The disabled bring joy and happiness to their caregivers ...

Post Reply New Topic

See.

We do have a reason to exist

(bitter sarcasm)


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/02/nyregion/for-executives-at-group-homes-generous-pay-and-little-oversight.html

Sounds like Medicaid fraud. No wonder New York is going bankrupt. On a positive note, looks like the Levy brothers are providing the community with adequate services by non abusive people. This is rare and should be cherished.

I thought I'd throw this out there to show where some of Medicaid's money comes from:

http://www.dads.state.tx.us/services/es ... /faqs.html

I have nothing against medicaid, just medicaid fraud. Verdandi, how is the state going to collect money on the estate of a poor person? The poor are who typically receive medicaid.

Fraud hurts all medicaid recepients by adding to the unsustainability of the program. It's more important to serve well than to get paid well. Without this attitude, it and the healthcare industry in general are doomed to experience financial crises.

I think you misunderstood the point of my posting that. I didn't do it to accuse Medicaid of fraud (although I will say I do think there is something wrong with taking people's property like that, for a lot of reasons).

The point is that some of Medicaid's funding comes from taking people's stuff, and then so much of it goes into these two guys' coffers.

I misunderstood, Verdandi. I thought you meant Medicaid funds itself this way and is sustainable because of it. I am not picking on Medicaid specifically. I think the health care industry in general is going to have fiscal problems for the foreseeable future.

I still don't understand how people can fund medicaid through their estates. It's the first I heard of it. I thought states were reimbursed through the federal government. Most who qualify for medicaid do not possess significant estates.

I don't know if the organization run by the Levy brothers provides high quality care. Hopefully this is the case. I do have issues with the salaries, regardless. It seems that compassion is monetized as readily as any other human endeavor. In the present environment, the cost of health care across the board is rising faster than our economic system can tolerate. Such profiteering is at least part of the problem.

Considering how woefully underpaid service providers usually are, I find it hard to condemn these brothers. It sounds like a lot of the money they make is going towards providing good-quality services, and people tend to care more about doing well at a job that's well-paying. Plus someone who's stressing out about cash is more likely to take their stress out on vulnerable people.

I think more places should be run like that. Or better yet, increase the funding so you don't have to cheat the system to pay your employees well.

I'm familiar with that place. It's right near where I grew up. Plus, I always see them mentioned in "Advance" magazine advertising for speech pathologists. It's great that they care for their residents so well, but there's no way it's right for them to use public money to pay their children's college expenses.

This.

A for profit enterprise can't easily do that. How does a non-profit pull it off?

If the brothers pay the staffs of the actual group homes well, then perhaps. But if they are paying themselves 1,000,000 per year, then the front line workers had better be higher than average on the pay scale. Otherwise they are profiting excessively from public money. Medicaid comes right from your taxes. If they want to make big bucks, do it as a for profit venture.

OK - that's an average of something over 100 million dollars a year - and later years are probably higher than earlier years in that decade. How much would they get paid in the same positions at a for profit, $100,000,000 +/year company? I don't know the answer to this question, but if it is "more" or "about the same," I don't see a huge problem. It seems reasonable for them to receive "market value" for their work.

Having the company buy a condo for their college student daughter, on the other hand . . .

Sometimes non profits will cut the board members salary depending on the amount of annual donations. How odd that a board member would use the non profit to pay for their child's graduate school unless the child is disabled, which wouldbe sorta appropriate here, depending on what types of services it provides.

Unfortunately non profits have trouble paying bills before any restructuring is done. If they haven't reached that point, the board members feel entitled to take and take. Sometimes they justify this taking by saying the money is a loan that will be paid back in full. How often are the loans actually collected is the question.

Comparing non-profit and for-profit salaries is not valid. For-profit companies have a fiduciary duty to benefit stake holders, whether partners, owners or stock holders and compensation reflects the ability of executives to meet those responsibilities. Non-profit entities were conceived as entities for servicing needs not typically amenable to business. What is happening is that non-profit entities can provide a vehicle for enrichment of the principles without having the direct fiduciary responsibilities of a for profit entity. When a non-profit is essentially nothing more that a way to circumvent taxation, it undermines the concept of entities whose existence is service instead of profit.

Additionally, this particular organization is being funded with tax dollars via medicaid. Government programs are not intended for the enrichment of individuals. If the men wish to become wealthy, then run a for profit organization with all the inherent risks and benefits.

Even though it is a non profit, the board members still get salaries. This is standard practice.

Of course the get salaries.

But there assumption that a non-profit salary should be equivalent to a for-profit salary is based on faulty logic. It is really just elaborate self justification. There is an increasingly pervasive attitude that financial remuneration is the only valid measure of worth for an activity. Non-profits were conceived as a way of providing legal structures to service entities that traditionally could not form viable business models. But these service entities are recognized as important and worthy endeavors, so taxation policies were modified to allow them space in the economic universe to operate without the constraints of generating profits. Implicit in this favorable tax status was an understanding that personal enrichment was not part of the intent of the organization. But increasingly, non-profits are seen as just another legal entity for the aggregation of wealth. Some choose to become a non-profit as a business model, not as a service to the society.

The message the Levy brother's are sending me is that the services needed by the disabled will not be provided unless someone is able to get paid a million dollars per annum. Implicit in this is that the disabled aren't worth helping except for a price.

Is there NOTHING worth doing except for a price? Are we so tied to money that this is our only remaining measure of value?