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- Message-ID: <POLITICS%92122811395131@UCF1VM.CC.UCF.EDU>
- Newsgroups: bit.listserv.politics
- Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 11:31:00 EST
- Sender: Forum for the Discussion of Politics <POLITICS@UCF1VM.BITNET>
- From: "Peter J. Schledorn" <UNCPJS@UNC.OIT.UNC.EDU>
- Subject: Re: Home ownership among the poor es
- Comments: To: Forum for the Discussion of Politics <POLITICS@UCF1VM.CC.UCF.EDU>
- Lines: 42
-
- > > Which leads certain hospitals to spend medicaid dollars on Super Bowl
- > >tickets....
- >
- > As I understand it medicaid is paid out on a per-use basis, not as a
- > general lump sum aid to facilities, which would allow a discretionary
- > use of funding. What I am driving at is that there are no over-allocation
- > of funds that causes a surplus that the hospitals find they need to
- > "use or lose;" what we are talking about is the presentation of
- > fraudulent claims. If this fraud is as widespread as you intimate
- > then the FBI ought to get on it and start busting some hospital
- > administrators and doctors, right? Who knows, maybe it would
- > revolutionize the prison health care system...not to mention
- > all of those community service hours that could be put to good
- > use by VA hospitals and inner city clinics... B)
-
- An additional detail. In the first post that mentioned this, Brett'
- said that these funds were overhead money. Now, overhead funds are
- intended as a reimbursement to an institution for costs already incurred
- that allowed them to perform a service for the government (or, really,
- any funding agency). I don't know how it's supposed to work with
- Medicare, but for research grants overhead funds are supposed to meet
- an institution's cost for keeping up the library, running the personnel
- and other administrative departments, and so forth. The point is that
- overhead is supposed to be a reimbursement, not a payment for services.
- That should considerably loosen the restrictions on how the money is
- spent. An analogy: if your institution advances you the money to attend
- a conference, you'd better spend it on attending the conference. If it
- simply pays you back the money you've already spent to attend, they've
- got no legitimate beef if you choose to spend the money on something
- else. So maybe this isn't as questionable as it seems at first glance.
-
- That being said, it strikes me as dumb for any institution to spend
- money on Super Bowl tickets.
-
- Just to muddy the waters a bit--sorry if this point has already come up.
-
- Best,
- Peter
-
- > >Brett'
- >
- > -other Andy
-