“Hey Minnesota Senate Health and Human Services Committee. . . Follow the Money!”

The below is OCEAN Newsletter Volume 1, Issue 5, Article 4 (Nov. 13, 2019) published by Russell J. Hatton & Daniel A. Wilson from the gulag in Moose Lake Minnesota.

 

In the Star Tribune article, “We need answers, reform plan from DHS” from Friday, August 30, 2019, it is quoted that, “The department recently shocked the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe and the White Earth Nation by telling them to repay $25 million in overpayments, even though the tribes had spent the money according to DHS guidelines.”

We implore the Minnesota Senate Health and Human Services Committee and the Office of Legislative Auditor to investigate the Medicaid Minnesota Counties are collecting which is alleged to be for the Cost of Care of Minnesota County’s patients detained at the Minnesota sex offender program.

MSOP patients (now deemed “clients” after a change in the statute to lessen patients’ rights). Are billed for their Cost of Care. For example, OCEAN Editor Russell Hatton’s Cost of Care bill is totaled at approximately $1.5 million after being unconstitutionally detained for twelve (12) years in MSOP.

These Cost of Care bills come from Shirley Jacobson of the Department of Human Services-State Operated Services Division, even though the MSOP is no longer under State Operated Services, as of 2008. The legislative auditor confirms this removal in his audit in March 2011, on page 85, as does the sworn testimony of Clinical Director of MSOP, Jannine Hebert, on March 5, 2015, where she stated, “. .. in 2008 when MSOP was pulled out from underneath state operated services, and we made a conscious decision to move away from that medical model approach … ”

OCEAN Editor Daniel Wilson, tragically, became officially committed on April 17, 2017. On September 10, 2019 he received a bill from a different address which is the address to the MN DHS Direct Care and Treatment. The bill was for $102,759.00.

Some of the language on the bill includes: “FOR YOUR CONVENIENCE YOU CAN PAY ONLINE AT …” Patients in MSOP are denied access to internet. Also, “DO NOT SEND CASH!”, patients are not allowed to have cash either. We are also asked to provide, “income from roomers and boarders … ” Are they kidding?

Where do they think they are sending these bills to?
OCEAN believes that the Minnesota DHS and MSOP, along with the Minnesota counties Health and Human Services are working in collusion to cover up and mislead the Minnesotans and the Minnesota Senate Health and Human Services Committee and the Office of Legislative Auditor, James Noble about the significant Medicaid Fraud occurring through the Minnesota Department of Health and Human Services ($300,000,000.00 to be exact!!!).

In the Star Tribune article: “Another Official at DHS Resigns” from Saturday, August 31 , 2 01 9, Glenn Howatt, explains:

… Marie Zimmerman, the Assistant commissioner for healthcare, said Friday, she will leave her post in about 10 days. Zimmerman, who first started with the agency in 2011 , has been one of the top officials overseeing Minnesota’s Medicaid program, a sprawling operation funded by federal and state dollars, with 1.1 million enrollees.

In addition to the personnel shifts, the agency has been struggling with revelations that it overpaid two Indian bands by $ 25 million for substance abuse treatment and that it owes the federal government $48 million for making improper payments to some treatment facilities … Zimmerman’s announcement deepened concerns among legislative critics who see the agency flailing as it seeks to improve oversight in the spending of federal Medicaid money.

During her first interview before the Minnesota Senate Health and Human Services Committee, Pam Wheelock remarked that she didn’t find any fraud and that they needed to “move past it.” Also, during one of her first public interviews, DHS Commissioner Jodi Harpstead also suggested “moving past” these scandals and failures and focusing on the “good work” done by the agency and its employees.

OCEAN believes that DHS-MSOP and Minnesota counties are scrambling to cover up the hundreds of millions of dollars funneled into one of the most fraudulent and lucrative programs in Minnesota-the Minnesota sex offender programs-in Moose Lake and St. Peter-at the guise of providing medical care and treatment. Which they do not!

Legislative, State and unknown state officials gaining a profit off of this punitive medical care and treatment scheme do not want to lost their gravy train-for that’s all MSOP has been for the last 25 years! There have also been proposals to break up the DHS agency, the state’s largest. Wheelock suggested at a Senate hearing back in September that one part of DHS that runs the state hospitals and the sex offender program is by itself larger than some other agencies. If there is fraud, and there seems to be, it is likely connected to MSOP.

MSOP recently cut the cable TV supposedly because they could not afford it. Co-founder of OCEAN expressed his disgust: “I wasn’t irritated about them taking cable TV. I tried to view it as a sign that they were running out of money. However, after seeing an MSOP bank statement and all of the commissions MSOP receives from other companies, it reinforced that the clients do not come first in this scheme.” According to James Noble, Office of Legislative Auditor 2 01 1 Legislative Auditor Report, MSOP takes care of their own:

The biggest component of MSOP’s operating budget is salaries and benefits for MSOP security staff. In fiscal year 2010, about 83 percent of operating expenditures were for the salaries and benefits paid to MSOP security staff … in fiscal year 2010, MSOP had 714 full-time equivalent staff while it averaged about 548 residents. In others words: During fiscal year 2010, the Minnesota sex offender program had about 1.3 security staff per resident.

Among the 20 states with civil commitment programs, Minnesota has the highest number of indefinitely civilly committed sex offenders per capita. At $ 124,465 a year; housing one sex offender cost the tax payers three times the cost of a prison inmate. As of June 30, 2019 there were 731 patients indefinitely civilly committed in Minnesota. This amounts to $90,983,925 a year that tax payers are responsible for, even though those convicted of sexual offenses-including those who have had consensual sex as a minor, teenagers sex-texting, to those who committed a sexual offense as a minor-have among the LOWEST rates of same-crime recidivism than any category of offender.

MSOP is a massive waste of Minnesotans money and this waste is expected to get worse as long as more than just juvenile offenders get released. Unless Minnesotans hold their legislative representative accountable, the MSOP system and the infringement on our Constitutional Rights will continue to grow and who is to say legislatures can’t dictate that other “mentally ill” people get indefinitely contained out of the fear that they could do something undesirable in the future? However, OCEAN believes MSOP will one day be destroyed and the buildings will be given to the DOC, because it is founded on lies.

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