There are few felons who can top the pain caused by so many victims as Dr. Farid Fata, who is facing a demand by prosecutors for a 175-year sentence for sending hundreds of healthy patients into unnecessary cancer treatments.
Some 553 patients were given the unnecessary cancer treatments to 553 patients before Fata was arrested in 2013. He was accused of $35 million in Medicare fraud. He pleaded guilty in the fall to fraud, money laundering and conspiracy charges.
Absent the plea, some of the cases might have produced some challenging evidentiary burdens. Some of the patients had cancer but were over treated while some received the wrong treatment for their type of cancer. Those could be defended as malpractice but not fraud. However, there appeared to be enough evidence of knowing fraud to force Fata to throw in the towel on trial.
The trial itself would have allowed patients to recount how they suffered organ damage as a result of unnecessary treatment. Moreover, these victims had to tell their loved ones that they had cancer and prepare their families for their possible deaths. One man lost a testicle and came close to kidney failure due to the unnecessary treatment.
What most concerns me are accounts of people complaining as early as 2010 with no action taken to shutdown this doctor.
In the meantime, the defense counsel is seeking a limit on victim’s statements for sentencing — a difficult proposition for a court in cutting off the right of victims to speak about their loss and pain.
Another interesting aspect of this case is how to handle the civil liability. He presumably had insurance coverage but the sheer number of cases presents a daunting problem for courts. This would seem a good case for special management like a mass tort situation where a court can administer the claims while reducing the litigation costs. Since liability is obvious, it would be unfair to see these victims paying either full contingency fees or high hourly rates for victims of 30 percent or more. Ideally, these claims can be administered through a single court. However, the insurance company may wish to contest some cases as properly diagnosed. That could lead to litigation in those marginal cases.
People didn’t know CA voted to offer Obamacare to illegal aliens?
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Caliornia-illegal-immigrants-health-insurance/2015/06/02/id/648297/
Illegal aliens pay sales and gas taxes, even if they work under the table.
A significant portion of illegal aliens do work under the table. I’ve discussed before the devastating impact this has had on law abiding businesses in the construction, remodel, landscaping, cleaning services, and child care industries, for example. People keep voting for higher and higher minimum wage, increasing regulations, and other things that make it more expensive to do business here in CA. And yet, when it comes to spending their own money, they shop by price alone, and support illegal alien crews that do not follow any of those rules.
The other alternative is that they steal someone’s identity, including the dead, in order to take a job they are legally prohibited from taking, at a time of high unemployment among legal citizens. Then, of course, they crush our benefits system such as healthcare.
Since I live in CA, I am quite well aware of the severe cost of illegal immigration. Journalists like to get cheeky and provide a tiny part of the story, but it’s not an accurate representation of the costs and taxes paid.
I see there is a lot of back and forth about anchor babies.
Here it is in a nutshell:
Anchor babies act as attractants to illegal immigration, just like the Dream Act did. Women wait until they are close to their due date to avoid getting deported too soon. Then they make an arduous, dangerous journey overland where no pregnant woman should go, sometimes paying coyotes who may turn out to work for drug cartels or human sex traffickers. Many can’t make it, and they give birth out there in the desert. People who live on the border find this tragically too often. They find women in distress, or dead.
And if they do make it, their risk is rewarded with an anchor baby keeping them in the country. I feel this policy is in error, because it encourages illegal immigration and all the problems that go along with it, which has been outlined many times.
So anchor babies encourage women to risk their health and safety, and often die, out in the desert, and it also contributes to our unsustainable illegal immigration problem.
Criticizing this policy obviously does not mean that you do not care about kids, or pregnant women, or legal immigrants. I have to point that out because that’s the obvious next step someone will take who can’t or won’t debate the actual facts.
On Planet Earth you need some humans as guinea pigs to conduct experiments on. This guy is a prime choice. Turnabout is fair play.
Death penalty by scalpel. Start with the lower parts.
A very smart Think Tank that I know of has an interesting report about how much identity document fraud there is:
https://birtherthinktank.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/54392994-birth-certificate-fraud.pdf
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Schultz
Sucky little babies. Worthless little squalling vermin.
Oooooo, ” I’m a PI, I know illegal immigrants are illegal!” LMAO.
Oooooo, do nurses know that illegal aliens are illegal?
“Stephen Goss, the chief actuary of the Social Security Administration (SSA), told VICE News that an estimated 7 million people are currently working in the US illegally. Of those, he estimates that about 3.1 million are using fake or expired social security numbers<, yet also paying automatic payroll taxes. Goss believes that these workers pay an annual net contribution of $12 billion to the Social Security Trust Fund.”
***********
Some buffoons don’t do read well.
Schultz
Maternity care was stipulated in a couple of places in comments hours ago.
Maybe review is in order.
BTW. I think it is good policy to allow women to give birth in a hospital. Sorry you find it a burden. Are you a conservative by any chance?
doctoryes – I detest people who make comments like it is always thus, except …. Which is what you do. I live in a state that pays for those babies and is not repaid by the federal government. Those little unpaid for anchor babies.
Paul, And some of the fraudulent docs are DAMN good.
Having investigated MANY Illegal aliens, you do realize most have fake SS#’s, ID’s, passports, don’t you left wing idiots?? What a bunch of ignorant, dissembling, mindless, fools.
@NickS
Yes, you know because what you call something determines what the problem is! If they are undocumented, then we simply have to give them documents! Problem solved!
Oh, BTW, Penelope lobbed one into the other camp earlier tonight. Her “Shout Out” post. I thought it was pretty funny.
I just did my first post there, as the Unknown Blogger – Sacks Roamer – because she needed an economic story on Eric Holder. But don’t tell anybody that’s me, OK???
Squeeky Fromm
Girl reporter
This SF shooting could be a game changer. It was a Fed LEO stolen gun.
And, the left wing idiots like to vary it sometimes. “Unauthorized workers” is another Orwellian idiotic term. Good thing Orwell died long ago.