guilty to 14 felonies -- most committed during Scott's tenure -- in addition to paying two sets of fines totaling $1.7 billion.”
"The key question for Scott is whether he can persuade voters that he deserves to be chief executive of Florida while at the same time insisting that he knew nothing about the greatest Medicare fraud in American history as it happened under his nose."
"Chief among the critics: some 30 whistleblowers -- company employees, doctors and contractors -- who first exposed the frauds in lawsuits filed against Columbia/HCA between 1993 and 1997. Some employees said they were fired or punished for raising their concerns with supervisors; one said she was instructed by her boss to erase records from her computer at a Miami Beach hospital, court records show. The whistleblowers and their lawsuits helped guide the Justice Department's decade-long probe of the company.”
"The company also admitted making illegal kickbacks to doctors in exchange for patient referrals -- a scheme that federal investigators traced back to the very first hospitals purchased under Scott in El Paso, court records show.”
Read more on Newsmax.com: Rick Scott's Role in Largest Medicare Ripoff in History: Miami Herald Probe above.
Well my gut says as the President said the other night, quoting another famous politiican.."
There they go again"
Now this new adventure under the man himself..
Gov. Rick Scott signed a controversial bill into law that will could force local counties to pay more in Medicaid costs.
By Tia Mitchell
Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau
TALLAHASSEE -- Against the wishes of counties and tea party leaders, Gov. Rick Scott signed a controversial bill into law Thursday that will change the way counties are billed for Medicaid costs and could set up a legal showdown.
If nothing changes, counties could be forced to pay the state an additional $325.5 million in the coming years in disputed Medicaid bills.
“Nobody really knows what this is going to mean to our budget,” said Gretchen Harkins, Broward County director of intergovernmental affairs. The Florida Association of Counties has convened a task force to recommend future steps, such as seeking an injunction or filing a lawsuit.
Scott took the unusual step of submitting a letter to the Secretary of State’s office explaining why he signed the bill, HB 5301. Scott acknowledged the counties’ concerns and vowed to work with them to resolve years of disagreements with the Agency for Health Care Administration on how much they owe for Medicaid.
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/...
Now keep in mind this is affecting the CHIP program along with Medicaid.
Florida opts out of the Medicaid expansion program and found Scott's claims false on the cost exaggeration.
http://www.politifact.com/...
Now remember the drug testing that was a no win....these people are still in the picture
http://www.tampabay.com/...
This whole situation of purging voters.
Giving tests to qualify for unemployment
Switching up healthcare providers and costing counties and benefiting HMO
Add in Privatizing prisons
mental health facilities
Hiding TB patients in motels ( Danger to the Public)
Fighting The Affordable Health Care Act and opting out of mandate
Refusing Federal Funds and appointed VA State officials and thus
VISN run out of St Pete and some really strange things happening at the Va..WE HAVE A HUGE PROBLEM DOWN HERE
ATTN:veterans
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/...
Scott pushes for state prisons privatization
Prisoners, disabled, mentally ill and veterans would go from public to private care under governor's plan
February 14, 2011|By Tonya Alanez, Tallahassee Bureau
TALLAHASSEE — For years lawmakers have toughened Florida's sentencing laws and created the nation's third-largest prison system, but Gov. Rick Scott is seeking to shrink the number of state-run facilities for Florida's convicts.
Under a prison plan that he says would save $82.4 million, Scott wants to cut 1,690 state corrections jobs, move as many as 1,500 inmates from state lock-ups to privately run prisons and close two still-unnamed state correctional institutions.
NOTICE HOW PRISONERS AND VETERANS WAS IN THE ARTICLE AS IF THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE ? WHEN DID VETS WITH DISABILITIES AND THE MENTALLY CHALLENGED AND DISABLED EQUATE WITH PRISONERS?
The Story I am about to tell is true. I have held off on this story but no more. I want Florida to go under a Huge spotlight.
Remember when my vet demanded Fox news turned off and instead of getting help with Vascular problems at the VA Gainesville was sent to a private facility? Well Well.. I called, Kossacks called and the Inspector General was notified along with an answer to me that it did not bear investigation. True enough the Administrator was let go but the Hospital he was sent to did not have a formal contract with the VA. Fee basis rules were not adhered to under Mill act and my husband and 9 other veterans WERE abused in this health care facility. I had a claim in for Aid and Attendant and had to get the Obama administration involved to PROVE he was already Total and Permanently disabled. They set up a compensation and hearing after this hospitalization and a heart attack which I do believe he had while in their care because of the throwing up and private journal that he has in his possession. We have copies. We have statements from other vets in that facility directly related to the State.
Now......There was a Vet who one of the other vets alleged had a flashback and was not treated. Upon investigation, veterans were being held there for long periods of time and not Baker acted. They were released and not sent back to the VA for prescriptions but to their families or own their own but stricly against the Mill act especially under no formal contract of Fee Basis. I mentioned this in the interview with Hal Donahue.
The C* P Exam stated basically ...Nothing wrong with veteran. No records to indicate problems. This all was adjudicated in Florida at the St Pete Office. Upon working with another veteran, a vet got a decision on PTSD and it was like it said the same thing....Problem is..both vets, mine and this other one have been diagnosed with these multiple problems at VA facilties and being treated for them. The Contract C and P evaluator is working AGAINST the veteran and this was told to me by an employee at the Veterans Hospital. I even have the C and P exam slipped to me
saying, Be Careful. She hates to help vets. God as my witness. This evaluator is affecting veterans to do harm and LIES. I can prove her lies. Not only regarding my husband but other vets. The decisions are going to be disagreed and appealed but in the meantime there are veterans being put in private facilities, denied medicines, not treated medically and abused. When you deny medicines for mental health..and change up meds without the Primary Care Doctor at the VA being notified..That is unethical and abuse and dangerous.
There is something very wrong down here. I posted a diary down here regarding something wrong with Travel Pay and low and behold if the papers broke a story that veterans were owed a ton of money because of travel pay problems.
http://www.veteranaid.org/...
THIS IS THE BOTTOM LINE.....THERE ARE A LOT OF THINGS THAT ARE WRONG DOWN HERE IN FLORIDA. FROM THE CHILDREN HEALTHCARE, MEDICAID, PRIVATE FACILITIES FOR VETERANS AND TOO MANY JUST SAY NO TO VETERANS WITHOUT EXAMINING THE EVIDENCE AND HOLDING THEM IN LIMBO FOR YEARS. LET US NOT FORGET THE C AND P EXAMINER IMO A REAL HARM TO VETERANS SEEKING JUST, PROVABLE COMPENSATION. THE STATE, VISN, INSPECTOR GENERALS AND SCOTT HIMSELF AND THE FLORIDA LEGISLATURE IS SCREWING UP