Posted on 12/31/2011 2:33:41 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
The media is about to begin the vetting of Rick Santorum and I suspect we’re going to hear a lot about Universal Health Services (“UHS”). Santorum’s involvement in UHS is one of the significant bits of his private sector experience.
After his 18 point loss in 2006, UHS appointed Rick Santorum to its Board of Directors.
On May 16, 2007, Santorum acquired 10,000 options to purchase Class B common stock. On November 21, 2009, he received another option for 5,000. In 2010, it was options for 15,000 shares and another 15,000 as recently as January 21, 2011, as Santorum begin to entertain thoughts of running for President.
On June 15, 2011, Santorum resigned from the board of UHS.
Here’s why the media will be interested.
On March 2, 2010, nearly three years after Santorum was appointed to the UHS board of directors, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a complaint against UHS for billing Medicaid for “inpatient psychiatric care that was not provided.” The company received Medicaid funds to provide psychiatric counseling and treatment to boys ages 11 to 17.
According to the Department of Justice, UHS “[took] advantage of troubled children in order to feed their own desire for wealth.”
On July 29, 2010, an employee of the same Virginia adolescent psychiatric facility that was sued by DOJ filed suit against UHS for reprisal against her due to her “investigation of, reporting of, opposition to and refusal to participate in, her employer?s blatant and systemic criminal fraud against Medicaid engaged in by defendants[.]” See Barbara Jones v. Universal Health Services, Inc.
According to Barbara Jones, the whistleblower who brought suit against UHS, local company management encouraged employees to conduct “drive by therapy sessions” as they passed patients in the hallway and then record the brief interactions as a thirty minute individual therapy sessions to be billed to Medicaid. Jones also testified in her court filings that she was ordered by the local CEO to fabricate a Medicaid billing form and was told, after she refused to do so, that she would not be paid until the form was fabricated.
UHS tried to have the complaint dismissed not because of the veracity of the changes, but because it claimed Barbara Jones wasn’t an employee of UHS and therefore was not protected under a whistle blower statute.
Santorum possibly did not know about any of this, but in 2007 the federal government filed a lawsuit against UHS for Medicaid fraud going back all the way to 2004 — or well before Santorum was on the board. It’s kind of hard to claim complete ignorance of federal charges against a company on whose board he sat for over four years.
This is going to be an interesting vetting process, done even more rapidly than the vetting of Mike Huckabee back in 2008, if only because the media probably correctly thinks Santorum doesn’t have the staying power Huck had, so they want to get it all done quickly.
If you look at the Clinton Administration record for job-creation, you will find that it is actually bad until after '94. The Clinton Boom was actually the Gingrich Boom.
Happy New Year dirtboy.
Then, since close to 50% of jobs filled have been in Texas, you could say the Perry Boom has kept the Obama Depression out of Texas.
Get busy, I’m sure there is at least one other anti-Santorum article out there you can post since he’s now well ahead of your guy in the polls.
Give us a list of the people who follow your orders.
Who are free and clear of you and have no reason to follow them but do, merely because you show up and start issuing orders.
It would be a blank sheet of paper.
Texas publications have tracked Perry’s every move, and land deals are no exception.
In the months leading up to his 2010 gubernatorial re-election, The Dallas Morning News reported that Perry had purchased land in Horseshoe Bay from his longtime friend and fellow state lawmaker, Troy Fraser, for $150,000 less than its appraised value of $450,000. Perry sold the property in 2007 for more than $1 million.
In 2002, the Houston Chronicle reported that Perry had transferred 60 acres of Austin land he owned into a blind trust right before the 1999 Texas Legislature met. His trust sold the property for a profit a few days after then-Gov. George W. Bush signed legislation that allowed development on the land. Back then, Perry spokesman Sullivan told the Chronicle the decision was made “by the trustee, not the governor.”
And in September, The Huffington Post reported that federal authorities investigated Perry two years after a 1996 transaction in which he bought 2,800 shares from Kinetic Concepts Inc., a health technology company owned by Dr. James Leininger, a top donor to Perry and to Republicans. A month later, Perry went on to sell 8,000 shares of his Kinetic stock, making $38,000 off the deal.
You really are a cretin, aren’t you? I am suggesting to CW that she spend more time promoting Perry and less time bashing the other candidates. Hardly an unreasonable request. But spin-crazed hacks like you try to make it seem like I am giving orders. So, once again, kiss my pasty rump. Perry is not made better by bashing the other candidates.
A FRiend describes the view from the electorate as “watching these guys try to climb a greased pole.”
We are at a disadvantage this year in that we have many candidates coming out of a corrupt system, and the Dems have only one.
Yet we have one big advantage: Obama. Eyes on the prize! These reports of corruption on all sides pale in comparison to what the Wrecking Ball in Chief is doing to this country.
Qaradawi? Which of our candidates would not vomit at the name? And so many other reasons. As freepers we know them all. Steady on.
Not saying he wasn’t paid. It’s just that these boards don’t actually do much except vote on what management puts in front of them. Usually in accordance with management recommendations.
They’re paid for their influence and future promise to the company.
Exactly! And they generally don’t have any visibility into the mundane things like billing and litigation unless they read about them in the newspapers.
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