Allen Finkelstein, D.O.
[1] (a) Exposed!: Post 9/11 Privatization & Conservative Failure (OurFuture.org), (b) Outsourcing War- Rise of Private Military Contractors (rense.com), (c) The shadow army (boston.com), (d) 180,000 Private Contractors Flood Iraq (USA Today)
[2] Federal and State RICO Act (Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act of 1970) statutes outline the definitions of racketeering. A pattern of inducing people to pay into an investment scheme, especially an "employee" retirement fund, while stealing the investments, would constitute racketeering, (section 664) and accepting political donations as inducements to pay out the stolen funds (e.g. no bid contracts) violates section 1954 of the RICO Act. While most people could not rationally argue that our Congress and Senate are not Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations, some apologists contend that the Social Security System is not a retirement fund. Unfortunately, since the same federal legislators who added welfare and Medicare, Medicaid and Unemployment Insurance to the Social Security System, forgot to destroy the "retirement fund" first. As surely as Shakespeare said: "a rose is a rose is a rose," a racketeer is a racketeer is a racketeer and the Social Security System is still a "retirement fund" among other things.
[3] While the "Social Security Scam" originally constituted a "voluntary" inducement to invest a percentage of one's earnings, the employer's portion is mandatory under fear of punishment. A pattern of extortion of this sort is clearly a RICO violation (section 1951). In his November 2, 2000 article, Social Security Surplus, Doug McIntosh called the Social Security scam a "Ponzi Scheme." A Ponzi Scheme is an investment scam in which extraordinary returns are promised without any intention to pay the invested funds back to the investors. The Social Security System is actually a case of "Robbing Peter to Pay Paul," because it promises to pay out at least some approximation of what was put into it. Both schemes are illegal of course.
[4] A few years ago, I purchased a motorized scooter for my 90 year old father for the 1100 dollar retail sticker price. We didn't have time to wait for Medicare to approve the same scooter at their price of 4400 dollars. At the same time oxygen for three years, costing Medicare anywhere from 8,000 to 12,000 dollars could be purchased from Walgreens for one third the price. Laboratory tests for our Medicare HMO currently run anywhere from one tenth to one fourth the price paid by the conventional Medicare program. Also references [2] and [3] of Solving the Healthcare Enigma II OpEdNews 2/19/11
[6] Mr. Delay was convicted of money laundering in 2010, but is currently free from prison on bail, pending his appeal .
[8] Medicare Fraud: A $60 Billion Crime- 60 Minutes- CBS News 10/25/09, updated 9/2/10. "The Justice Department claims that Medicare fraud is now a $60 billion a year industry..." Added to this is at least $60-100 billion in "legal" fraud (deliberate overspending) the amount easily approaches at least a third of the Medicare budget.
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