Obama Administration silently diverting funds to IRS to enact Health Care Reform

Phillip Reese and Darrell Smith, of The Sacramento Bee, analyzed hospital discharge data from the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development to determine that, "The number of Northern California hospital stays resulting in charges of $1 million or more rose sevenfold in the past decade, from 430 in 2000 to almost 3,000 during 2010."

"Cumulatively, charges associated with Northern California million-dollar hospital stays in 2010 came to $5.2 billion. That's 7 percent of all hospital charges from two-tenths of one percent of all hospital patients."

Stett Holbrook, for the Food and Environment Reporting Network, reports that "nitrate contamination in groundwater from fertilizer and animal manure is severe and getting worse for hundreds of thousands of residents in California’s farming communities, according to a study released today by researchers at UC Davis."

"The report is the most comprehensive assessment so far of nitrate contamination in California’s agricultural areas."

At a time when the uninsured had to wait a year to be seen by a doctor, The Bay Citizen uncovered that California's Health Care Districts are hoarding funds which should be used for caring for needy patients. The Peninsula Health Care District, funded by tax-payers, held onto a $43 million reserve, but when San Mateo County officials requested $4 million for subsidized health care, the district refused. Why? Through their investigation, The Bay Citizen discovered that The Peninsula Health Care District and many similar districts stockpile funds and divert money to operating expenses, including lawyers, election fees, and members who earn lifetime benefits for part-time work.

"An investigation by KCRA in Sacramento revealed that Pacific Gas and Electric had surveyed homeowners’ gas meters over the last three years and marked thousands of leaks across Northern California." 

"However, a company whistleblower says PG&E never told homeowners and two years later many homes continue to leak. PG&E insists there is no danger because the leaks are small. In response, lawmakers and watchdog groups say the leaks should be fixed immediately."

"An investigation by KING 5 Seattle has found that federal food inspectors were ordered to ignore moldy applesauce that a Washington plant shipped to grocery stores across America."

"The investigation revealed that USDA knew for more than three years that their inspectors had grave concerns about the sale of moldy applesauce to the public, but the federal food agency didn’t put a stop to it."

"A USA Today investigation reveals that seven decades after scientists came to the US during World War II to create plutonium for the first atomic bomb, a new generation is struggling with an even more daunting task: cleaning up the radioactive mess.

Several senior engineers cited design problems that could bring the treatment plant's operations to a halt before much of the waste is treated."

"Last month, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration convened a committee of medical experts to weigh new evidence concerning the potential dangers in popular birth control pills including Bayer AG’s Yaz and Yasmin. The committee concluded by a four-vote margin that the benefits of drugs with drospirenone, the synthetic hormone in question, outweigh the risks.

However, an investigation by the Washington Monthly and the British medical journal BMJ has found that at least four members of the committee have either done work for the drugs’ manufacturers or licensees or received research funding from them. The FDA made none of those financial ties public."

John Fauber of The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that "drug research, even from clinical trials sponsored by the federal government, routinely is suppressed, harming patients and increasing health care costs, according to new data highlighting an ethical controversy that continues to plague the field of medicine."

"The current situation is a disservice to research participants, patients, health systems and the whole endeavor of clinical medicine," according to an editorial accompanying the data published in the British Medical Journal.

Accounting by the Journal Sentinel and MedPage Today shows that a University of Wisconsin-Madison chairman has received more than $25 million in royalties from Medtronic, a medical device firm, since 2003.

"Additionally, UW Hospital spent $27 million for Medtronic spinal products from 2004 to 2010, according to documents obtained through an open records request. And the chairman, Zdeblick, a renowned spinal surgeon, has co-authored several positive research papers about the company's spine products."