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Ride-along on the waaah-mbulance
Jan. 15th, 2012 01:26 pmInteresting exposé in our local paper about Rural/Metro, a multiregional provider of ambulance service in this community (in the city of Buffalo, although not our town) and many other places in the state and nation. It piqued my curiosity, among other reasons, because a longtime Friend of mine from here and elsewhere used to work for them when she lived here, and I'd heard more than a few war stories consistent with this sort of thing.
While the article goes into mostly local issues of overbilling and aggressive collection techniques, it also relies on histories of similar incidents (some of them reduced to court or regulatory settlements) in other parts of the country. As egregious as it all is, though, here's the one sentence that REALLY got me:
Before its acquisition by the private equity firm Warburg Pincus in 2011, Rural/Metro was a publicly traded company and provided investors with the frank unvarnished assessments that the Securities and Exchange Commission requires.
Back that up a second. (That's a sort-of homage to radio commentator, and fellow Cornell journalist alum, Dave Ross, who for years has had a CBS radio feature titled News Read Real Slow.) A private equity firm- you know, vulture-types like Romney's Bane of Existence Capital- has gotten into the public emergency medical services business, and by taking the company private, have effectively prevented their municipal clients from access to any information about what they've been charged with, investigated for, or might otherwise have on their records.
Isn't it strange, after hearing from the One Percent for the past three years about how government-funded health care is an unaffordable bugaboo that we should be staying out of, they're now betting the other way with their own money and bellying right up to the government bar to get in on the action?
Probably this is why we're told not to believe that Obamacare can really work to save (rather than cost) money in the long run, as the Congressional Budget Office confirmed it will, by ridding the current system of waste and fraud. The problem is, too much of corporate America is IN on the waste and fraud. Just watch a day of cable television and see the ads for scooters, and overpriced meds and equipment for frequently phantom conditions, all touted as being Medicare eligible! And now here's a bag of billionaire money, getting bigger and baggier, on the backs of patients who were never served (or at least under-served), and in some cases, into the pockets of their survivors after they died on the back of the meat wagon.
I used to find it ironic that, back in Ithaca, the primary ambulance company was owned by the same family that operated a downtown funeral home. Bang's Ambulance- either way we get your business! This, though? Not so funny.
While the article goes into mostly local issues of overbilling and aggressive collection techniques, it also relies on histories of similar incidents (some of them reduced to court or regulatory settlements) in other parts of the country. As egregious as it all is, though, here's the one sentence that REALLY got me:
Before its acquisition by the private equity firm Warburg Pincus in 2011, Rural/Metro was a publicly traded company and provided investors with the frank unvarnished assessments that the Securities and Exchange Commission requires.
Back that up a second. (That's a sort-of homage to radio commentator, and fellow Cornell journalist alum, Dave Ross, who for years has had a CBS radio feature titled News Read Real Slow.) A private equity firm- you know, vulture-types like Romney's Bane of Existence Capital- has gotten into the public emergency medical services business, and by taking the company private, have effectively prevented their municipal clients from access to any information about what they've been charged with, investigated for, or might otherwise have on their records.
Isn't it strange, after hearing from the One Percent for the past three years about how government-funded health care is an unaffordable bugaboo that we should be staying out of, they're now betting the other way with their own money and bellying right up to the government bar to get in on the action?
Probably this is why we're told not to believe that Obamacare can really work to save (rather than cost) money in the long run, as the Congressional Budget Office confirmed it will, by ridding the current system of waste and fraud. The problem is, too much of corporate America is IN on the waste and fraud. Just watch a day of cable television and see the ads for scooters, and overpriced meds and equipment for frequently phantom conditions, all touted as being Medicare eligible! And now here's a bag of billionaire money, getting bigger and baggier, on the backs of patients who were never served (or at least under-served), and in some cases, into the pockets of their survivors after they died on the back of the meat wagon.
I used to find it ironic that, back in Ithaca, the primary ambulance company was owned by the same family that operated a downtown funeral home. Bang's Ambulance- either way we get your business! This, though? Not so funny.