The CEO of the state’s largest dental insurer offered an apology to the more than 4,000 dentists in his dental plan’s network.
“I can certainly understand my comments have upset some member dentists,” said James Dwyer in a post on Washington Dental Service’s Facebook page.
The apology was posted the day after a KING 5 Investigators report about rising executive salaries at Washington Dental Service in the face of deep cutbacks that affect nearly every dentist in the state. Washington Dental Services cut the reimbursement fees it pays to dentists by 15 percent last year for all procedures.
Dwyer, who earns $1.2 million a year, suggested that dentists could make up revenue by working harder. “Number one, they could start working five days a week,” said the CEO.
The comment touched off an angry reaction from dentists on blogs, Facebook posts, and in emails to KING 5 News.
It’s a “slap to the face of a recent graduate working over five days/week (including five clinical days) and barely making ends meet,” said one Facebook post.
Message from Jim Dwyer, CEO: You may have seen the KING TV news report on May 10, 2012 about Washington Dental Service. I can certainly understand that my comments may have upset some member dentists. Please know that the clips of me were taken from a highly edited interview. Working more hours is one of many strategies dentists are employing to cope with a changing market place and the depressed economy. I respect and value our member dentists, and I know they are dedicated to providing quality care for their patients. I apologize for the context of the statement. Jim Dwyer
But, is his apology enough, particularly in light of his $1.2 million annual salary made on the backs of Washington dentists?
I would not be surprised if there is a resignation coming shortly for these grossly out of touch comments.
Dental Abuse Seen Driven by Private Equity Investments – Isaac Gagnon stepped off the school bus sobbing last October and opened his mouth to show his mother where it hurt.
She saw steel crowns on two of the 4-year-old’s back teeth. A dentist’s statement in his backpack showed he had received two pulpotomies, or baby root canals, along with the crowns and 10 X-rays — all while he was at school. Isaac, who suffers from seizures from a brain injury in infancy, didn’t need the work, according to his mother, Stacey Gagnon.“I was absolutely horrified,” said Gagnon, of Camp Verde, Arizona. “I never gave them permission to drill into my son’s mouth. They did it for profit.”
Isaac’s case and others like it are under scrutiny by federal lawmakers and state regulators trying to determine whether a popular business model fueled by Wall Street money is soaking taxpayers and having a malign influence on dentistry. Isaac’s dentist was dispatched to his school by ReachOut Healthcare America, a dental management services company that’s in the portfolio of Morgan Stanley Private Equity, operates in 22 states and has dealt with 1.5 million patients. Management companies are at the center of a U.S. Senate inquiry, and audits, investigations and civil actions in six states over allegations of unnecessary procedures, low-quality treatment and the unlicensed practice of dentistry.
Democrats look to California in bid to retake House- No state figures more prominently in Democratic plans to retake the House than bright blue California.With 25 seats separating them from the speaker’s gavel, Democrats have settled on a blueprint targeting nearly a dozen seats across the Golden State — a yawning figure that highlights the emphasis party officials have placed there.
Exit, stage Wright- Yesterday’s breathless campaign hysteria arose out of a not-really-much-of-a-scoop from the broadsheet across town: A rich guy in Omaha wants to spend a lot of money defeating Barack Obama.Stop the presses. Eek.Said rich guy sought the advice of a controversial consultant (who’d very much benefit from getting the rich guy’s commission) on a strategy. The consultant proposed reviving the 2008 controversy over Obama’s relationship with his egregious pastor, Jeremiah Wright.
You’d have thought, from the mainstream-media tweets yesterday morning, that the mere act of mentioning Obama and Wright in the same breath was nothing less than a hate crime in itself. How dare anyone mention the president in the same breath as the anti-American demagogue who officiated at his wedding, baptized his children and gave him the title of his second book.
For those of us who enjoy seeing such folk sputter and squirm, the idea of a Wright attack against Obama instantly seemed rather piquant. But it only took a moment’s reflection to see how senseless and even stupid such an approach would be.
Ricketts’ aide: Jeremiah Wright plan was DOA- The head of the Super PAC that considered a proposal to attack the president based on his associations with controversial preacher Reverend Wright said Friday that the pitch was a non-starter.“I was immediately troubled by the proposal. It surprised me,” Brian Baker, president of Ending Spending Action Fund funded by billionaire Joe Ricketts, said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “We run an organization based on fiscal responsibility. They know we asked for a document based on ending spending, fiscal responsibility and jobs in the economy. This is far afield from that.”
Romney Launches First General Election Ad- Mitt Romney’s campaign is out with its first television ad of the general election, describing what a Romney presidency would look like on “day one.”The spot will be launched in four swing-states –Ohio, North Carolina, Iowa and Virginia — with a $1.2 million buy, CNN reports.A generally positive ad, the narrator outlines different Romney initiatives that he would launch from the start of his time in office, which include approving the Keystone XL pipeline and replacing President Obama’s heath care reform legislation.
Explaining Why Minority Births Now Outnumber White Births | Pew Social & Demographic Trends- The changing profile of the nation’s youngest residents also stems from the fact that some groups, especially Hispanics, have higher numbers of children than do non-Hispanic whites. One illustration of this difference is in the “total fertility rate,” or the number of children the average woman is predicted to have in her lifetime, based on current age-specific birth rates. For the U.S. as a whole, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of American Community Survey data, the number is 2.0. (American Community Survey data in this posting come from a Pew Research Center analysis of the 1% sample of the 2010 ACS Integrated Public Use Microdata Series [IPUMS])Among Hispanics, the total fertility rate is 2.4. For non-Hispanic whites and for non-Hispanic Asians, it is 1.8. Non-Hispanic blacks (2.1) have higher fertility than whites but lower fertility than Hispanics.Immigration is an important contributor to higher birth rates among Hispanics, because foreign-born women tend to have more children on average than U.S.-born women. Most growth in the Hispanic population from 2000 to 2010 was due to births, not immigration, a change from the long-time pattern. But most births to Hispanic women are to those born outside the U.S.
Latinos will soon be California’s largest ethnic group, Census says- Latinos will become California’s largest ethnic group very soon, a new Census Bureau report indicates.The bureau issued its first post-2000 census estimates of population growth, birth rates, age cohorts, and racial and ethnic characteristics.It pegs California’s Latino population (it uses the term “Hispanic”) at 14.4 million, 38.2 percent of the state’s 37.7 million residents, while the non-Hispanic white population is just under 15 million or 39.7 percent, dropping below the 40 percent mark for the first time.
For several years, demographers have predicted that the state’s Latino population would surpass whites by 2015, but the new Census Bureau reports indicates that the crossover may occur somewhat sooner.
Although immigration from Latin America has slowed to almost a stop, other findings indicate, Latinos tend to be younger than the white population and have much-higher birthrate, thus expanding their population while that of whites continues to shrink..
USC sued in deaths of 2 students- A wrongful death suit has been filed against USC by the parents of two USC graduate students slain near the campus on April 11.Wanzhi Qu and Xiaohong Fei, father and mother of Ming Qu, and Xiyong Wu and Meinan Yin, parents of Ying Wu, filed the suit Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court. They are seeking unspecified damages.Wu and Qu, both 23-year-old electrical engineering students from China, were fatally shot during a downpour about 1 a.m. while sitting in Qu’s recently purchased 2003 BMW, which was double-parked in the 2700 block of Raymond Avenue.
Wu was found in the passenger seat and Qu on the steps of a nearby house where he collapsed while trying to summon help, Los Angeles police said.
USC attorney Debra Wong Yang today issued a statement in response to the suit.
Romney Leads By 8 Points in North Carolina- Mitt Romney has moved out to an eight-point lead over President Obama in North Carolina after the two men were virtually tied a month ago.The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in the Tar Heel State shows the putative Republican nominee earning 51% of the vote to Obama’s 43%. Two percent (2%) like some other candidate, and four percent (4%) are undecided
California : The war of the few against the many – If there was a familiar feeling to Gov. Jerry Brown’s warning of a $16 billion hole in the 2012-13 budget and his release of an ostensibly severe spending plan, there should have been. It was quite similar to the spiels we’ve gotten almost every spring from governors for the past decade, whether it was Brown, Arnold Schwarzenegger or Gray Davis – a plea for higher taxes, a call for more cuts to health and welfare programs, small impositions on state workers, short-term accounting tricks, but no plan that leads to a downsized, sustainable state government without a structural deficit.
Is Pennsylvania In Play for November? Maybe- I never include the Keystone State in my list of presidential swing states for November. Am I making a mistake? Possibly.There are plenty of reasons to leave the commonwealth of Pennsylvania off any list of the most competitive states that will decide the next president.While the 2000 national election split the country almost down the middle — then-Vice President Al Gore (D) beat George W. Bush (R) in the popular vote by one-half of 1 percent —Pennsylvania went for the Democrat by more than 4 points.
Fordham piece called Elizabeth Warren Harvard Law’s ‘first woman of color’- Elizabeth Warren has pushed back hard on questions about a Harvard Crimson piece in 1996 that described her as Native American, saying she had no idea the school where she taught law was billing her that way and saying it never came up during her hiring a year earlier, which others have backed up.But a 1997 Fordham Law Review piece described her as Harvard Law School’s “first woman of color,” based, according to the notes at the bottom of the story, on a “telephone interview with Michael Chmura, News Director, Harvard Law (Aug. 6, 1996).”The mention was in the middle of a lengthy and heavily-annotated Fordham piece on diversity and affirmative action and women. The title of the piece, by Laura Padilla, was “Intersectionality and positionality: Situating women of color in the affirmative action dialogue.”
Doug Hampton’s plea could hurt John Ensign- — An independent group favoring Republican presidential rival Mitt Romney is launching a $25 million, monthlong advertising campaign in 10 states against President Barack Obama, further escalating an expensive TV ad war in presidential battlegrounds six months before Election Day.Crossroads GPS plans to open the effort Thursday by spending $8 million on a TV ad that castigates Obama on the economy by using his own words against him.”We need solutions, not just promises,” says a 60-second commercial that’s to run in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
Crossroads GPS Launching New Anti-Obama Ad Campaign- — An independent group favoring Republican presidential rival Mitt Romney is launching a $25 million, monthlong advertising campaign in 10 states against President Barack Obama, further escalating an expensive TV ad war in presidential battlegrounds six months before Election Day.Crossroads GPS plans to open the effort Thursday by spending $8 million on a TV ad that castigates Obama on the economy by using his own words against him.”We need solutions, not just promises,” says a 60-second commercial that’s to run in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
Deb Fischer wins in Nebraska GOP Senate race – In a dramatic, come-from-behind dash to the finish line late Tuesday evening, state Sen. Deb Fischer of Valentine laid claim to the Republican Senate nomination. Her late surge, perhaps unprecedented in modern-day Nebraska political history, upended a Senate race that appeared to be settled as recently as 10 days ago with the GOP prize within the grasp of Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning. Fischer suddenly gained momentum with late endorsements from 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin and Rep. Jeff Fortenberry of Lincoln, then rode the momentum of a weekend TV ad blitz mounted by Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts and his political action committee.
Democratic Poll Shows Romney and Obama Nearly Tied in Wisconsin – A newly released PPP/Daily Kos poll shows President Obama and Mitt Romney locked in essentially a dead-heat in Wisconsin — where Obama beat John McCain by 14 percentage points in 2008. The poll (which was taken shortly after Obama came out in favor of redefining marriage) shows Obama with 47 percent support and Romney with 46 percent support. The previous PPP/Daily Kos poll from Wisconsin, taken a month ago, showed Obama leading Romney by 6 points (50 to 44 percent).
2012 Edition — Top 10 Dentists in Social Media- You may be a dental expert when it comes to treatments and procedures, but does your expertise carry over into the social aspect of your practice? Are you a Facebook aficionado or are you still trying to figure out what a “tweet” even is? Last year, we compiled a list of who we thought were some of the top dentists in social media. These dentists go the extra mile to interact with their patients and spread the latest dental news, so we wanted to honor them again this year. With some new additions and some returning favorites, these dentists not only excel in the dental world, but the social media world as well. Check out why we chose these well-connected dentists to make the top 10 list this year. 1. Dr. Gregory Cole. Returning from lastyear is the California-based dentist and blogger, Dr. “Flap” Cole. Dr. Cole consistently updates his Flap’s Dentistry Blog with all the latest news in the dental industry and other current events in health (and that’s not even his only website!). His posts are very informative and thorough. He continues to be a part of the Twitter and Facebook community, updating frequently for more than 36,000 Twitter followers.
Using websites and pamphlets, OWS organizers are urging people to help block traffic at bridge and tunnel ports to slow people going to work on May Day.
Protesters — who also plan action in front of several financial buildings — are using the date to strengthen their numbers since the labor movement traditionally holds rallies that day.
“No work, no school, no shopping, now housework, no compliance,” reads a posting on one OWS-related website. “If you can’t strike call in sick. If you can’t call in sick hold a slow down.”
Other Occupy websites say protesters will try to blockade city crossings as they did the Brooklyn Bridge in October — when more than 700 people were arrested for marching on the span’s roadway.
One website also calls for marchers to swarm financial buildings, including the offices of Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and the New York Stock Exchange.
Mayor Bloomberg said the city is prepared to thwart any actions that could cause serious delays in people’s commutes.
He declined to discuss how authorities have been training to handle any OWS action. But sources said the NYPD conducted a major exercise at Floyd Bennett Field on Wednesday.
Occupy Wall Street Plans Global Protests in May Day Resurgence – Occupy Wall Street demonstrators, whose anti-greed message spread worldwide during an eight-week encampment in Lower Manhattan last year, plan marches across the globe today calling attention to what they say are abuses of power and wealth.
Organizers say they hope the coordinated events will mark a spring resurgence of the movement after a quiet winter. Calls for a general strike with no work, no school, no banking and no shopping have sprung up on websites in Toronto, Barcelona, London, Kuala Lumpur and Sydney, among hundreds of cities in North America, Europe and Asia.
In New York, Occupy Wall Street will join scores of labor organizations observing May 1, traditionally recognized as International Workers’ Day. They plan marches from Union Square to Lower Manhattan and a “pop-up occupation” of Bryant Park on Sixth Avenue, across the street from Bank of America’s Corp.’s 55-story tower.
“We call upon people to refrain from shopping, walk out of class, take the day off of work and other creative forms of resistance disrupting the status quo,” organizers said in an April 26 e-mail.
Occupy groups across the U.S. have protested economic disparity, decrying high foreclosure and unemployment rates that hurt average Americans while bankers and financial executives received bonuses and taxpayer-funded bailouts. In the past six months, similar groups, using social media and other tools, have sprung up in Europe, Asia and Latin America.
After Last Night – WH Correspondent’s Dinner – Politically, the most interesting phenomenon last night was the dog jokes. The President himself made three jokes about eating dogs. This represents a victory for new media and especially for Jim Treacher, since liberal news sources like the New York Times and Jon Stewart had studiously tried to pretend that the dog controversy didn’t exist. Obama and Kimmel evidently recognized that Twitter made such pretense impossible. (The New York Times, however, is still holding out.)
Events like last night’s always leave me feeling in need of a shower. Partly it is because there some truth to Kimmel’s joke, after noting that the room was full of politicians, members of the media and celebrities, that “Everything that is wrong with America is here in this room.” Partly is is due to the sense that everyone involved in the event is pretending. The politicians pretend to engage in self-deprecation that shows they don’t take themselves too seriously. The comics pretend that they are just trying to be funny, lampooning politicians impartially in search of laughs. But, even though some of the lines are indeed funny, the premise of the event is fundamentally false. In fact, politicians, comedians and even the celebrities present are pursuing an agenda that is both self-aggrandizing and political. That is why, I think, such events always leave me feeling unclean.
The Auto Bailout Bust – President Barack Obama has made the auto bailout a centerpiece of his reelection campaign, using it to bash Republican nominee Mitt Romney. But the tactic may backfire as the general election heats up, public opinion surveys suggest.
Recent polling from Rasmussen indicates that 59 percent view the bailouts as a “failure” and only 44 percent think the bailouts were “good for America.”
The administration has already written off $7 billion in taxpayer losses in the American takeover of Chrysler and General Motors; those losses are expected to climb as high as $23 billion—27 percent of the $85 billion spent on the bailout.
While the bailout is widely credited with saving the two companies, increasing taxpayer losses have made it nearly as unpopular in 2012 as it was when Obama was elected. More than half of Americans still disapprove of the auto bailout compared with 61 percent in 2008.
On Second Thought, Maybe N.C. Was a Mistake – If national Democratic strategists chose Charlotte, N.C., for the party’s national convention because they liked the facilities, the hotel accommodations or the weather in early September, then I guess I can’t yet quibble with the choice.
But if David Axelrod and the president’s other political advisers picked the Tar Heel State to make some broader political point, then they goofed.
Simply put: North Carolina looks like a mess for Democrats.
Maybe no housing rebound for a generation: Shiller – The Housing market is likely to remain weak and may take a generation or more to rebound, Yale economics professor Robert Shiller told Reuters Insider on Tuesday.
Shiller, the co-creator of the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller home price index, said a weak labor market, high gas prices and a general sense of unease among consumers was outweighing low mortgage rates and would likely keep a lid on prices for the foreseeable future.
A dentist in Poland, dumped by her boyfriend, got payback by removing all of her former lover’s teeth — leading his new lady to dump him, too.
Anna Mackowiak could face three years in jail after she agreed to treat her ex-boyfriend, Marek Olszewski, when he asked her to help with a toothache just days after he broke up with her.
“I tried to be professional and detach myself from my emotions,” Mackowiak, 34, told the Daily Mail. “But when I saw him lying there I just thought, ‘What a bastard.’”
Mackowiak then allegedly gave Olszewski, 45, a massive dose of anaesthetic and coldly plucked out his teeth one by one.
She then wrapped his jaw in bandages to prevent him from opening his mouth — and then simply walked away.
“I knew something was wrong because when I woke up I couldn’t feel any teeth and my jaw was strapped up with bandages,” Olszewski told the British newspaper.
But he did not realize the horror of what happened until he got back to his Wroclaw apartment.
Amazon Softens Stance on Taxes – Amazon.com Inc. reached an agreement with Texas officials Friday to begin collecting sales taxes in the state starting in July and appears to be backing away from its long-held opposition to tax collection in states where it has warehouses and other facilities.
With the deal, the Seattle-based company is on track to collect sales taxes in 12 states, which make up about 40% of the U.S. population, by 2016. Amazon currently collects taxes in five states. Since 2011, it has reached agreements with seven other states, including Texas, to begin tax collection over the next four years.
Reuters reports that the giant e-tailer will start collecting sales tax in Texas come July 1, as part of a settlement that requires Amazon to bring 2,500 jobs and $200 million in capital investment to the state over the next four years.
In exchange for the jobs and money, Texas State Comptroller Susan Combs is dropping the state’s demand for $269 million to cover sales taxes from 2005 to 2009, Reuters reports.
Amazon struck a deal with the state of Nevada earlier in the week whereby it will begin collecting sales taxes there on January 1, 2014. It also reached an agreement with California last September that gave it another year before it has to begin collecting sales taxes in that state.
Things went the other way in Illinois yesterday, when a judge there called unconstitutional a law designed to let the state collect sales tax from out-of-state, online retailers.
The Performance Marketing Association, which represents affiliate marketers such as those working with Amazon, had challenged the 2011 law that created the Illinois Affiliate Nexus Tax. A Cook County Circuit judge ruled the law unconstitutional because, according to Crain’s Chicago Business, “simply having an affiliated company in the state that makes sales or refers customers to an online retailer doesn’t create enough of a presence, or nexus, for tax purposes.”
The judge also said the law was unenforceable because of a federal Internet tax moratorium that is in place through 2014.
CA-26: NRCC gives 3 ‘contender’ status – The National Republican Congressional Committee has given three GOP House challengers “contender” status, the third out of four steps in the “Young Guns” program to recruit new and viable Republican candidates.
Republicans Tony Strickland in California, Jason Plummer in Illinois and Matt Doheny in New York were all elevated to the next level of the program Thursday.
The candidates will face new benchmarks for fundraising and recruiting before attaining “Young Guns” status.
CA-26: Dog Is as Dog Does – How a live-free-or-die dude like Strickland came to be a born-again Nanny State zealot, however, is not so mysterious. It turns out he’s now running for a congressional seat in Ventura, and his chief Democratic rival, Julia Brownley, led the charge to ban plastic bags statewide while in the Assembly. Not only that, but Brownley is now pushing a much softer and kinder bill to define what constitutes a reusable bag. Brownley’s bill would require such bags be strong enough to carry 22 pounds more than 100 times for a distance of 175 feet. Rather than require a warning label designed to scare off possible users, Brownley’s bill would mandate bags to come with a tag identifying its country of origin and stating no lead, cadmium, other toxic heavy metals designed to sap one’s wits were used in its manufacture.
Just remember there are 41 shopping days left between now and the June primary. I’ll do my part by shopping with a cross-contaminated, lead-based bag. You can spot me huffing by the broccoli section at Trader Joe’s. Please do not disturb. I already am.
Dr. Bill Dorfman — a world famous dentist who treats some of the biggest stars on Earth — tells TMZ he keeps a “secret stash” of the teeth he’s plucked from the mouths of his famous patients … in the hopes of eventually selling them on eBay.
Dorfman — who recently treated Lindsay Lohan and whose website features Jessica Simpson, Usher, Ozzy Osbourne, Anne Hathaway and Eva Longoria — was outside Rock & Brews in El Segundo yesterday when he revealed his secret.
“I actually save famous people’s teeth when I pull them … but I can’t tell you [their identities] ’cause it’s like patient confidentiality.”
He continues, “There have been a few really famous people and I thought one day maybe I could sell this on eBay.”
Dorfman insists he always offers the teeth to his patients first … but they often decline, “So I put it in the back and i just hold on to it.”
Is it sick, like one dentist said in the piece on TMZ?
No, probably not. Dentists often keep the extracted teeth of patients and dispose of them, usually in their medical waste containers. There is no harm, keeping them – as is routinely done prior to transport.
But, I certainly think the revenue should be donated to charity. Didn’t John Lennon’s tooth fetch a pretty penny?
I am sure Dr. Dorfman will do so, especially after receiving this PR.
A Dallas dentist has agreed to pay the state and federal government $1.2 million to resolve allegations that he submitted false orthodontic claims under Medicaid.
Dr. Richard Malouf, former majority owner of All Smiles Dental Center, allegedly submitted false Medicaid claims between 2004 and 2007.
News 8 reported on Malouf’s lavish homes and two multimillion dollar corporate jets. Malouf did not admit any wrongdoing or liability in his settlement.
He is one of several orthodontists highlighted for multimillion dollar billings under Medicaid.
Eleven dental operations statewide have had their state funds suspended for credible allegations of fraud in billing the Texas Medicaid Orthodontics program. This follows a 10-month News 8 investigation of medicaid orthodontics in Texas, which found the state spends more on braces for poor children than the rest of the nation combined.
Watch the video embedded below for more on the story.
Of course, there will be some money paid back to the State of Texas and the federal government. Some bureaucrats will be scolded or fired. Maybe a dentist or two will have their dental license suspended for a while.
But, the total lack of oversight in this program is an example of what happens when government involves itself too much into health care. There is vast unaccountable waste, abuse and fraud.
On the second anniversary of the passage of the Affordable Care Act or ObamaCare, one has to wonder what will happen in the future with the public purse should the United States Supreme Court rule the law is constitutional
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