Theft from the cookie jar is refilled again and again.
Cato reports “It Was Like Someone Was Stealing Money from the Cookie Jar and They Kept Refilling It”
The “fraud scandal that rattled Minnesota,” reports the New York Times, “was staggering in its scale and brazenness.” Dozens of Minnesotans are facing felony charges for defrauding multiple government programs, including Medicaid. How staggering and brazen was it, you might ask? Let me put it this way: the title of this blog post is a quote from one of the defense attorneys.
So far as I can tell, though, the “scale and brazenness” of these fraud schemes are not unique. In Overcharged, Cato adjunct scholars Charles Silver and David Hyman recount the tale of Michigan oncologist Dr. Farid Fata:
Fata told healthy patients that they had cancer so he could make money by giving them chemotherapy they didn’t need. Fata reportedly “gave one of his patients 155 chemo treatments over two-and-a-half years—even though the patient was cancer-free.”… In 2015, he was found guilty and sentenced to 45 years in prison after abusing the trust of more than 550 patients and receiving more than $17 million through fraudulent billings.
The fraud schemes in the Minnesota fraud scandal do not appear to be exceptional. What’s exceptional is that people are not adopting the blasé attitude that they typically take. Consider that Silver and Hyman found “a Detroit magazine named [Fata] one of the ‘Top Docs’ in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011, and 2012.” Or that a US senator intervened with Medicare on behalf of Melgen, and that President Trump ultimately commuted his sentence. Or that the CEO who ran HCA at the time of the alleged frauds is now himself a US senator.
As I have written elsewhere:
The three most salient characteristics of Medicare and Medicaid fraud are: It’s brazen, it’s ubiquitous, and it’s other people’s money, so nobody cares.
Medicare and Medicaid Bandits
Why the Huge Rise In Autism? Welfare and Medicaid Fraud
On December 7, I commented Why the Huge Rise In Autism? Welfare and Medicaid Fraud
RFK says Tylenol is behind the rise in autism. I never believed that theory.
Medicaid Fraud
For years, I have maintained the huge rise in the diagnoses of autism, ADHD, back pain, and other disabilities is fraud.
The autism scam in Minnesota finally brings the issue to a head.
I feel vindicated. But I have been writing about this for years.
Clinton Ended Welfare As We Know It
On March 27, 2013, I noted Unwilling to Work; 25% in Hale County AL Collect Disability, 14 Million Nationwide; A Simple Solution
How Easy is it to Get Disability?
Hale county’s Dr. Timberlake asks a simple question to all his patients. “What grade did you finish?” If you claim “back pain” and do not have a degree, Timberlake believes you are disabled.
Clinton Ends Welfare As We Know It
In 1996 Bill Clinton signed a welfare reform act, that he proclaimed to be the “End of Welfare As We Know It”. It was. People moved off welfare on to even easier to get disability programs.
Part of Clinton’s welfare reform plan pushed states to get people on welfare into jobs, partly by making states pay a much larger share of welfare costs.
The incentive “worked” using the term loosely. Welfare rolls shrank but disability rolls soared.
September 11, 2013: States Have an Incentive to Promote (Not Stop) Disability Fraud; So How Much Fraud Is There?
The federal government pays disability, but states pay part of welfare costs. This creates a huge incentive for states to actively promote disability fraud (simply to get people off state-sponsored welfare programs).
Here is a curious story on the meaning of “disability“.
The US Social Security Administration has been offering disability benefits to Spanish speakers living in Puerto Rico based on their inability to speak English, despite Spanish being the territory’s primary language.
October 4, 2015: Fraudulent Medicare, Medicaid, EITC, Tax Refunds, etc. Total $1 Trillion Since 2003
A huge chunk of your tax dollars every year goes straight into the pockets of crooks. Nearly one in three earned income credits (EIC) is fraudulent. And the numbers keep getting bigger every year according to the Government Accountability Office.
December 19, 2019: Idiotic Idea of the Day: End Homelessness As We Know It
The Democratic mayor’s plan to “end street homelessness as we know it” includes adding 1,000 new “safe haven” beds in churches and other non-profits and 1,000 apartments earmarked for homeless people.
Please recall Bill Clinton’s plan to “End Welfare As We Know It”.
You might be surprised to learn that president Clinton did indeed do what he said.
Unfortunately, it was not a success story. Please consider “End Welfare As We Know It“.
I suspect Bill de Blasio will have a similar measure of “success”.
May 14, 2025: Almost Half of New York City Is on Medicaid, So Is 40 Percent of California
Bill Clinton promised to “end welfare as we know it.” What happened?
Tylenol or Fraud?
I have been making the fraud case since no later than 2013.
People have been taking acetaminophen (also known as paracetamol), for over a century, while the Tylenol brand itself was introduced in 1955.
RFK is bogged down in Tylenol silliness. He is unfit for the job. And although I have no use for Covid vaccines (admittedly an errant late-comer), the RFK’s attack on measles and other vaccines is idiotic.
Measles, smallpox, and polio vaccines have saved millions of lives. It is foolish to be on a total anti-vax campaign. He is unqualified for the job.
Why do we have to choose between idiotic extremes?
Regardless, we have a strong case what the rise in autism, ADHD, back pain, and other disabilities is really about.
It’s the money stupid! And where there’s money there’s fraud.
How Do We Fix This?
We need to undo welfare as we know it. But that will not happen until states have a huge incentive to stop fraud.
Of course we could end the program. However, that is a zero-chance probability so we must think harder.
One of my suggestions was to give states a fixed block amount to spend, ending Federal involvement.
Then instead of attempting to dump fraud back on the Federal government, states would have an incentive to end the fraud.
“RFK is bogged down in Tylenol silliness. He is unfit for the job.”
RFK Jr. is perfectly fit for the job. The ACIP panel was nothing more than a rubber stamp approval of vaccines. Now there is scientific debate that includes others previously excluded from the panel.
Niki Mayer took 6 childhood vaccinations at once at age 29 and had brain damage as a result. Autism is brain damage. RFK is investigating the connection between autism and vaccination. Vaccine proponents don’t want investigation, which is anti-science. What are they trying to cover up?
Morality is for suckers.
Before I left Colorado I saw a report that the State of Colorado was paying attorneys a $3,200 fee* when they were given contact information for a new applicants, for State benefits, and where able to get them on Federal Disability benefits instead.
*bounty
I generally agree with Mish and that is the case for most of the above. As regards vaccines, however, I definitely do not agree. As a mainstream (allopathic) trained pathologist in practice for 40 years, I too believed the “story.” And that is what it is – a fairytale. If anyone is interested in a cogent analysis of the history of vaccines, I suggest two books: Dissolving Illusions by Suzanne Humphries and Vaccines: Mythology, Ideology and Reality by Peter McCullough.
Peter “I got a supplement/detoxifier for that”? No thanks.
A cut above Judy Mikovitz, perhaps
Thanks for spreading the word.
Epigenetics, explains a great deal of our healthcare issues. Our lack of good health and obesity related disease is expressed in combination with high sugar content foods and a lack of exercise and exposure to sunlight through out door activities.
You are what you eat and do…
in our house, the term epigenetics has been discussed for decades. you nail it. like usual. hat tip. do we go long silver here, sir ? i’m a trend FOLLOWER.
The metal itself is expensive and is likely to be even more volatile. I’m long the mining stocks which have not been part of this recent explosion. AEM and PAAS are my favorites in the gold and silver space.
J.P. Morgan has apparently flipped from short to long and has accumulated a large physical holding which it will profit from immensely, so… I’m adding to JPM in the core portfolio as a fringe beneficiary to the appreciation.
That said, the PAAS or Wheaton make for reasonable bets if this runs to $200 per ounce.
I do wish I had stacked more and will likely buy a bit if there are any shakeouts. The US mint is selling high volumes of silver eagles at $91 for and limiting purchases to 99 coins. I tried to buy a monster box of 500 and the order was rejected last week.
As an aside, there are some banks caught (hard) on the short side and buying a few speculative puts would be smart if you can ferret out which ones to take the risks on! 😉
OOps! I should have said the mining stocks have not kept up with the price of metal and have significant room to appreciate. IMO! 😉
thanks for all that information. much appreciated. bought some more silver. i will add to my miners postion. jpm is the kingpin of the federal reserve of NY owner mafia. a good bet to never fail.
I’ll ask the obvious question about the underlying economic assumption.
Are there economies of scale or diminishing returns with the current US healthcare system?
I suspect the question has never been asked. The system just IS. The system is so complicated and interwoven all it can do is create more rules and become more expensive/ineffective.
Oh, wait, a single payer will solve everything.
There are no Econonies of Scale in Service Industries. They may have buying power, or political power but they will never be cheaper because they are bigger.
As I said, ‘the system just IS, ‘and you proved my point.
The Covid Scam is still being debated as if it was a real.
I have the real Covid Stats saved and the death rate was LOWER than the previous annual Flu deaths.
THAT was much bigger in scope and the biggest scam ever perpetrated on the ENTIRE WORLD!
I don’t know that it was a scam at the outset. We like to think that it was, a great plot by ??? to achieve global domination. More likely, it was fear and incompetence, and a belief that control was needed to prevent a ‘Great Plague.’ In other words, a serious deficit in critical thinking, made worse by a complicit media
If only you had given your stats to the scientific community before the outbreak!
What don’t you understand? Certainty increases with hindsight. Your ‘stats’ didn’t exist when they might’ve been useful. What we did have was a government edict that reported deaths as Covid caused–with resulting fear in the populace.
BTW, China did have two months of experience with Covid, and lied. AGAIN AND AGAIN.
The incompetent Fauci said again and again, ‘you don’t need a mask, but first responders do’. Does it get any funnier? Had he said, you all need masks with these specific qualities, what might the response be?
FYI, I did some research, found the ‘particle’ size, and identified cloth that would prevent passage of the virus. Flag nylon would’ve have worked. but hard to breath thru. Spinnaker nylon was 100% effective, except you’d suffocate.
Instead, people wore masks that did almost nothing to stop the virus from spreading. THAT IS INCOMPETENCE OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. It does not make a ‘scam.’ And we know the 5 foot separation should have been 15-20 feet (MIT).
My comment looks at what was actually known AT THE TIME, and tries to explain how certain ‘trusted institutions’ poor response contributed. I suspect, but can’t prove bulk-DEI enabled the massive fail. People with limited capability were placed in positions of power. We got what we deserved.
Your stats are just that, yours to never make a difference with. Prove us wrong
Lots of disruptive things going on in the world. Yen carry trade unwind? Private capitol collapse? Chinese ban on export of precious or strategic metals? The new Guangzhou Industrial Metals Exchange. Do not forget this industrial/strategic metals “for delivery” exchange. This opens a new round of competition for the COMEX and LME. IMO it is a game changer.
Platinum ~ Silver ~ Palladium
For now, these are the three PM’s traded and stockpiled at the Guangzhou exchange. It does not surprise me that the three traded are rallying strongly since the exchange opened. J.P. Morgan is massively short silver… The implications should be obvious that silver is the new target of the Chinese as they build out their modern electrical grid (which encompasses massive solar farms, AI centers and electric vehicles).
Catching the US banking emperors with no clothes and no silver is just a bonus
Expect fireworks in the silver pits for the next two months….. And, expect Black Swans to be flying in and out of J.P. Morgans front and back doors.
I know that Mish does not want to be a “metals cheerleader”, but this PM breakout is potentially devastating for the COMEX. This crowd has its ear to the ground.
Silver is $85 in Shanghai and the next trading session will have to equalize it via arbitrage.
Imagine being head of a trading division at a big bank ~ short silver ~ and having headed off on vacation for the X-mas/New Year holiday.
Some heads are gonna roll on Monday!
C-mon Mish. 😉
great points. love to see this happening.
Been digging further on this and according to the commitment of traders report at the CFTC, the silver short positions have been substantially unwound. From abut 35,000 contracts down to 20,000! So, a bunch of this has been short covering. But this leaves 20k short contracts to be unwound and whoever is holding them is probably strapped in for a ride that they will have a hard time getting off…
For this to have occurred, I would think J.P. Morgan has to have switched sides…
This leaves some big losers in the banking industry to take the hit?
thanks for your analysis. much appreciated.
They may have been unwound, but they came back today.
This is a situation changing hourly. A lot of players, maybe lots of corruption. Conspiracies all over.
So long as their skin and collars are white, no crime is possible here.
– Theft from the cookie jar is refilled again and again.
> For ALL sorts of Cookies too! Let’s see, we have the Somali Cookies, USAID Cookies, Food Stamp Cookies, Union Cookies, Politicians Cookies, BLM Cookies, Medicaid Cookies, Abortion Cookies, Free Palestine Cookies, Impede Law Enforcement Cookies, Education Cookies, Medicaid Cookies, Social Security Cookies, Climate Change Cookies, Ukraines Cookies, Israel Cookies, Gaza Cookies, I know, I know, I missed a whole lot lMore Cookies, Most Free, but some Certainly Deserving…
I have read this article and these comments and come to a conclusion: the people reading this blog have an awfully high rate of being stupid when it comes to their health.
I think this only applies to those whose username begins with the letter C.
Anyone know who hit the Feds Repo window for $17 billion?
Or why?
It was not announced. It has to be one of the big four. MPJ might have silver shorts in excess of bullion stock. Monday might/will be fun if you don’t have silver shorts.
Agreed, probably related to the silver and other precious/strategic metals rally. The game of musical chairs has had a few chairs removed and the music is playing louder and to a faster beat.
“Stand For Delivery” remain the most feared words at the COMEX and LME.
>>>
My ‘might have silver shorts in excess of bullion stock’ is likely wrong. ‘Has highly leveraged silver shorts’ would be more accurate.
Watch Ox Talks YT channel. Guy keeps up with the latest financial shenanigans. Private Equity is total trash and could bring down the financial system (again).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gH4DmD7XLRE
Another ‘pandemic’ would be perfect timing, just as it was after the repo market melted down in late 2019/early 2020.
But Covid was a “Hoax” just ask Donny the pervert? /S
China can engineer a virus that will kill all US military-aged males in a less than a week. Just ask RFK Jr.
Could also be the Japanese carry trade? That has the potential to cause a global asset dislocation. Lotsa Black Swans looking to take off and test market stability.
It’s all one giant reactor ready for meltdown. The yen, private equity, cre loans, residential real estate, war, and any number of clown wildcards.
Bankruptcies are soaring now…100% owned by Trump/GOP.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/economy/bankruptcies-soar-as-companies-grapple-with-inflation-tariffs/ar-AA1T7c2l
Corporate bankruptcies surged in 2025, rivaling levels not seen since the immediate aftermath of the Great Recession, as import-dependent businesses absorbed the highest tariffs in decades.
At least 717 companies filed for bankruptcy through November, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence. That’s roughly 14 percent more than the same 11 months of 2024, and the highest tally since 2010.
Paging MAGA, paging MAGA, here are your bankruptcies for 2025, expect more in 2026.
The media will say, ‘100% owned by Trump/GOP’ but really the groundwork was done in 2008, with construction underway in 2011 with the Fed and negative real interest rates. This trained Wall Street to expect bailouts and radically increased speculation. Now, we flush the toilet.
Bankruptcies can be a very positive thing for the economy, in terms of removing the overwhelming debt off the books, and allowing a Company to get back onto their feet and be a productive resource once again. That is what it is utilized for is it not?
If it’s an economic recession causing the issue, then this and other companies, may not benefit at all by bankruptcy, because it could be used to hide there losses, and with no positive view insight, they will have simply passed on here losses to the Creditors, Banks, and in some cases The Taxpayers, which is very wrong imo.
It’s very hard to estimate what is causing all the disruptions however. Gold, Silver and others are climbing steadily upwards? That could be a sign that the economy is about to break out perhaps, or it’s being pushed up for a major selling event, which historically is very possible, but we won’t know that for a few more months at least, as they are not yet high enough for that to occur imo.
Of course Tariffs are enemy #1 by many, and they could be causing the disruptions, or they could be eliminating them, but it will take more time for it to come to fruition perhaps. I am hoping on the latter for our economic health as a Country. What’s odd is some outlets say they are great, while others shame them. We shall see soon enough…
Not lots of Black Swans. It only takes one low probability event with major impact for contagion, aka SHTF.
I’ll go out on a limb–it’s silver, with the target being a big-4 bank failure which will pull the plug on Wall street (which was why the repo window opened). Now, if we add in destruction of risk contracting, aka the derivatives market….
A well-timed ‘attack’ by China?
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.01.30.25321421v4
Summary
Among 53402 working-aged Cleveland Clinic employees, we were unable to find a protective influence of influenza vaccination during the 2024-2025 respiratory viral season and found a significantly higher risk of influenza with vaccination when influenza activity was high.
All vaccines that work cause autism. However the vaccine your kids take dont make them autistic. It is by saving the lives of kids with compromised immune systems throughout out generations plus societal changes like having kids later in life that results in higher percentage of autistic kids each new generation. 200 years ago about half of kids died before reaching the age 10. Now child mortality is less than 0.5% because of hygene, vaccines and modern medecine. Of course answer is not to ditch vaccines and go back to high infant mortality. Maybe embryo selection or gene edition will help.
You’ve been reading Charles Darwin’s Descent of Man.You are 100% right, and I am proud to give you the first upvote for critical thinking.
Sadly, the primates, here, will not understand and will continue to spout their media-biased points of view.
Autism is multiple conditions rolled up into a single word. The increase in autism is primarily the result of parents wanting a certified person to tell them what’s wrong with their kid. That having been said, vaccines have nothing to do with the most severe form of autism. It is known to be a purely genetic disorder due to a very specific set of chromosomes. It is inherited, but that set of chromosomes are well known to allow for frequent mutations, which is also the same set that cause schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder, OCD, and anxiety disorder. What isn’t clearly understood is why a parent can be “high-functioning” while a child isn’t. Regardless, there isn’t any indication that this severe form is found more often in modern societies. That may also be due to a paucity of records from over 100 years ago.
The problem with medical care costs (financialized by insurance companies) is simple:
How often is there a moment you weigh options on the basis of effective cost?
There is no price formation.
Many cases of autism are unmistakable.
CFS and fibromyalgia, both dismissed for 30 years as imaginary, have both recently been demonstrated to have real physiological correlates, something the history of medicine is full of.
True, back pain and many other conditions are hard to ascertain physiologically, but that does not mean those people can function simply by ignoring it. It would be convenient if all disability cases were people falling from the scaffold and becoming paraplegic, but that isn’t the case. RSI, depression, and psychotic conditions can be real, but are not always easy to test and diagnose.
The common sense idea (practised in some jurisdictions where bureaucrats are pushed politically to relabel claimants) that everyone as fit for work can produce huge flows of civil court claims from relatives who have seen family members pushed into absolute penury or worse (death). Solutions to (un)trustworthy diagnosis is not as simple as saying 1-2-3.
Oh Webej, you’ll spoil their ranting with that fact-based junk!
I strongly recommend Mike G.’s comment above. When you mess with nature’s survival of the fittest you propagate inferior specimens.
Everyone is NOT equal.
This is unhinged. RFK is not anti-vaccine, has said so a thousand times, and has vaccinated all his children.
The problem with your standard pap about the millions of lives saved is that we do not actually know this. We do not know how much damage vaccines cause. We known that many of the adjuvants (not the vaccine) are toxic, and that toxins affect people disparately, especially in infancy. None of this stuff has ever been tested adequately (vaccine efficacy and vaccine harm), as appears from court case testimony under discovery. You cannot trust the cigarette industry to flag sequelae.
RFK seems to be saying validate the effectiveness and complications with rigorous studies, not biased data.
Yeah, watch what he doing. What he says is worthless. He says all sorts of stuff. Like Sars-CoV-2 was engineered to spare Ashkenazi Jews.
None of the childhood vaccines have ever been tested against a placebo control. None! Most tests they have run [to get the license] have only looked at side effects for a few days-two weeks. So fiddle with the genetics of new born baby and only look for side effects for a few days?
Vaccines are a religion in the US. The “science” backing them is purposefully blind-folded, to just get them licensed and then avoid further study. After all, the US government has given the makers the privilege of killing and maiming children totally without any accountability. This is what economic fascism produces.
Gross exaggeration doesn’t help your case. Some vaccines, some science, some makers are a problem. The process supposedly sets high standards and ensures they are met with ongoing studies. However, that doesn’t always happen. Accountability is the issue.
What is the gross exaggeration? Perhaps you could point to something specific. Maybe explain why drug companies spend so much more time studying the side effects of the drugs for whose harm they are liable than they do for vaccines.
‘None’ is an absolute. None in the recent past, none ever. The conclusion is ALL DRUG COMPANIES are at fault.
And the PROOF… courtesy of AI
Many childhood vaccines have been tested against a placebo control in clinical trials, including vaccines for polio, varicella, and HPV. However, as ethical standards evolved, it became less common to use inert placebos once effective vaccines were available, leading to the use of active comparators instead.
you don’t have to test them against placebo control. you can see efficacy by before and after rates of the illness. for the vaccines that are 95% effective, placebo isn’t accounting for that, and for childhood vaccines, those are given before the child can form a bias based on knowing he got. vaccine.
There is no way to determine the harms a vaccine does without a placebo control. Period. It is unforgivable that they aren’t done.
They are done for all drugs where big Pharma is not given immunity from the harm they do.
From AI, for what it is worth:
Many childhood vaccines have been tested against a placebo control in clinical trials, including vaccines for polio, varicella, and HPV. However, as ethical standards evolved, it became less common to use inert placebos once effective vaccines were available, leading to the use of active comparators instead.
I am astounded that people down vote this.
Thanks for reminding me to downvote it.
he is anti vaccine, he just said that to not appear to be the crazy idiot that he is. if he did vaccinate his kids, it’s because he had to if they were in school.
we do know millions of lives are saved, wha are you talking about?? we look at how many died of some disease before vaccines and after.
if vaccines were harmful the toll would be obvious because everyone takes them. if vaccines cause autism, the rates would be much higher than they are. ditto if thu were toxic. why aren’t I dead form heavy metals poisoning? why isn’t anyone I know?
Before the explosion of vaccines in 1986, autism was rare. There are several good studies now showing the link between autism and vaccines. Or just ask any group of autism parent at random and most will tell you the autism started after a battery of vaccines.
Most of the conditions for which we vaccinate declined precipitously between about 1900-1950 (hygiene, nutrition?), before the introduction of the vaccines.
the definition of autism was radically redefined and expanded. of course there was an explosion of diagnosis. arguably it’s silly to have done that. obviously there’s a difference between someone who is non-verbal and can’t take care of themselves and Elon Musk. both have “autism.”
autism starting after battery of tests– of course because they both happen at around the same time– meaning the ability to test for autism is around the same time the vaccines. 12-18 months. that’s when toddlers start being social and displaying or not displaying detectable social interaction. that’s when parents start to notice their kid ins’t looking them in the face and acting odd so on. You can’t diagnose a 4 month old with autism because they’re not capable of socialization at that age.
lots of things changed over the decades– the food supply, toxins in the air and water. it’s not like vaccines is the only variable. maybe it’s screentime, or any of the the thousands of things that changed.
also don’t discount social changes: one of the most compelling reasons that i read about which makes sense intuitively is older parents: used to be people had kids at 18-19 or early 20s. Nowadays it’s much older. people wait until after college, or until they save enough money, or establish. business and so on. Acceptance of birth control, easy availability of contraceptives, more women in the workforce. there’s a very large correlation between autism and the age of the mother and even more so the father. most of the women i know are professionals or work. some had kid in late 20s, which is historically old, but many had them in id-30s. my sister had her first kid at 38 (he’s fine), and a former colleague had her first kid at 42, her second at 45. they’re both healthy, but the risks are much bigger.
also, in vitro. we now have ways for women to get pregnant that decades ago could not.
In the 1960s we called the kids who had Autism Red Birds.
The only solution is to put an AI in complete charge with no connection or control by humans. Then every decision it makes will not be influenced by the potential to lose votes or who might get hurt by having their fraud income stream cutoff.
AI is, at its heart, a processing of averaging existing information. There is NO innovating. As AI proliferates, it will increasingly average already averaged results. If people did it, it would be called a group think, or hive mind.
AI is currently at the level of a 2 year old. It’s just sucking up all available information.
It will take a few more years in human time (maybe months in AI time) until it starts making independent inferences from the data it and observations it has collected. This is when they become sentient.
Sometimes, what results from computer technology is not what is expected. Social media being the prime example. We don’t understand human creativity, or how humans make inferences, or decide in a blink of on eye.
This applies to humans also. It’s called “unintended consequences”.
FYI: I identify four types of thinking
1) Conditioned thinking — most people here
2) Critical thinking –a few people here
3) Creative thinking — very few here
4) Consequential thinking — very few anywhere
And who writes the software?
Eventually and hopefully, the computers themselves. That will eliminate a lot of human generated errors and security exposures.
Mish, you should stick to economics. From personal experience I see a lot more autism today. In my generation (born in the 60s) we had zero autistic kids among 30+ cousins, and none among neighbors or in school. Yet amongst my cousins’ kids, all of whom had fewer children that their parents, I’m aware of two autistic kids born to two different cousins; there may be more, as I’ve lost contact with some. And we’re not talking just a little odd, we’re talking kids who will need cared for their entire life. That’s not fraud, that’s a tragedy for both the parents and the child.
It is suggestive to me that the elimination of the liability of vaccine makers, the aggressive increase in the vaccine schedule (25+ vaccines in the first 18 months of life recommended in 2020), and the low autistic rate amongst the Amish seems to point to some sort of relation.
You seem so certain it’s not the vaccines, but fraud. Possibly fraud, but you think parents are claiming their kids are autistic just to get a little government money and to have their kids placed in special schools and programs?
There are many differences over a few decades. Not just autism. Diabetes, is another on the increase. Allergies. Earlier puberty….
harmones in milk etc…….can cause earlier puberty for girls and boys……
Hormones in the food chain is one explanation.
It is NOT THE ONLY ONE. Btw, the quotes are from AI
“… certain hormones and chemicals in the food supply, particularly in animal products, can disrupt hormonal balance and potentially lead to early puberty. Diets high in animal protein and fats, as well as exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals, are linked to earlier onset of puberty in children.”
But what if the real cause is something else, as simple as the use of night lights in the kid’s bedroom?
“…exposure to light at night, including from night lights, can affect melatonin levels in children. Light exposure during the night can suppress melatonin production, potentially disrupting sleep patterns….”
And then, there’s the pineal gland….
“Changes in melatonin levels may influence the timing of puberty, as melatonin is involved in regulating sleep patterns, which have been linked to early pubertal development. Insufficient sleep and irregular sleep patterns can contribute to earlier onset of puberty in children.”
diabetes is caused by obesity.
none of what you say is evidence of vaccine causation which has been studied and disproven. if the Amish have less autism it doesn’t say anything about vaccines because that is not the only variable that is different, right? they have less exposure to modern toxins, don’t eat highly processed foods, and live in bucolic settings and so on.
How do you avoid a fraud in a system when there is a veterans health care, medicare, medicaid, private insurance and who knows what else.When we walk in the office we all get the same service but will be charged very different amounts. In order to survive you need to game the system and so it is. And then you layer on it a system that pays some of the most critical players – the primary care physicians and nurses the least so all the specialist can get rich and some probably work far less than primary care staff. Health care in America.
You create incentives for the detection of fraud, DUH!
The mind boggling inflation of costs by the gov/med/edu/pharma/insuro/ cartels has outpaced all others for decades. Most folks are actually ‘disabled’ when it comes to paying these. Add to that the staggering amount of graft, theft, and incompetence, that permeate it all, and it’s easy to see why even the various agencies of gov are in a quandry.
Fraud has been officially The American Way since 2016.
So, what Walz had achieved in Minnesota is something you’d recommend for the entire US?
Even your persona is entirely about Trump. Most of America’s pathologies existed well before Trump and will continue long after he dies.
I didn’t say it started in 2016… I said it was made official.
LOL. That is really proof of your mental illness when it comes to Trump
So according to you, fraud was NOT the American way before Trump became president
I don’t think there are 5 human beings walking the face of the earth that believe that but for someone with TDS on steroids it truly is a mental illness
Remember the Maine!
The real fraud is telling people who contributed $30/month in medicare from their FICA paychecks 30 years ago that they are entitled to unlimited healthcare when they get old. And then they tell us “they paid for it.” Lol!
Sorry but if you made it to 70, you should be completely cut off from tax funded healthcare. It’s a congrats, you won the game of life and now it’s time to let nature take it’s course. Young working people shouldn’t be forced to keep paying higher and higher taxes to take care of people that are about to die anyway.
Our healthcare system is backward, we should spend tax money taking care of young people so they are as healthy as possible when they get old.
0-18 – Free healthcare
18-35 – Mostly free healthcare (child bearing age)
35-55 – 50% subsidized care
55-70 – 25% subsidized care
70+ – you are on your own. Maybe have a hospice and funeral benefit.
It won’t ever happen though, the geriatrics will bleed America dry which is why…
Got exit strategy?
The Medicare withholding is so small, most workers don’t notice.
1.2% employee side + 1.2% employer’s side = 2.4% with no income cap, on every dollar of wages earned from age 15 to forever. It adds up. The problem isn’t so much the cost of basic coverage from age 65 – 80 (or so). The problem is the vast sum the government expends during the last year of life. And much of the cost of medical care is so extreme that it’s fraud by definition. Government healthcare expenditures for the very elderly have to be pared back a lot. That means procedures denied and expensive on-patent medicines denied. Lifestyle choices set most people’s trajectories. Liver transplants for alcoholics shouldn’t be paid by the government. Same with heart transplants for warmonger ex-vice presidents.
Every older person I’ve known has died at home. No vast sums involved.
Obviously your experience applies to the whole world!
And how many now dead seniors have you known that you base this absolute statement on? Five? Ten?
Enough.
Flavia goes to their house and kills them.
I bet my mom ran up 5 million or more to be miserable and basically immobile for her last 10 years. She didn’t wan’t to go though, and I’m thankful I didn’t have to tell her she had to.
You’re an annoying broken record. Get a fucking grip. Thank
God for the mute button.
Meant for mp405 sorry
So I guess ‘death panels’ would be the solution? A lot of posters here seem ready to chair them.
Yes. The panels will be on the 7th floor of a building with no elevator. Anyone who fails to show up is executed.
Let’s not forget the first year of life with remediation of various defects.
“One in every 33 babies born in the United States has a birth defect. Birth defects can be mild or severe and can affect almost any part of the body impacting physical and mental development, appearance, and organ function.” CDC
Now, the shock!
The United States does not have a national birth defects tracking system.
Yes, it’s ridiculous. I’m 81 and enrolled in a Humana Medicare Advantage plan. The premium is $ Zero. The maximum out of pocket is $4500. My wife is on the same plan. My income is high enough that I have to pay an extra premium for basic Medicare, which is deducted from our SS checks. About $250 per month each. Could I afford to pay more? Of course, but the “Affordable Healthcare” premiums (for a high deductible plan) for those not on Medicare are also ridiculous the other way.
I understand the complaints by those who contend that I paid a very small payroll tax during my working years relative to today’s cost of healthcare. That’s true and it’s one of the greatest bargains of a lifetime. On the other hand, neither my wife or I have been hospitalized or have health problems. I could pay cash for any related services that we use now, but not serious surgeries or prolonged cancer treatments. That’s what we pay for as far as I’m concerned.
I don’t disagree with the sentiment. I just went through caring for a now deceased elderly father. He was billed over $500k for medical care over the last 3 years (paid for by Medicare) that extended his life margiinally, but his standard of living collapsed. But its not just the elderly fighting for this, its their children too. Only the best for Mom and Dad! We live in a life at any cost society. You know the falseness of Christianity when Christians will spend any money so that they can live an extra day away from God and Heaven. Finally though, the young aren’t paying more taxes. Not yet anyway.
Let me correct you, it was paid for by the TAXPAYER, not some magical pool of money called medicare. The taxpayer was charged $500k for your now deceased father who, by your words, had a marginal improvement in quality of life before he passed away.
I am truly sorry he passed but it will happen to all of us at some point, making the crew and passengers go financially down with the ship as 80 million elderly die isn’t right by any frame of reference but that’s exactly what happens every day as 5000 boomers die each and every day and many millions more to follow thru 2040.
On the flip side, young people can’t afford kids so we have a demographic death spiral that will destroy this country in due time along with all the social programs.
Need to do a cost benefit analysis and if patient wants to go for broke to preserve a shifty quality of life for a couple of months they should be given the option of buying extra insurance at the onset of collecting Medicare.
Your proposal is exactly what I expect. You worry about how to slice the pizza. If you were smart, you’d think of ways to make pizza cheaper.
You want great pizza, fly to Italy, Japan, or the Netherlands.
You want cheap pizza, fly to Thailand, Africa, or the Philippines.
One way to get affordable medical is import doctors, or offer different levels of service, Oh wait, you want only the best for the same price?
Would you phase it in or drop it on us Jan. 1?
Do you want medicare do go bankrupt sooner or go bankrupt in phases? The answer to that answers your question.
Do you want a workable plan? Then yeah, phases.
I’m not opposed to your idea. I too believe we should incentivize young people to have children. Heck, smart mid to large companies might consider “day care on site” as an incentive for good talent.
But if I’m 70 now, that’s quite a change in the game. I’ll probably revolt at the ballot box.
Current older low-income folk need some sort of a pass before Medicaid threshold (which has to stay for now). For your 35-70yo’s maybe give them age progressive access to an HSA type account (a “no tax” saving vehicle for health costs). Consider allowing Roth-like (tax free) conversions into HSA’s for older folk with wealth.
Consider subsidized plans to incentivize young folks to pursue careers as doctors and nurses.
Upvote simply because you’ve made a constructive suggestion!
This idea does, at the least, address the observation that a *lot* of funding ineffectively goes to the last year of life. The problem being: How do you know this time is that last year of life.
This idea also shines some light on at least one reason why funding health care can be, um, interesting. Do you want this system for your Mother? Let’s face it, when Mom’s involved we tend to want only the best. And since you get what you pay for, expect to pay top dollar.
Here’s another idea: Delay all medical bills for a year. Then, if the recipient dies inside a year, the bill is “forgiven”. What could possibly go wrong?
Lol. There would be no healthcare. I mean, yeah, Gomer Pyle would go to medical school. Dr. Pfc.
What, no mention of the Fed Res bailout of the ‘big silver bank’ on Friday morning? A $17 billion repo to cover their shorts. Likely to be $40 billion by next Friday.
The big question is: Does it migrate thru derivatives? A four quadrillion KaBoom?
Make states pay 100% welfare, but reduce Federal taxes by 90% of that spent on welfare. Prohibit the Feral Reverse from buying state and local bonds. The inability to print money will be the initial check and balance against out of control government spending. Bond vigilantes will be the secondary check and balance on fiscal irresponsibility. Voters will be the 3rd.
Voters have proven themselves gullible fools twice in the last 10 years. They cannot be depended on to vote in their interest.
Monarchy Now!
That’s what the idjits voted for.
What “they” actually don’t care about is financial fraud amongst those at the top.
During the 2008 financial crisis, there was just 1 prosecution and it was tangential to the mortgage fraud that went on.
Instead, all the financial crimes got punished with fines that were a fraction of the ill-gotten gains.
So I suggest we do the same with welfare fraud. If someone fraudulently got $30,000, then they would pay a fine of $30 which is proportional to the financial fraud penalties the big banks paid for the 2008 financial crisis.
Then we’ll have a big bailout like in post-2008 and hand out money to all the welfare fraudsters to reward them further like we did with the banks.
Clearly, the fine should be the amount of the fraud.
Not all fraud is illegal. After decades of “deregulation” and “unleashing the private sector”, its hard to say how much of what was done was actually illegal.
You must be young or don’t remember how they actually went after financial fraud prior to 2008. People went to jail over the 90s Savings & Loan fraud. That wouldn’t happen today.
I have a VIP physician because whenever I went to the Dr for a basic annual physical they would “find something to be concerned about”. It was as if they had to find something so they could write a prescription.
I have always sought second opinions and researched what they told me and found that the side effects of most drug treatments are not worth the risks.
They do have to have a diagnostic code in order to write scrips, or order Medicare-covered tests that are outside the allowed annual preventative tests.
Healthy people don’t need scrips or tests.
Bullcrap! That is like saying your car doesn’t need regular checkups or maintenance as long as it runs.
As you get older, stuff wears out, needs attention before it gets worse. This is one of big problems with US medical care. Most people don’t go to their doctor until they ar ein serious pain and by then, a simple problem has turned into possibly a life ending or permanently crippling problem.
I wasn’t talking about preventive tests – Medicare will cover those, if done per schedule.
I was referring to diagnostic tests – Medicare pays only if the Dr. suspects a problem.
You can always have the test anyway, but you pay for it.
You’re being naïve. Just go into a doctor and claim some pain or symptom that will require the test that you want to take. The doctor doesn’t usually care. They just need appropriate confirmation from you that you have a problem that they can write a prescription or order a test for.
I do also. He’s called Dr. AI (chatGPT).
Have you tried inputting medical tests into chatGPT and asking for the test to be analyzed?
I input all my medical test results into chatGPT. A couple of months ago, I had it evaluate my left shoulder MRI. It did so in plain English, produced a diagram of where my problems were with nice labels and arrows, suggested possible rehab exercises and recommended a formal consult with an orthopedic surgeon. The cost was $0!
I brought this info with me to the consult and was able to have an informed discussion. The surgeon was impressed. He said “if these things learn how to operate, my job is toast!”. [lol]
I’m scheduled for left shoulder rotator cuff surgery in a couple of weeks.
Good strategy and good luck with your surgery!
Condolences. I’ve had two, the right (dominant) in 2003 and the left in 2018, both massive full thickness tears of the Supra with retraction. The recovery is painful. I tore the right again a couple years ago, building a house, full thickness Supra, partial Infra, and subluxation of the biceps tendon. They won’t repair it again, reverse replacement is the only option. I’ve left it untreated and after a year it was completely pain free. I lost significant range of motion but it doesn’t limit me in any way. I built another house last year at 74 YO and just finished framing a big shop solo
Sorry to hear that. I had the same surgery a few years ago. Surgery was basically painless but the recovery was very painful and took months.
Or, as Leonardo Da Vinci already wrote over half a millennium ago:
“Strive to maintain your health, and you will succeed all the better the more you stay away from doctors”
Some things simply don’t change.
Mike. You said
“We need to undo welfare as we know it. But that will not happen until states have a huge incentive to stop fraud.”
Totally agree. How about making the states pay all of it? Most of it? More of it?
So it is obvious now that this has now turned into many states are using the federal matching money for dare I say their own political agenda? Maybe that is a stretch but they obviously care more about non citizens than they do their own constituents
That is true in Minnesota and NY
This wouldn’t have something to so with how we count every person whether legal or illegal in the census does it? You bet it does
Absolute disgrace what is going on in Minnesota. And you wait, NY will come calling because NY City is bankrupt and so are many of the small cities they sent the migrants too.
And to Phil from CT and too many others that apparently makes me a Trump Nazi racist.
Whatever.
Just more deflection from the voters of the party that almost gave us a VP that is responsible for this .
$9 Billion. When does that start to count ?
Simple. Require states to guarantee that claims are fraud-free, and, if more than say 3%, the state is responsible for the full amount (not just the fraud, all of it)
Then, go find the fraud–but finding it is the problem, except when it is in your face, as in the case of Minnesota. The problem is liberals only find fraud when it concerns certain groups. The rest get a pass.
And conservatives are even worse. See Trump’s pardons.
Can we fix this dam problem first Jon? Man oh man lets just ignore what a future VP of the United States is ultimately responsible for and this fraud is going to NON CITIZENS THAT DO NOT DESERVE IT.
You go tell that to the truly needy citizens in Minnesota that now cannot get their benefits as they truly are entitled to but hey let’s keep deflecting.
It is possible this money went back to Somalia and to a terrorist group
The amount of money paid is close to the GDP of the country of Somalia. But hey, move along nothing to see here the republicans have done worse is your delusional take on this?
Holy shit you guys are unbelievable. I would have expected better out of you that is something Trumpedo would say
Good point. Some mechanism in place where the federal government can audit this annually before they match or pay the Feds 50% share
Now in the real world that can’t happen on a case by case basis but at least annually have the audit and the fraud uncovered gets subtracted for the current year and at some point, the states will clean this shit up. We hope
There isn’t enough trained peoplepower to do such auditing and given government/legal procedures, it would take years to effect convictions.
The only way to do serious auditing is va AI. But an AI can only show discovered problems.
Humans still have to do the prosecution and it is clear that isn’t going to happen in many cases, as the bleeding hearts worry about how cutting off funding, even fraudulent funding, will affect people, maybe pushing them into hunger or homelessness.
There are a great many seniors who would love to be useful. A smart nation would find ways of tapping into their skills, knowledge etc.
I’m a senior and look how useful I am making myself here!
The COVID vaccine was a medical miracle. The only worthwhile thing Trump has done in his entire miserable life. The mRNA technology is brimful with life saving potential.
It indeed shows a great amount of potential, and also the most awful people in America refuse to use it… Win/win
Turns out being a stupid asshole impacts one’s life span. Sometimes the indifferent universe metes out a little justice.
It shows potential for unrealized damages. Messing around with the inner workings of cells, which is what mRNA shots do, is a recipe for big problems.
he human body and its systems (such as the immune system) has developed over millions of years. If using mRNA to build simple virus targets in cells were a valid process, our bodies would have developed this approach itself way long ago.
I expect you’d say the same about blood transfusions when leeches were in use.
Also, the human body would’ve developed an immune response to cancer. Engage brain before commenting.
Damn these leopards eating my face, why hasn’t my body devised a defense?
The lesson is don’t be stupid and play around with leopards. Those who do deserve to have their faces ripped out.
Cancer and other disease are one way that Nature tries to keep human population under control.
Too many people think their investments should never drop in value and they should be immune to all diseases.
Lol, you can skip the tech, no worries.
You forgot the sarcasm tag.
View not entirely shared e.g. by millions of DeathVax(TM) toxic gene injection victims worldwide and relatives of deceased.
“Covid Shots are Indistinguishable From Bio-Chemical WeaponsMy written testimony for the case in the Netherlands against the orchestrators of the global democide falsely presented as the “Covid-19 pandemic response”.”
https://sashalatypova.substack.com/p/my-testimony-for-the-case-in-the?
Not a single person provably died from getting an mRNA vaccine against COVID. Not saying that some didn’t, just that no one has been able to prove it was the cause, which is difficult after death. You would need a contingent of people seriously harmed by the virus but who didn’t die so that you can see the pathway to death. And that just doesn’t exist. But Trump assumed that some would die from an unproven vaccine, calculating that dramatically more would die from COVID itself.
Save your breath!
The kooks are back!
Seriously though, I support your hard work to kill off the anti science magas.
Trump did nothing but slap his name on it, and the suggest injecting household cleaners as a cure.
Yep it was a terrific idea to effectively skip a 5 year or more phase 3 long term safety and efficacy trial to coerce millions of people into a treatment using completely novel never before used technology for a disease that posed little threat to the vast majority of them. Its truly water into wine stuff.
It’s not like MAGA are going to be able to afford high tech healthcare anyway…. Might as well convince them it’s useless. If God wants them alive, he’ll deal with it.
mRNA technology has been in development since the 1970’s per John Hopkins.
Yes and we have been fooling around with uranium for over a century. It would still be a bad idea to skip long term safety and efficacy trials, and coerce people into injecting uranium for the first time in history.
And there are a subset of crazed people who still can’t let go!
Smaller government will make it better.
Responsible government makes it better. Smaller is not necessarily more responsible.
Responsible govt is a figment of the imagination of a 1950’s civics teacher. Maybe back when the US had annual elections on the state level in the very earliest days. If you want it to be less corrupt, make govt as small as you can. Yes, I know; that’s about as much of a dream as “responsible govt”.
Bush II initiated stupid wars in the Middle East that caused on the order of a million innocent civilian deaths and deepened US debt on the order of $10 trillion. How many US soldiers lost legs or arms as a result? Let me know when anyone will be held responsible for that, Flingel.
Mish said “One of my suggestions was to give states a fixed block amount to spend, ending Federal involvement.”
I think this assumes politicians and bureaucrats at the state level are somehow superior to those at the federal level.
My solution would be basic auditing processes. If an MD is diagnosing an expensive condition at x% above the norm, send y% of his patients to another doctor to test the validity of the diagnosis. If found guilty of fraud, make the punishment as severe as reasonably possible and publicize the conviction loudly.
A better solution would be to use ‘senior secret agents’–fake IDs, fake sickness… document crime without entrapment.
Otherwise, the inherent presumption is the doctor acts alone in fraud. I’m betting 50% have patients directly involved in the fraud.
Obviously a great option too. I wonder why a couple of folks on the net can fire out decent solutions all day when hundreds of elected officials, including a President, his cabinet and an army of bureaucrats can’t. Maybe they’re paid not to?
More likely they are not smart enough. Low IQ is a government requirement.
VOTES! They want to stay employed and on the political money train/dole.
Flagging this stuff for further investigation would be a great use case for ai.
It would be, if you asked the right questions.
Now, why aren’t the right questions being asked using existing databases? Because of who is adversely affected, perhaps?
Don’t forget about the disability fraud from veterans, in particular, those also drawing retirement. These individuals also get jobs. Why couldn’t a W-2 or 1099MISC raise a red flag as to continued percentage eligibility?
I don’t know of any complete solution. However perhaps mandatory second opinions for either recurring or expensive treatments. The second opinion would need to be from a choice of three assigned doctors not affiliated with either the diagnosing doctor or the patient. Also giving rewards to patients that discover fraud.
I understand Republican’s desire for lower taxes but I don’t understand their cuts to enforcement such as the IRS (although this wouldn’t necessarily help in medical fraud except on the income side). More enforcement and greater penalties (such as confiscation of assets after conviction) might help. Plus one would think that AI should be able to look at the records of billings and come up with suspicious levels of payments to individual doctors.
A more informed populace would help (I definitely wouldn’t want chemo treatments for a non-existent cancer) but that is a long term solution and requires solving many more problems.
“It is foolish to be on a total anti-vax campaign.”
Agreed.
But where to start?
Fraud has been rampant in the big pharma / regulatory / science publication industry for a long time.
There is a lot of work to do.
One recent publication…
Not only do the vaccinated experience far higher rates of chronic disease than the unvaccinated across all 12 comparison studies, but they now also appear to die at higher rates.
https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202512.1865
New York city personal injury lawyers together with doctors in the “business of medicine” are sucking out fraudulent state and federal government health care payments far, far beyond anywhere else.