| Medicaid is the 800-pound gorilla in state and local spending, and the waste, fraud and abuse in the nation's most-expensive-by-far Medicaid program is a perennial political pinata for those who say they want to reduce government spending.
Somehow, little gets done, and some Medicaid contractors continue to get richer than ever.
Case in point -- turncoat Democrat Pedro Espada of the Bronx, who has single-handedly thrown a monkey wrench into the state Senate's ability to do basic legislative work.
Espada makes $100K or so from his part-time job screwing up the Senate, but his big money comes from being CEO of the Soundview Health Network in the Bronx, which paid him $460,000 in 2007, according to Jim Odato's story in Thursday's Albany Times Union.
Messy details, below. |
| The story is mostly about how Soundview is seriously and serially delinquent in paying employment-related taxes -- federal and state income tax withholding and unemployment insurance taxes, mostly, adding up to a current delinquency of $347,000.
The story states that Espada "has a history of tax delinquency."
And so does his company:
Many more liens have been lodged against Soundview and its parent corporation over the years, tax department spokesman Thomas Bergin said. "They do have a history of this kind of thing," he said.
In an attempted defense, Soundview's CFO told the Times Union that
Like other health care organizations, we have cash flow issues. Waiting to get paid by Medicaid. We don't always pay all of our bills on time because of these cash flow issues.
About a quarter of Soundview's $15 million in annual revenue comes from Medicaid, which translates into about $115,000 of Espada's 2007 salary coming from Medicaid.
Espada has been eager to talk to any camera or reporter about how he thinks he's the Senate President Pro Tem, but he refused to talk to Odato about his obviously self-interested "management" of Soundview.
The story also notes that:
Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is looking into whether Espada improperly benefitted in his successful primary election against incumbent Democrat Sen. Efrain Gonzalez last year because Soundview employees and resources were used on the campaign.
And, you may recall, the real reason Espada screwed his fellow Senate Democrats, and the state, is that his request for millions in questionable member items related to his Bronx health care businesses was rejected:
More recently, Espada was denied by Senate Democratic Leader Malcolm Smith his request for about $2 million in state earmarks, so-called member items in New York, for non-profit organizations created in the past few months that seemed to have links to Espada's friends and his 31-year-old health care non-profit.
Espada's health care/Medicaid profiteering is actually a much bigger deal than his sinister role in the current Senate snafu.
Because getting health care/insurance right, at the national level, will involve more than a robust public option.
It will also necessarily involve rooting the corruption out of health care delivery organizations run by the likes of Pedro Espada.
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