What ELSE should we throw Doctors in prison for?

[leftstreet]

I can't believe the deafening SILENCE coming from the medical community over the SD abortion ban. SD has just infringed on the rights of medical professionals to perform medical procedures. Under this law, a doctor performing an abortion outside the guidelines will be charged with a FELONY and sent to PRISON!

Yet not a word from any medical association.
Anyone?
Hmm... I guess they don't care.

Well, looks like it's open season then.

Will someone in the SD legislature please submit a resolution making it a misdemeanor to force patients to wait more than 30 minutes in an office lobby?

[rzemanfl]

1. Treating Cheney's heart condition? Works for me. n/t

[ReadTomPaine]

9. Badda bing!

Zingers in 30 seconds or less, served fresh here at DU!

[Democrats_win]

2. Delivering bush!

[killbotfactory]

3. heart transplants

a crime against nature

[xxqqqzme]

4. then any plastic surgery is also against

natural progression - no more plastic surgery - now THAT would raise a howl!

[patdem]

5. No more doctors...if god wants you to die...die muther f*cker!

ANY practice of medicine.

[killbotfactory]

13. You are right

The only medicine that should be allowed is prayer

[pitohui]

6. a case of need

it is funny to think of it now that he's a rich, raving winger, but back in the day michael chrichton wrote a pro-abortion suspense novel, a case of need, that in the first edition even included a formula for manufacturing lsd

where am i going w. this? well, i think doctors DO care, some of them anyway, remember, some doctors and some of them elder doctors, have been on the front lines of this battle and even given their lives, but i think many are afraid to speak in public and make themselves a target

easier to say nothing and quietly offer their patient a d&c to remove "an abnormal growth"

it might seem cowardly but it might also mean more women get the help they need in a safe medical setting as long as it is coded properly

even chrichton used a pseudonym for that wicked first novel

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

7. Issues of "People" magazine in the lobby more than 5 years old...

[burythehatchet]

29. Cowboys win Super Bowl!!!

[napi21]

8. Fleecing the Medicare system.

Actually I think this is the WORST thing a Dr. can do! Making up patients and treatments that you've done but haven't! That harms EVERY American citizen! Thos are the Dr.s I'd punish!

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

10. There are severe penalties for this. On the civil side, over $10K per

INCIDENT.

That's right, per incident: If a doc makes a practice for overbilling for a certain procedure, then if busted they pay something like 10.5 or 11K per incident now.

Since it is considered racketeering and covered under RICO statutes I believe there are crimininal penalties as well, which I assume could potentially involve jail time, but I'm not too certain of the details there.

[napi21]

12. The operative phrase is "if busted". When was the last time you

heard of a Doc being punished for this? I think I've heard of a few "Medical Practices" fined, but that's it. I don't buy the story that all the Docs are clean!!!!

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

16. No one said they were all clean. And I know of more than one case in

which docs and practices WERE in fact busted for quite a lot of money.

There's actually a lot of activity in this area, and the government has a great interest in pursuing this. Of course I'm sure there's plenty they don't catch.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/2005-03-02-tenet-usat_x.htm

Tenet accused of $1 billion Medicare fraud
By Julie Appleby, USA TODAY
Florida's attorney general filed a civil racketeering lawsuit against Tenet Healthcare on Wednesday, alleging that the hospital chain drove up its prices to collect about $1 billion from a special Medicare fund.

The charges, filed in U.S. District Court in Miami, are similar to concerns raised by federal regulators investigating the company's billing practices. Those inquiries are ongoing.

The Medicare "outlier payment" fund compensates hospitals for caring for sicker-than-average patients by granting extra payments when the cost of a patient's care exceeds a threshold.

By raising its prices nationally to an average 477% over actual costs, the lawsuit alleges that Tenet received a larger share of those Medicare funds and drove up the minimum threshold other hospitals had to meet to qualify for payments. The case alleges that Florida hospitals lost millions as a result.
...

http://www.usdoj.gov/dag/pubdoc/health98.htm

Significant Cases

FY 1998 saw the conclusion of two major investigations involving allegations of fraud on the part of the contractors who process claims on behalf of the Medicare program. Health Care Services Corporation, the Medicare carrier for Illinois and Michigan, agreed to pay the government $140 million in settlement of a qui tam suit alleging that it shredded claims, altered documents and otherwise manipulated data relied on by the HCFA to evaluate its contract performance. In addition to the civil settlement, the corporation agreed to plead guilty to obstructing a federal audit, conspiracy to obstruct a federal audit, and making false statements to HCFA which will result in a $4 million criminal fine. In order to guard against future misconduct, and to ensure that any potential lapses are detected early, the government and the corporation also entered into a strict corporate integrity agreement.

Pennsylvania Blue Shield, the Medicare carrier for several mid-Atlantic states, resolved a 2-year investigation by agreeing to pay $38.5 million in settlement of allegations that it improperly processed Medicare secondary payor claims, neglected to recover overpayments, bypassed certain computer payment safeguards, and failed to implement required screens for certain lab tests, all of which resulted in false claims to the Medicare program. Again, the contractor agreed to undertake corporate integrity obligations, including training and external reviews of its performance.

In the area of psychiatry, an Atlanta businessman was sentenced to 3 years and 10 months and ordered to pay $7 million in restitution for defrauding HHS, the State of Georgia Department of Medical Assistance, and certain Medicaid recipients, through a complex scheme involving billing Medicaid for individual and group psychotherapy allegedly provided to children. The scheme involved employees going door-to-door in impoverished areas to recruit children for after school programs, typically failing to inform parents that Medicaid would be billed for psychotherapy allegedly provided to their children. These services were not necessary and not actually provided to the children.

Smaller but significant settlements were reached in relation to defective pricing and pharmaceutical suppliers. Invacare Corporation agreed to pay $2.6 million to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to settle allegations of fraud in the sale of wheelchairs. The corporation failed to provide accurate and complete cost data during contract negotiations. An Illinois supplier of drugs and pharmaceutical products pleaded guilty to making false statements to the Illinois Department of Public Aid concerning fraudulent bills submitted to them, the Corporation also agreed to pay $5.3 million to the U.S. Government and the State of Illinois. The defendant established a procedure in which medications that were returned to the pharmacy were placed back into inventory without crediting the Illinois Department of Public Aid, which had paid for the drugs.

[Richard Steele]

11. My sources tell me that some doctors aren't even CHRISTIANS!

What more do we need to know? :sarcasm:

[rug]

14. That's the problem in a nutshell.

Roe v. Wade is a criminal case.

If the right wants to protect fetuses, they should immediately legislate free, no questions asked prenatal care. Then expand it to living children.

The only thing they understand is locking people up.

[leftstreet]

30. "Lock 'em up."

Exactly.

[teryang]

15. The list of things that you can go to prison for is so huge already

...what's one more?

I mean after all, my freedom is a privilege granted to me by the bushista's isn't it?

[AnnInLa]

17. Should women who have abortions be prosecuted? Didn't think that thru

From Digby: (go to the link below for a link to the video)


This updates the post below about whether women should be held legally liable for having an illegal abortion. Apparently this video made the rounds some months ago (and I missed it) in which anti-abortion protesters are asked that very question. Turns out most of them haven't ever thought about it before. (Update: Apparently we crashed their server. Greg at the talent Show generously uploaded it on to his site here.)

That is as I suspected. It's time we make them think about it. Most anti-abortion legislation makes no sense morally and these people need to be led through the various steps that will show them this. The cognitive dissonence was apparent on these people's faces. It's a question that everyone from the family pro-choice supporter to professiohnal interviewers should always ask.

Picture if you will a poll in which Americans are asked if women should be jailed for murdering their unborn child with an illegal abortion. What do you think they would say? Considering the fact that even the anti-abortion picketers in that video don't know what to say, I think it's fair to assume that it would be rejected by more than 90 percent of the population.

That's because it's clear that there is almost nobody who believes that abortion is murder in the legal sense of the word. How can there be a law against "murder" where the main perpetrator is not punished? How can it be murder if these people don't believe that the person who planned it, hired someone to do and paid for it is not legally culpable?

The looks on these womens' faces in that video were amazing: confusion, frustration, pain. Their position is untenable and they know it.

more at:

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_03_01_digbysblog_archive.html#114176844964079664

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

18. Yes they would be conspirators and accessory at the minimum.

[NightOwwl]

21. To take it a step further....

Should the male who impregnated the woman who had the illegal abortion be held liable for being an accessory to the crime? Seems to me to be a logical progression.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

22. That doesn't hold unless he was part of the decision to abort.

[Liberal Veteran]

19. Treating people for disease! Illness is punishment from God!!!!

And trying to undermine God's will through so-called "science" is the devil's work!!!!!

[Cobalt Violet]

20. Breast reduction surgery.

:shrug:

[AnnInLa]

23. Did yall know that abortion would be a Class V felony in SD?

If they really believe abortion is murder, then why a class V felony? Can't remember all of the examples of a Class V (5) felony that the website listed that I saw, but one of them was possession of 1/2 pound of pot. Why not premeditated murder? And, why not punishment for the woman involved...why just for the doctor?

[Liberal Veteran]

25. I've always thought the logical extension of outlawing abortion would be..

...to open a criminal investigation into any and all miscarriages and stillbirths to ensure that it wasn't the result of negligent behavior.

[RB TexLa]

24. How about lying to insurance companies for higher payments?

Such as a child with a cold all of a sudden is being treated "asthma," because the payout is $85 instead of $45. Now of course if patients would bother to get a copy of their MIB report from time to time this could be stopped.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

26. "Upcoding" = fraud, this is covered in the minithread from post 8.

It applies to private as well as government insurance, but the penalties are different.

[Just Me]

27. Concealing the physical or mental health of any elected official.

Why not? Our lives are open books, now,....under the new "unitiary executive powers". Let's demand in-kind revelations ESPECIALLY since the "elected" ones are SUPPOSE to be SO SUPERIOR to the rest of us.

[High Plains]

28. Prescribing opioid pain medications to pain patients.

The DEA is real big on this these days.

[Texacrat]

31. I want a police officer to arrest a doctor

Then I want that police officer to have his house taken away after he gets slammed with a civil rights lawsuit.