The Perversion of Fiscal Federalism: Daniel L. Hatcher ’ s, “ The Poverty Industry: The Exploitation of America ’ s Most Vulnerable Citizens ”

By DAVID INTROCASO It’s not that we do not know that Medicaid and Medicare fraud is rampant.  A 2012 estimate by the former CMS administrator, Donald Berwick, estimated the amount at $100 billion annually.  Nor are we unaware, that drug companies routinely pay massive fines for illegal business practices: eight firms have paid in sum over $11.2 billion in civil and criminal fines since 2010.  Beyond these issues what is possibly most disturbing about the numerous inter-related health and human services issues “The Poverty Industry” raises is Professor Hatcher’s detailed discussion of how state human service agencies, in partnership with private contractors, have monetized poverty or turned vulnerable populations into a source of state revenue.  As Hatcher says in his introduction, states are, “strip-mining billions in federal aid and other funds from impoverished families, abused and neglected children and the disabled and elderly poor. ”  Hatcher, a law professor at the University of Baltimore, is largely concerned with state abuse or misuse of federal foster care (Title IV-E) and federal Medicaid funding.  What drives abuse, he argues in this thoroughly researched work, is rampant self-interest, that has resulted in “poverty’s iron triangle” in which self-dealing states and state agencies sustain or gain power by furthering mutually beneficial relationships with business constituents who, being fare more resourced and organized, outmane...
Source: The Health Care Blog - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs