When Dad Was VP, Jeb Bush Lobbied The Administration For A Medicare Fraudster

[seafan]

This has been out there historically, but now needs much more attention. Stand aside, FL Governor Rick Scott, Medicare fraudster. Jeb shows us how it's done via his political connections.


From Ryan Grim in yesterday's Huffington Post:

WASHINGTON -- Jeb Bush personally lobbied the secretary of health and human services, while his father was vice president, on behalf of a Miami figure who would later flee the country accused of one of the greatest Medicare frauds in the program's history.

Bush pressed then-HHS Secretary Margaret Heckler to give the man's HMO a waiver so that it could accept larger sums of Medicare money than it otherwise would have been allowed, Heckler told The Huffington Post.

Miguel Recarey Jr., head of the health maintenance organization International Medical Centers (IMC) who often boasted of connections to the Miami Cuban mafia, paid Bush $75,000 in the mid-1980s. Bush has acknowledged receiving the payment but said it was tendered for real estate consultation. But the deal he consulted on was never closed.

.....

But Heckler herself, in a 2012 interview with HuffPost, confirmed that Jeb Bush did indeed lobby her personally -- and that his input played a major role in her thinking. .....
Heckler's statement backs up congressional testimony offered by two other HHS officials in 1987. If all three are to be believed, Bush has been lying for some 20 years. He did, in fact, directly lobby the secretary for the IMC waiver.

HuffPo also included this helpful information from the April 21, 1995 South Florida Sun-Sentinel:

MIAMI - — A fugitive accused of swindling millions from Medicare said he paid Jeb Bush $75,000 to buy influence in Washington while he tried to save his Florida health care company.

Miguel Recarey told ABC's 20-20 that Bush's father was vice president when the younger Bush called then-Health and Human Services Secretary Margaret Heckler on Recarey's behalf.

Asked whether he was paying for Bush's influence, Recarey responded, "Sure. Obviously not enough."

.....

Recarey fled to avoid prosecution, and now lives in Spain, which has refused to extradite him.

Bush, who was the Republican nominee for governor last year, worked with Recarey on a real estate deal, but has denied using any influence to help Recarey's medical firm. He said he did not recall speaking to Heckler about the case, but did call a lower HHS official "requesting that IMC be given a fair hearing." .......

Two hundred million in Medicare fraud, the perp fled the country, and all of it enabled by someone named Bush. Makes many of the Little People angry, does it not?



Quite interestingly, HuffPo also noted that the 20/20 episode never aired---- ABC issued an apology to Bush and never broadcast the episode.


Now WHO is the slightest bit surprised over that?


It's time for harsh scrutiny of Jeb Bush's checkered history, as he arrogantly drapes the robe of presidential entitlement around his shady past.

America deserves much better than this.


The Bush choke-hold on this country must end.