The Ethical Barometer

The FBI served search warrants on City of Angels Medical Center, Los Angeles Metropolitan Medical Center, and Tustin Hospital and Medical Center as part of a Medicare and Medi-Cal fraud investigation.  A lawsuit filed by the city of Los Angeles against the hospitals alleges that the hospitals recruited homeless souls, including drug addicts and the mentally ill, from Skid Row as patients.  The hospitals are then alleged to have billed government programs for phony care for these folks.  Indeed, one operator of a Skid Row health center is alleged to have accepted $20,000 per month in kickbacks for the Skid Row referrals.  “Human pawns” is the term the lawsuit uses in describing the use of the homeless in the scam. In exchange, the homeless received food, cigarettes, and cash for their round trips to the hospitals. Read more »

Senator Christopher Dodd, chair of the Senate Banking Committee, said he knew that he had been designated a “VIP” by Countrywide Financial CEO Angelo Mozilo (in street language he was an “FOA”, or “friend of Angelo”).  However, Senator Dodd said he had no hint that he was getting special treatment.

Meanwhile, Senator Kent Conrad, chair of the Senate Budget Panel, said that when he called his old friend Jim Johnson (former CEO of Fannie Mae) for advice on a mortgage for his Delaware beach house, Johnson put Angelo on the phone.  Senator Conrad said he was “unaware” of any favoritism in his loan until he read about the break he got in Portfolio magazine.

Senators, senators, when Angelo designates you a VIP and takes your call at the drop of a hat, you may have crossed a few ethical lines thereby trotting into conflicts of interest territory. 

The sordid tale makes you want to avert your eyes.  There is a terminally ill wife grappling with her husband’s public confession of an affair.  How that tugs at your heart strings!  But, you find you cannot avert your eyes because there are the journalism ethics questions, “How come The National Enquirer beat the major news sources to the story by almost nine months?  And why was it ignored until photos forced a confession?” 

The John Edwards saga has, at once, so much sadness and so much enlightenment. There are lessons to be learned from this tale of woe.  Some of the basic principles and lessons learned here could have been drawn from similar sagas that have run from Eliot Spitzer back to Grover Cleveland:  1.  Truth percolates.  It just wants out there. Behave accordingly.  And, if you slip, admit it, make amends and disclosures (particularly when in the public eye), and then move forward.  2.  Benjamin Franklin and the Hell’s Angels had it right:  “Three people can keep a secret if two are dead.” Read more »

Leave it to Sports Illustrated to not understand the Barry Bonds issue.  Ben Reiter wrote, “If teams are rejecting Bonds on moral grounds, WHO ARE THEY KIDDING?” and  “Still, in a sport where teams happily take late-career chances on outcasts like John Rocker and men of advanced age like Julio Franco, there should be a locker for Bonds somewhere.” [Emphasis in original article, “Will Work for What He Made in ’86,” Sports Illustrated, July 28, 2008, p. 18.

Well, there is a difference between hiring a guy who mouthed off about subway riders (Rocker) or another who is long in the tooth (Franco) and a guy who is under indictment by the feds for perjury charges related to the steroids mess (Bonds).  We don’t yet indict folks for being less than PC, which Rocker was.  And thanks to aging baby boomers, we love to see the old duffers out there giving it the old pre-rest-home try.  Think Greg Norman at 53 giving the Scots great delight in the recent British Open.   Read more »