This appeared to really starting to happen with the Tobacco settlement in 1998… in which 46 state AG’s and some law firms suited the 4 major tobacco manufacturers and 4 states settled outside of the lawsuit and in the first 20 yrs there was abt 135 BILLION dollars shared with those states.. I tried to read the details of the settlement and the details are so convoluted that at the end of 25 yrs of the settlement, the states are to share 9 BILLIONS/yr in perpetuity – think ” until hell freezes over” The states didn’t put any taxpayers’ money at risk, the private law firms took all the fiscal risks. The various states could only WIN or NOT WIN… they could NOT LOSE ANYTHING.
Here is a link https://www.cagw.org/thewastewatcher/smoke-what-happened-tobacco-master-settlement-agreement-money and especially a quote from that link
The Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement simultaneously represents one of the most egregious examples of a government shakedown of private industry and offers a case study of the problems that stem from big government and big business scratching each other’s backs. It has turned the largest tobacco companies into an indispensable cash cow for politicians and bureaucrats, enabled irresponsible state spending, and, amazingly, has resulted in less money for public health and tobacco control while propping up a declining industry. As is the case with discriminatory tobacco taxes, the incentives of the MSA are perverse: the more people smoke, the more money the government gets to spend on whatever it wants. The biggest losers are those with tobacco-related diseases and smokers trying to quit.
Apparently the lesson learned by the various state AG’s from this lawsuit – over suing companies that manufactured a legal product… and we are seeing now with the lawsuit over the fabricated “opiate crisis”…is that they did not sue not only the manufacturers, but also the wholesaler and retailers. Apparently they realized that they left a lot of money on the table with the tobacco lawsuit that they were not going to let them happen again as they proceeded to sue companies who manufacturer and sell a legal product.
Civil Asset Forfeiture act. It has been stated that some city/state bureaucracies are able to cover up to half of their annual budget with the $$ collected using this law. Anyone questioning this just do a web search on “Civil Asset Forfeiture Act ” and/or here is very interesting website https://ammo.com/articles/civil-asset-forfeiture-policing-for-profit
Then there is social security…the first check was sent out the first of Feb 1940 – for $22.54 and when SS was started there was abt 25 employees for every recipient and in 1940 < 50% of all people would die before reach 65 y/o and draw the first penny from SS. When I graduated in 1970, SS was 4.3% on the first 10,000 of income – which the employer paid an equal amount. In 2022 the income limit subject to SS & Medicare is 147,000 and combined tax is 7.65% and employer contributes the same.
In the last week or so it was announced/stated that if the COLA/CPI had been properly calculated from 2000 the average SS check would be $500+ more per month. This week it was announced that SS & Medicare would be unable to meet full promised commitment in the later part of the next decade. Just as Gen-X become eligible for SS & Medicare and the last of the baby boomer generation will be entering their 70’s. Medicare & SS really doesn’t have much of a cash reserve, it depending entirely on cash flow to pay the bills and it is estimated that required payments in the latter part of next decade. Cash flowing into Medicare & SS will be LESS than what has to be paid out. There has been estimates that all benefits will be reduced some 20%-25% when this happens.
the cost of treating pain is claimed to be second to the cost of treating Diabetes, however… there are 3-4 times more chronic painers than the number of diagnosed/undiagnosed diabetic Does this suggest how GROSSLY UNDER TREATED CHRONIC PAINERS ARE ?
We have seen the DEA raid a office practice and confiscate all the prescriber’s assets and throw all the pts in the practice to the curb and confiscate all the pt’s records and some pts have reported to still be trying to get a copy of their medical records – THREE YEARS after the office was raided. it is well known that pts are less likely to be accepted in a practice without existing medical records. So what is the game plan, the DEA doesn’t really know which pts that they claimed were being treated without valid medical necessity – because it is all done with data managing – so they CYA themselves because it might be uncovered that there were no pts in a practice that didn’t have a valid medical necessity ?
It is pretty well known that all the pts in a practice will be thrown into cold turkey withdrawal <30 days of the office being raided. They could suffer a stroke or heart attack while going thru withdrawal. Without medical records, pt is unlikely to find a new provider, end up being in a hypertensive crisis which could cause stroke, heart attack, kidney/eye damage, premature deaths and/or suicide.
Now we have hundreds or 1000+ pts who can’t get accepted to a new practice, the DEA has at least clawed-back all the monies paid to Medicare or Medicaid for medical services that were claimed not medical necessity. Pt that will not incur little/no charges to Medicare going forward, because no office practice will accept them. And may end up dying from complications of under/untreated pain. How many hundreds or millions of dollar is Medicare/Medicaid not going to not expend on these pts going forward ?
Filed under: General Problems
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