Well, this is ununusual. A labor union weighing in on a Republian primary. Guess AFSCME thinks Newt would be a weaker candidate than Mitt:
Here’s what FactCheck.org says about this ad:
The ad, called “Greed,” says that “while Romney was a director at the Damon Corporation, the company was defrauding Medicare of millions,” and that “the company was fined $100 million, but Romney, himself, made a fortune.”
Some viewers could be misled by this ad. Fraud did occur while Romney was a member of the board of the Damon Corp., which pleaded guilty in 1996 to defrauding Medicare of $25 million between 1988 and 1993. But Romney was never accused of fraud personally.
Nevertheless, the company paid a then-record $119 million fine for billing the federal health insurance program for unnecessary blood tests, according to a 2002 Boston Globe report. Romney, who was on Damon’s board from 1990 to 1993, personally collected $473,000 when Bain Capital, which Romney once headed, sold the Damon Corp. to Corning Inc. in 1993.
The ad closes by morphing an image of Romney into one of Republican Florida Gov. Rick Scott, and asks: “Corporate greed. Medicare fraud. Sound familiar?” And indeed, that scenario does sound familiar.
As we previously reported, Scott’s former hospital company, Columbia/HCA, paid $1.7 billion in fines for Medicare fraud for practices that took place while he was its chief executive officer. And when Scott left the company in 1997, he received $300 million in stocks and options.
Forbes.com article on this is quite revealing:
Forbes
Romney Supervised Medical Testing Company Guilty of Medicare Fraud
1/21/2012
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2012/01/21/romney-supervised-medical-testing-company-guilty-of-massive-medicare-fraud/?view=pc
He knew about the fraud…took steps to clean it up…no, he didn’t actually know that fraud was taking place. Which is it.
?
Read pages 1 & 2 and decide for yourself.
Comment by Which version is correct — January 27th, 2012 @ 10:41 am
Thanks for the link – Forbes! article makes Romney look even worse.
Comment by Jonathan Kantrowitz — January 27th, 2012 @ 10:48 am
No problem. Anything to help in this puzzling matter.
He obviously wasn’t telling the truth when running for governor. So he either was incompetent and Damon was pulling fast one’s under his nose, or…
Comment by Which version is correct — January 27th, 2012 @ 11:54 am
Newsmax
Romney’s Bain Controlled Company Linked To Medicare Fraud
1/27/2012
Dave Eberhart
http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/RomneyWasManagerandBoardMemberofCorpGuiltyofMedicareFraud/2012/01/27/id/425817
“… According to a Boston Globe report, then Republican gubernatorial candidate Mitt Romney, while insisting that he and fellow members at Damon Corp. uncovered what later determined to be a criminal scheme to defraud Medicare in 1993, acknowledged that the directors did not turn over their findings to federal authorities then investigating the medical testing industry.”
Lots more there. Just thought I would add this in case you didn’t know. Curioser and curiouser…
Comment by Which version is correct — January 28th, 2012 @ 6:23 am
No one can be a board member for a lifetime, unless….ugh, and I guess Romney knew it perfectly well and was obviously in a hurry to use the chance and make a fortune. This is regular practice among some top managers and politicians. I wonder why it raises any questions at all. Looks like the fortune was big enough to share.
Comment by 0x0000008e — January 29th, 2012 @ 5:50 am