I didn't have time to research this more and I do not know what became of this, but it seems important and I wanted to get it out there. It regards the Untited Seniors Association headed by Charles W. Jarvis, who now heads USA Next, which I'm sure you're familiar with.
I googled the United Seniors address, and was surprised to find this from Rep. Pete Stark in 1997:
Mail Fraud Targets Seniors
October 28, 1997
Mr. Speaker, too bad Dante isn't still alive. He would surely write a special place in Hell for the vultures who prey on seniors with false and alarmist mailings, demanding money to save the seniors from some phony threat.
Text continued in full below.
A more immediate punishment would be fines and imprisonment for postal fraud by the U.S. Postal Service.
Following is a letter I have sent to the U.S. Postal inspectors regarding the recent mailings by United Seniors Association and the Seniors Coalition and their misrepresentation of the Kyl amendment issue.
U.S. POSTAL SERVICE INSPECTION
Service, Fraud Division,
Washington, DC.
October 27, 1997.
Dear Sirs: Pursuant to 18 U.S.C. 1341 which reads, in part `Whoever, having devised or intending to devise any scheme or artifice to defraud, or forobtaining money or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises . . . for the purpose of executing such scheme or artifice . . . places in any post office . . . any matter or thing whatever to be sent or delivered by the Postal Service . . . shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both'
I wish to report a postal fraud by United Seniors Association, 3900 Jermantown Road, Suite 450, Fairfax, VA 22030 and urge your immediate action to impose appropriate penalties.
Enclosed are two mailings from the United Seniors Association (USA) urgently asking for money on the basis of false pretenses and representations. The USA letter contains innumerable inaccuracies and errors of fact. It is so blatantly wrong that it cannot be a simple act of stupidity, but is a calculated scheme to frighten Medicare beneficiaries out of money. In particular, in the letter of September 22, 1997, the paragraph on the first page which reads `Here's what this appalling new law does: if you are a Medicare patient and you want to personally pay for a treatment which Medicare does not want to cover--it will be nearly impossible to do so. . ..'
This statement, repeated in numerous ways throughout the mailings, is false.
Medicare beneficiaries have always been able to contract privately with doctors for services which Medicare does not cover. Nothing in any law has changed that right. Under certain conditions, the new law actually extends that `right' to services which Medicare does cover--a new right to be billed more than the Medicare payment rate by physicians, which did not exist before. See enclosed memoranda.
I also urge you to investigate for fraud the enclosed recent Seniors Coalition mailing (11166 Main Street, Suite 302, Fairfax, VA 22030). This mailing calls for `an emergency contribution' to help fund a lawsuit on the private contracting issue. The cover letter is rather extraordinary in that it asks people to send money to help fight something for which the writer has `no time to explain.' The statements in the letter over Mary Martin's signature is false: `your health care will be rationed in a Clinton HMO.' The enclosed news articles contain numerous errors and misrepresentations. I believe that this mailing may also be a mail fraud because it uses false statements in the cover letter and inaccurate or incomplete statements in the news articles to scare people into sending money to support plans for a lawsuit. I know of no such lawsuit or any grounds for it, and I ask your investigators to determine whether there is in fact such a planned use of the money bilked from the public.
Congressional offices report receiving numerous letters and calls expressing concern and confusion as a result of these two mailings and therefore I assume that a number of Medicare beneficiaries have been defrauded out of some money as a result of these alarmist misrepresentations.
Before additional harm is done to Medicare beneficiaries, I urge an immediate investigation and fines and/or the return of money to the beneficiaries.
The issue of private contracting and Medicare payment rates are complex and worthy of a rational debate. These two mailings are false, alarmist, and destructive to public debate while frightening beneficiaries out of money `by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, promises' etc.
Thank you for your review of these mailings.
Here's the link.