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Political Corruption In New York State
By
Ana Nomis |
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State officials take down a respected health care facility because they were too successful.
Despite the recent atrocities in New York that caused the removal of a now former Governor, Eliot Spitzer, what most people are unaware of is that the corruption doesn't stop there. The State of New York has been trying to lower its Medicaid spending for a while. The Medicaid system provides a health care benefit to the indigent population, funded in part by the State. However, behind closed doors, the State recognizes that the indigent population is predominately a population that doesn't vote, so depriving them of benefits usually doesn't have many consequences to politicians.
When figuring the majority of the Medicaid expense, it doesn't take too much to determine that most of the money is going toward paying for substance abuse treatment. Statistics indicate that a large portion of the Medicaid population require some type of alcohol and/or drug treatment. Therefore, State politicians found that an inordinate amount of Medicaid dollars were going to substance abuse treatment facilities. These facilities aren't billing Medicaid illegally. It just so happens that a great number of patients covered under the Medicaid program require alcohol/drug treatment.
Since politicians are not known for their business skills or ability to properly manage money, New York State officials, in their infinite wisdom, felt that the only way to control Medicaid spending was the take down the medical facilities that were billing the most. It didn't matter to the State that these facilities were billing Medicaid legally, nor did it matter to them that patients were actually getting better by receiving the treatment services that they needed. Behind the scenes, the State launched a diabolical plan to systematically destroy large alcohol and drug treatment centers in New York in an effort to cut spending.
Crossings Recovery Centers was one of the State's victims. Crossings was the largest provider of outpatient substance abuse treatment on Long Island up until 2006 when the New York State of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services (OASAS) conjured up some bogus charges, devising an excuse to shut the agency down. Up until then, Crossings had not had any blemishes on its record in the almost 2 decades that their clinics had been in existence. In an effort to justify their unlawful actions, the State of New York had to claim that Crossings had numerous violations but the fact is, Crossings was targeted in accordance with the State's efforts to bring down agencies that were successful.
Frank Buonanotte, the former CEO of Crossings Recovery Centers is in the process of suing OASAS, the State of New York and Henry Zwack, who was the State's spin doctor. At the time, Zwack was the head of the General Counsels office at OASAS. Prior to that, Zwack was ousted from his position as County Executive of Rensselaer County as a result of several counts of corruption. Henry Zwack had 15 indictments under his belt before he participated in the deliberate destruction of Crossings. Now Zwack is a judge in the New York State Court of Claims. Who knows how much havoc he's causing there.
Buonanotte won his first bit of success in his lawsuit against the State when a Federal Court judge dismissed the State's motion to dismiss the case. The Judge felt that there was enough evidence of wrong doing on the State's part to proceed with a trial. Buonanotte expects depositions to begin this summer and plans on being in front of a jury in the fall of 2008. Buonanotte is suing Henry Zwack and the former Commissioner of OASAS, Shari Noonan in Federal Court and is suing OASAS in the New York State Court of Claims. The irony of this case is that Buonanotte's lawsuit against the State is to the tune of $90 Million which is far more than Crossings had ever billed Medicaid for treatment.
Neither Frank Buonanotte nor Crossings were charged with Medicaid fraud. Only petty paper violations that Buonanotte describes as "dotting i's and crossing t's" citations. Such citations could be found in any medical facility across the State. It also appears as if the State of New York has targeted other substance abuse treatment agencies in the same corrupt manner in which they did Crossings. There is now a 6-8 week waiting period before patients can be treated at any of the existing alcohol and drug treatment centers on Long Island. Oddly enough, no one has been able to realize that this is the reason why DWIs and alcohol/drug related crimes and deaths are at an all-time high on Long Island.
Everyone wants their taxes to be lower but at what expense? Another question is how much more will it cost taxpayers in terms of crime and wrongful deaths to have alcoholics and drug addicts go untreated? An even better question is how much will it cost taxpayers to pay for the State's unlawful actions if Buonanotte wins his lawsuit?
Author's Bio
Ana Nomis is a staff writer for the Long Island Current.
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