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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: i-node who wrote (638773)	12/10/2011 1:36:38 PM
From: bentway	Respond to of 1583514

Wall Street in Washington: Insider Access By ADAM ZAGORIN Nearly a dozen senior staff at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the giant agency that administers hundreds of billions in federal health care dollars, had been called to a meeting. After a discussion with five Wall Street professionals that lasted nearly two hours, one senior CMS analyst filed an ethics complaint that later went to the Office of Inspector General (OIG) of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). His beef: that a handful of deep-pocketed investors had won a private hearing to probe whether the agency would allow Medicare reimbursement for specific medical devices manufactured by companies in which they already held a stake or might put new money. The market for one device, already approved for Medicare, was rapidly heading toward $1 billion annually; the agency’s impending decision to reimburse competing devices could have major market impact, a shift potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars. “This meeting forced agency staff to redirect their attention toward a select group from Wall Street, when neither competing investors nor patient-oriented stakeholders were present,” the whistleblower told the Project On Government Oversight (POGO). “They got to probe us for hours in private about what we planned to do and how we approached procedures for reimbursing medical devices, the mechanics and psychology of CMS decision-making, in general and with respect to these specific devices.” The meeting was set up by a former CMS employee working for the Marwood Group, an asset manager that counsels big health-care industry investors, the whistleblower says. The firm’s president is Edward “Ted” Kennedy Jr., son of the late Massachusetts senator and a major supporter of President Obama’s health care reforms, and includes Kennedy cousins Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Stephen E. Smith, Jr., as senior advisors. The firm’s website highlights its staff recruitment among Congressional aides, the Executive Office of the President and CMS. One CMS veteran who joined Marwood after the 2009 meeting with Wall Streeters is Barry Straub, the agency's former Chief Medical Officer, who is also an expert on Medicare reimbursement, the website says. A company spokesman had no comment. A supervisor at CMS’s Coverage Advisory Group, which decides which services the agency will pay for, also helped organize the session with investors. The whistleblower says he was told by a supervisor that such get-togethers are “a routine practice at CMS.” At the time, in 2009, CMS’s top administrator had an aide with the title, “capital markets advisor,” tasked with tracking investment community activity in Washington and elsewhere. At the investor meeting, Wall Streeters asked a range of questions “about confidential CMS information.” The whistle blower says he does not believe they received illegal disclosures, though they peppered CMS analysts with queries about the agency’s decision-making process and other sensitive matters which, if answered, could have violated the law or related regulations that bar the sharing of internal deliberations and decisions. The whistleblower first filed his complaint in April 2009. He was terminated in 2011 for being disloyal to the agency mission after he made a series of internal protests, including the objection to what he calls a pattern and practice of unfettered access to CMS staff by Wall Street investors. He says he is currently fighting his dismissal through all available legal and administrative channels. Contacted by POGO, CMS would not “comment on pending personnel matters.” A spokesperson added that, “After a thorough review, the Ethics Office determined that for the meeting in question, there was no misuse of government time and resources, and that the meeting was held consistent with agency rules on contacts between CMS staff and members of the public.” CMS does have a set of “Open Door” policies and affords a variety of avenues for public access. The disclosure of payments to physicians and teaching hospitals by pharmaceutical companies and other interests are required under President Obama’s health reform. In practice, however, the public, not to mention competing investors and stakeholders, rarely get the kind of information and insight available in meetings like the whistleblower described. Tip of an Iceberg... pogo.org

To: i-node who wrote (638773)	12/10/2011 3:34:57 PM
From: J_F_Shepard	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1583514

Liberal billionaires tend to give their money to philanthropic causes...Gates, Buffet, and probably Turner eliminate religious organizations.... Gates has given more than 26 billion dollars.... "Examples of areas the foundation does not fund: Direct donations or grants to individuals Projects addressing health problems in developed countries Political campaigns and legislative lobbying efforts Building or capital campaigns Projects that exclusively serve religious purposes" gatesfoundation.org Conservative billionaires tend to give their money to advance their political philosophy and to move the country to the right...... old.mediatransparency.org