Published 2013.10.31 CommPRO.biz

Do No Harm

The Hippocratic Oath is a widely edited set of guidelines credited to a long-ago Greek medical practitioner. It is estimated that 98% of medical students swear some form of oath, as do a large percentage of dental graduates. These oaths are focused on ethics and are often condensed into, “Do no harm.” Recent reports of predatory lending practices by doctors and dentists give us a picture of the other two percent.

Patients who lack insurance and those who need or want procedures not covered by their insurer, are being herded into various medical credit cards that are little more than tools created to ripoff the unwary by the monster banks and their lackeys. Wells Fargo and Citibank seem directly involved while others hide in the shadows providing the funds for the smaller credit card issuers. It’s the same set of scams and scammers that created the sub-prime mortgage disaster and more recently the on-going payday loan racket. They seem to be betting on the Justice Department giving them another get-out-of-jail-free card no matter how or who they ripoff.

The unwary –Who doesn’t trust their doctor or dentist?– sign up for these cards right in the doctor’s or dentist’s office. They are told that they will pay no interest if the card is paid off in three or four easy payments. What the docs don’t say is that you will be slapped with interest charges –close to 30% in some cases– if you don’t pay up before the end of the interest free period.

Let’s say you owe $1,000, about average for extensive dental work or plastic surgery. And let’s say you haven’t been able to make any payments over the four month interest free period. In most cases you’ll owe interest from the first month on the entire $1,000, plus the compound interest for the additional three months. You’ll be in hock for a lot more when the fourth month comes around. You can see that this is not going to end well when you start adding on late payments etc.

One of the independent card companies specializing in healthcare credit cards is said to have between five and ten million card holders. In addition to the medical practitioners who swear to do no harm, there are medical device hustlers, selling everything from power scooters and chairs, to hearing aides. These people aren’t even restrained by a “Do no harm” oath. Although, when bucks are at stake some doctors and dentists don’t seem able to recall that phrase.

These practices are beyond unethical, beyond immoral. Doctors and dentists who lead people into these scams may not be breaking any laws, but they are certainly –or should be– on shaky ground with state licensing agencies. A few suspensions would slow down this racket A couple revocations for the worst cases might stop it dead in its tracks. It’s a shame when a few scammers can cast a shadow over a largely principled group of professionals pledged to do no harm.

Too Big To Jail?

Last week (2012.08.22) William B. Harrison Jr. penned an OP-ED in The New York Times defending bankers. Harrison retired as Chairman of JP Morgan Chase in 2006 when he was rolling the dice with the best of the big banksters at the height of the Casino-i-zation of our banking sector. 

Harrison’s OP-ED would be laughable if he were not talking about a tragedy. A tragedy impacting nearly everyone in the world except the too-big-to-fail banks and the banksters who run them. They are back at their gaming tables doing fine since we bailed them out; safe in the knowledge that when they lose, we’ll be forced to bail them out again.

Harrison is wildly out of step with Sanford I. “Sandy” Weill, who suggested in a CNBC interview (2012.07.25) that it is time to break up the big banks. Not a new idea, but coming from Weill it exploded in the news cycle. Weill is the father of the very monster zombie banks that he now wants broken up. In 1997 he merged  Travelers Insurance Group and Citibank, creating the largest financial institution on the face of the earth. 

Like Harrison, Weill retired in 2006. However, unlike Harrison’s convoluted apologia, Weill takes a totally different tack. He wants the gaming tables out of our banks. Weill wants bankers focused on watching our money and making loans. It took a lot for Weill to step up and suggest that times have changed and it’s time to break up the big banks.

When Roger Clemens denied steroid use before a Congressional Committee, they went after him tooth and nail. The evidence against Clemens was pitifully weak and he was acquitted. Two years ago four Goldman Sachs executives appeared before a Committee led by Senator Carl Levin. 

Under oath they dodged and twisted and turned, but made statements that internal Goldman memos and emails showed were untrue; they lied. It’s difficult to prove that the “Wild West Wall Streeters” committed fraud. However, the arrogant banksters who lied under oath to Congress surely broke the law.

Senator Levin turned their testimony over to the Justice Department. While it’s tough to prove fraud, how tough can it be to show that the Goldman crowd lied? There’s a long paper trail to backup the charges. Where is the zeal displayed in prosecuting Clemens? Gone. The Department of Justice has advised the Sachs executives that they will not be prosecuted.   

There’s more. Six months ago Sachs, Wells Fargo and Chase all got SEC “Wells Notices” indicating the agency’s intent to look into their well-documented role in the current downtrend. In an abrupt about face the SEC let Sachs off the hook; they’re singing “Anything Goes.”

Well the lying dudes and the doubling dealing traders at Sachs are having a Cole Porter moment but not Sergey Aleynikov. He has been charged by NY State with stealing computer code when he worked at Sachs. This, only six months after Sergey was acquitted of the same charges in Federal Court. As one blogger noted, “The only way to get arrested when you work at Goldman Sachs, is to be accused of stealing from Goldman Sachs.”