In calculating the agency’s rate of improper payments, Medicare officials told outside auditors to ignore government policies that would have accurately measured fraud, according to the report. For example, auditors were instructed not to compare invoices submitted by salespeople against doctors’ records, as required by law, to make sure that medical equipment went to actual patients.
As a result, Medicare did not detect that more than one-third of spending for wheelchairs, oxygen supplies and other medical equipment in its 2006 fiscal year was improper, according to the report. Based on data in other Medicare reports, that would be about $2.8 billion in improper spending.
Report Rejects Medicare’s Boast of Cutting Fraud
Bush Covered up Musharraf Ties with Qaeda, Khan
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's resignation Monday brings to an end an extraordinarily close relationship between Musharraf and the George W. Bush administration, in which Musharraf was lavished with political and economic benefits from the United States despite policies that were in sharp conflict with U.S. security interests.
Vice President Dick Cheney and the neoconservative-dominated Bush Pentagon were aware of the intimate relationship between Musharraf's regime and both the Taliban and al Qaeda. But al Qaeda was not a high priority for the Bush administration.
After 9/11, the White House created the political myth that Musharraf, faced with a clear choice, had "joined the free world in fighting the terrorists". But as Asia expert Selig S. Harrison has pointed out, on Sep. 19, 2001, just six days after he had supposedly agreed to U.S. demands for cooperation against the Taliban regime and al Qaeda, Musharraf gave a televised speech in Urdu in which he declared, "We are trying our best to come out of this critical situation without any damage to Afghanistan and the Taliban."
Peru moves to end Amazon protests
Peru has declared a state of emergency in jungle areas where indigenous groups are blocking oil and gas installations in protest at a new land sale law.
The measure allows the authorities to send in troops and bans public gatherings for 30 days.
Some 65 Amazon tribes say the law will make it easier for big energy companies to buy up their land, parts of which are known to be rich in oil and gas.
They are angry at a law which they say makes it easier for investors to buy their land because it lowers the bar for consent from two-thirds of a community assembly to a simple majority.
The legislation is one of a number of laws being passed as part of Peru's free trade agreement with the US.
A steady diet of trash 'news'
The media stopped reporting news long ago and now reports on what many in this country want. Dirt, gossip, salacious details about who is sleeping with whom, who is the father of each new baby born out of wedlock or whether Britney is wearing underwear.
In America there is a growing hunger for the lowest level of human depravity that can be found. Jerry Springer and Maury Povich should bring tears to every viewer's eyes, yet they evoke laughter as the viewer is entertained by the pain and sickness of the weakest among us. It has reached staggering proportions, and there is no end in sight as to just how far the media conglomerates will go to dredge up the filth they package as news.
HRT Drugs Found to Cause Abnormal Mammograms, Increased Breast Cancer Risk
Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) may increase women's risk of developing breast cancer and interfere with cancer diagnostic techniques after as little as one year, according to a new large-scale study conducted by researchers from the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and published in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine.
Court says EPA air pollution rule is illegal
A Bush administration rule barring states and local governments from requiring more air pollution monitoring is illegal, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.
Appeals court judge Brett Kavanaugh, a former attorney in the Bush White House, wrote the sole dissenting opinion.
He said that while EPA and state and local governments may disagree about whether monitoring requirements will adequately measure compliance, he found "nothing in the statute that prohibits EPA's approach."
Merck Vioxx study was for marketing: researchers
A 1999 clinical study that Merck & Co Inc (MRK.N) said was done to test side effects of its now-withdrawn painkiller Vioxx was done primarily to support a marketing campaign before its launch, according to researchers.
The real aim of the study, called ADVANTAGE, was to promote prescription of the new medicine when it became available -- a so-called "seeding" project -- U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.
"Documentary evidence shows that ADVANTAGE is an example of marketing framed as science," they wrote in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.
Kevin Hill, a psychiatrist at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass., and colleagues said the findings showed how studies masquerading as clinical science could be used to bolster marketing plans.
Pew Survey Reveal Sadly Uninformed Readers/Viewers
The in-depth new Pew News Consumption Survey (see our three other article), among many other things, gave respondents a three-question current events test. The results showed, for example, that viewers of certain "fake news" shows (Stewart, Colbert) performed better than those who favor many "real news" programs (such as Dobbs, O'Reilly). But what about the overall test scores for all viewers/readers?
Only 53% correctly identified the Democrats as being in control of Congress, with 15% picking the GOP-- and 32% not even able to venture a guess.
They did even worse when asked to name our current, longtime (and quite famous) Secretary of State. Only 43% named Condi Rice, 3% IDed someone else -- and an amazing 55% could not even take a shot at it.
And how many could name the new British prime minister? Merely 28% named Gordon Brown -- and guess who finished second with 5%? Rupert Murdoch. Another 4% were sure it was Robert Gates.
Only 18% correctly answered all 3 questions.
TVNL Comment: They are not "sadly uninformed", they are "intentionally misinformed!"
Dual Citizenship -- Loyal to Whom?
Recently, in their much lauded paper, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, Harvard professor, Stephen Walt, and University of Chicago professor, John Mearsheimer, focused attention on the strong Israeli lobby which has a powerful influence over American foreign policies. They detail the influence that this lobby has exerted, forming a series of international policies which can be viewed as in direct opposition to the interests and security of the American people. These acts and policies are more often than not carried out by US government appointees who hold powerful positions and who are dual American-Israeli citizens. Since the policies they support are often exclusively beneficial to Israel, often to the detriment of America, it has been argued that their loyalties are misdirected.
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