Subject: Medicare Fraud, that is Fraud BY the Social Security Administration

(c) 2003, Mike Barkley
From: "Mike Barkley" , mjbarkl@inreach.com
To: Nightly@NBC.com
Subject: Medicare Fraud, that is Fraud BY the Social Security Administration
Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2003 18:15:17 -0800

As on tonight's NBC Nightly News, we all hear stories about Medicare & Social Security Fraud. We never hear about fraud committed BY the Social Security Administration because the victims don't have the SSA's clout.

In the mid 1980s, the SSA and State of California conspired to boot off the Social Security Disability Rolls (that is, SSDI, which is an entitlement based on earnings just like retirement, unlike SSI which is welfare) victims of long-term wasting diseases who had problems diagnosing and proving their disease. Included was my wife, Jeanne, who had been on SSDI for about a decade without knowing what her problem really was. At the time she lost her SSDI I had submitted to the State's reviewing officers a list of her symptoms, which turned out to be a classic description of Multiple Sclerosis for which she was diagnosed in 1998 by Kaiser, the same (flawed, bungling) HMO that had been hers since her infancy in the late 1940s. The SSA knew Jeanne had MS, but we didn't, and thus SSA was eager to boot her off the rolls. Unable to defend against the SSA's actions, she lost her entitlement. She's now in a wheelchair, close to bedridden, losing her ability to think and to write and most other skills, and without funds except for our investments.

How about a little equal time here. SSA is not always the victim, there are times when the SSA is the conspirator. If you explore the newsgroups for the various long-term wasting diseases, MS, ALS, Fibromyalgia, and so on, you will see instance after instance where SSA is the aggressor. And yet organizations like NBC News ALWAYS take SSA's side in their coverage.

--Mike Barkley, 161 N. Sheridan Ave. #1, Manteca, CA 95336 (H) 209/823-4817
mjbarkl@inreach.com
No more excuses! - Cure Multiple Sclerosis now!

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