Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Friday, July 16, 2010

Medicare Fraud -- Billions in Low-Hanging Fruit

By John Ballard



TV news magazines, even local newsrooms, have been talking about this story for years. On a slow news week they always look around for yet another story about government fraud and abuse. It's so widespread that regular features with names like "Government Outrage of the Day" or "It's Your Money" are as ubiquitous as weather reports.



This was last night's content filler for newsrooms all over the country. My guess is that most viewers/listeners/readers skipped over it as quickly as they might ignore a fast-food ad.





Dozens of people, including several from metro Detroit, were arrested Friday in what federal authorities called the nation's biggest Medicare fraud crackdown, netting suspects in five states.

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Attorney General Eric Holder and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced that more than two dozen others were arrested in Miami, Houston, New York City and Baton Rouge, La.


All told, the arrests and indictments of suspects who are yet to be picked up account for $251 million in health care fraud, authorities said. The Detroit cases accounted for $35 million in Medicare fraud, authorities said.

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President Barack Obama's administration said it hopes to eliminate $60 billion to $90 billion a year in Medicare fraud to help bankroll his overhaul of the health care system.


Yeah, I know. More people out of work. This may be bad for the economy. Kinda like sugar-free ice-cream is not good for dentists. But we have to settle for what we can get.

The nitty-gritty details of governing are not very interesting or newsworthy. Getting it right takes time, money and resources -- all in short supply -- and a willingness to do stuff that isn't all that "newsworthy."
It's like running a good restaurant which means making sure that shit in the public restrooms gets cleaned up promptly along with that stinking place where the kid that just left threw up on the carpet.

I can't wait for Elizabeth Warren to get in charge of the new Consumer Protection Agency. If the president doesn't make that happen he ain't got a hair on his ass, even if he has to make another recess appointment.



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