Medicare Fraud Case

* It’s one thing for the Ventura County taxpayers to pay back the $15.3 million in Medicare overpayments. But it’s absurd for one taxpayer-funded organization (the feds) to “fine” another taxpayer-funded organization (the county). How does ripping the taxpayer off twice prevent recurrence of errors such as these? Only out-of-control bureaucrats and lawyers could dream up such schemes!

The only justifiable fix for this matter is to identify the bureaucratic and political culprits, fine them and write off the rest. The people must not be taxed twice for the questionable “medical” services rendered to relatively few residents.

ROGER G. PARISEAU JR.

Oxnard

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* Re “County to Delve Into Medicare Fraud Case,” July 27.

I read with considerable interest this article, in which the U.S. attorney’s office said the county fraudulently overbilled Medicare. Although that may be true, it does not explain the whole truth.

In my judgment, this case is not a matter of fraudulent or faulty billing but of a power struggle: psychiatrists and their supporters versus clinical social workers, psychologists and nurses. I was a participant in a similar struggle some 30 years ago in Los Angeles. Then psychiatrists battled nurses, psychiatric technicians and therapists with the accusation that a hospital (Resthaven Community Mental Health Center) was negligent in documenting patient care and careless administrating medications. Washington investigated and found the accusations true, at the same time complimenting the hospital for revolutionary methods in patient care. But the hospital lost federal funding and was closed a short time later. Historically, it was one of the first incidents when mental patients were thrown in the streets. We cannot win.

The problem is that psychiatrists--the traditional psychiatric establishment--jealously protect their power and their income, and when they see danger to their interests, they act. Unfortunately, it’s the patients and the progress in mental health delivery that suffer. And that is what basically is happening in Ventura County--the struggle for power in mental health delivery. And as usual, the psychiatrists won. However, the struggle is not over. It must go on for the mentally ill. Hopefully, someday the psychiatric establishment will realize it too and join the mental health movement.

ADOLPH DONINS

Oxnard