DSS ‘Follows The Money;’ Makes An Extra $90 Million Per Year What’s ‘Best For The Child’ Is Secondary To ‘More Federal Money’ Massachusetts News by Edward G. Oliver - Commentary by Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD

This past Saturday, 3/13/04, I attended the following hearing on CPS and
Foster Care hosted by Congressman Jo Baca of San Bernadino. I salute
him and I challenge him to return to Congress and make known to his
colleagues there the horrible things they have enabled in writing the
body of law that has thus assured “child protection” and “child protective
services” in the broadest sense.

The day was filled with testimony from parents, parents of divorce,
grandparents and others who really love and care for children who are
made slaves of a pure, entrepreneurial, money-making scheme that is now
the foster care, DSS, CPS, juvenile court, system. As a relative outsider,
not a parent or grandparent with a child stolen by the system, I was
absolutely appalled at how far we as a country had come along the path of
“eating” our own children-all for a “buck”. Not only are the children
callously ruined, their every feeling made into psychiatric justification
for all that is done, their families are raped as well, made to pay for
the imprisonment of the children stolen from them.

Sadly, one who testified was an ex-FBI agent speaking of international sex
and drug rings so fantastic as to heap doubt on the whole proceedings but
could not, as the procession of real people talking of their real children
quickly brought all in attendance back to the reason they were there-a
crime so callous and so clearly enabled by our own government-victimizing
us-as to be the most fantastic, but real piece of the entire proceeding.
And what of lobbyists in Congress, representing this now-great industry?
Surely they are there. They need identifying and the enticements they give
and the exact dollar amounts and to which Congresspersons, must be
quantitated.

I was their to testify to the role of psychiatry and the pharmaceutical
industry, both very much at the “trough” with psychiatry present every step
of the way in this victimization of US citizens by its own government, and,
for that matter, every such victimization-this being just what psychiatry
does best, having no scientific restrictions.

While this travesty goes unremedied, we dare not lecture any country under
the sun about it’s human rights record.

My remarks come next, followed by a most important article from the
Massachusetts News.

My remarks of 3/13/04:

San Bernardino, California

March 13, 2004

Town Hall Forum with Congressman Joe Baca

“Children Protective Services Reform”

Remarks by:

Fred A. Baughman, Jr., M.D.

Neurologist/Pediatric Neurologist

FredBaughmanMD@cox.net

In 1992, Pat Schroeder, chaired a Congressional hearing entitled: “How Inpatient Psychiatric Treatment Bilks the System and Betrays our Trust.”
Schroeder commenced: “… thousands of adolescents, children and adults have been hospitalized for psychiatric care that they really didn’t need…Hospitals hired bounty hunters to almost kidnap patients…they paid kickbacks to counselors who could find students with mental health insurance.”
Psychiatrist, Walter Afield, testified: “… everyone in this room will fit into two or three of diagnoses in DSM-III. In DSM-IV, every new disease…gets a new program, new admissions, a new system, and a way to bilk it…”

Schroeder concluded: “Nothing is more shameful than allowing our children to believe something is wrong with them by fraudulently institutionalizing them…what’s been described here has been the conscious misdiagnosis for the purpose of making people eligible for insurance payments for a treatment system for which there was no objective basis…”
Ladies and gentlemen, psychiatry is a treatment system with no objective basis.
Today, we speak of the same perpetrators–psychiatry and the pharmaceutical industry–in a different venue: Child Protective Services and foster care.
In 1999, Sunnyvale educators diagnosed ADHD in 6-year-old Vincent Booth and insisted he needed Ritalin. When his mother, Diane, objected, he was made a ward of the court, hospitalized, and drugged. They fled to Canada where the FBI apprehended them and returned Vincent to his San Jose psych hospital. In January, 2003, Diane returned to the US, was jailed and charged with kidnapping. Diane, back in Canada, hasn’t seen Vincent in 5 years and doesn’t know if he is dead or alive.
Recently, I was invited to speak at the “Foster Youth Conference of LA County.” The invitation read: ” Our agency works with children in group homes. There are more than 50,000 in dependency care just in Los Angeles County. More than 75% take one or more psychotropic drugs daily… since all such children are on MediCal, tax dollars are abused to provide the drugs…”
Since the 80′s the number of foster children in California has risen 500%. Foster children in LA County are seven times more likely to be physically abused and three times more likely to be killed than children in the general population.

The headline read: “GOVERNMENT, CPS, JUDGES, BUYING AND SELLING OUR CHILDREN”! Fact or fiction?

State and federal laws create financial incentives for stealing children from their parents. County governments get $30,000 to $150,000 annually in state and federal funds for each child in foster care.

In 1999, 2-4 million children were said to have a serious mental disorder. 23% of parents of such children were told they needed to relinquish custody to obtain intensive mental health services for their children; 20% actually gave up custody. In other words, between 400 and 800 thousand families relinquished custody of a child so psychiatric treatment could be funded.

In 2001, the General Accounting Office could find only 12,700 cases of custody relinquishment, but confessed: This understates the problem, since 32 states provided no data

Carey, of the U of Pa. estimates that 17 percent of US schoolchildren, 8.5 million, are on psychiatric drugs. ADHD accounts for 6 million, and isn’t a real disease.

At the 1998, Consensus Conference, Carey testified: “What is described as ADHD appears to be a set of normal behavioral variations.” The Conference Panel had to to confess ‘there is no evidence of “brain malfunction”‘–no evidence that ADHD is an actual disease–meaning, of course, that the 4 million children diagnosed, to that point in time, could only have been NORMAL!

On November 3, 2001, I testified to the Medical Board of California: “In the November, Family Circle magazine, the psycho-pharmaceutical cartel has a 7-page “special advertising supplement” in which its leaders proclaim that they diagnose and treat actual “diseases”-brain diseases. People all over the country are told they have “brain diseases” –”chemical imbalances” of the brain, when they are entirely normal. Deceived and labeled, they are drugged, shocked, and institutionalized, against their will. Parents who resist are deemed “unfit” and have their children taken and put up for adoption.”

On May 28, 2002, I wrote to the Medical Board: “Every time parents or a patient is lead to believe that their child’s emotional or behavioral problem is a “disease,” they have been lied to, their informed consent rights violated…”
On June 14, 2002, the President Alpert, responded: ” there is tremendous professional support for categorizing emotional and psychological conditions as diseases of the brain…you will find that support from chairs of psychiatry departments, the American Psychiatric Association and professors of major medical schools. It is clear that the psychiatric community has set their standard, and that standard becomes the legal standard upon which the Board must base its actions.”
Unbelievably, what the Board saying here, is that whatever the majority of practitioners do–even lie, that that becomes the unassailable, legal “standard of practice. ”
I testified, January 13, 2004, to the California Assembly: “Should you pass any law “assuring,” or sanctioning the “diagnosis” and “treatment” of psychiatric “diseases” or “chemical imbalances,” in NORMAL children (as is now done, California- and US-wide), or, should you fail to expunge such laws, already on the books-you will be a party to a fraud.”
The same must be said, today, to every legislator and every legislative body, the President, the US House of Representatives and, the US Senate, included.]

[Fred Baughman MD comments on:
Sent: Monday, March 15, 2004
'Follows The Money;' Makes An Extra $90 Million Per Year- What's 'Best For The Child' Is Secondary To 'More Federal Money'
]

  
  DSS 'Follows The Money;' Makes An Extra $90 Million Per Year
  What's 'Best For The Child' Is Secondary To 'More Federal Money'
  Massachusetts News
  By Edward G. Oliver
  
  December 1--The Department of Social Services is using financial consultants 
  who specialize in advising the state how to aggressively "maximize federal 
  revenue." This means that the decision as to whether to remove a child from 
  his parents is often a factor of whether the DSS can get more federal money, 
  according to many experts. It is reported that the Department is making an 
  extra $90 million a year by this method.  

[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD:
meaning the child is for sale, is a commodity, also that children are removed from
their families by the state for money alone, without regard for rights of family,
child, without regard for their well-being]

  
  The practice of hiring private consulting firms to advise and manage child 
  welfare (and other agencies) is one that is used nationwide by state 
  governments, sometimes on a no-risk, contingency basis. This means that the 
  federal money that is supposed to be helping children is being siphoned off 
  by consulting firms and the children are paying the price.
  
  And Massachusetts is a leader in the practice. 

[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD:
DSS, CPS law is authored in Congress, this system is gamed similarly, nationwide. It is a
lawless, undemocratic system within a democracy, thus a cancer. The children
caught up in the systems are nothing less than slaves-slaves each day of
their lives, each day spent as profit-points, slaves just as are child-soldiers,
and child-prostitutes, sex-slaves in other parts of the world. With this
vile thing in our midst, we have no right to lecture anyone in the world on
morals and human rights.]

 The task force of accountants 
  that arrive from the consultants re-engineer how the agencies are run, right 
  down to training, policy, forms, and other areas to serve the overriding 
  purpose of obtaining more money from the federal government.
  
  When asked by Massachusetts News if she knew that DSS was using one of the 
  revenue maximization firms, State Rep. Marie Parente, Chair of the 
  Legislative Committee on Foster Care replied: "Yes, Andersen Consulting. In 
  fact that was one of my big complaints. I thought it should have been looked 
  into. "When I was on the Governor's 'Blue Ribbon Commission' in 1993, 
  Andersen Consulting volunteered their services and they kept saying it was 
  management and maximizing revenue and they could do it; they're in the 
  business.
  
  In the end they got a three million dollar contract and I think they still 
  hold it today. I objected. I thought it was unethical and I thought there 
  were state workers at the time doing that work and we never needed Andersen. 
  We have a fine revenue collection department in DSS. Andersen carved out a 
  niche for themselves and I think they still have the contract."
  
  A spokesman from Andersen Consulting, Meg Travis, tells Massachusetts News 
  that at one point they had three contracts with DSS and the last one ended 
  in December of 1997. DSS spokesman David Van Dam confirms they used Andersen 
  until late 1997; and when asked, he said DSS now uses another consulting 
  firm called PCG (Public Consulting Group) but when asked what services they 
  perform, he did not specify what they do. He says the work Andersen did that 
  was related to the Commission was completed by Andersen. Attempts to get 
  further information from PCG in time for this article were unsuccessful.
  
  DSS Follows Recommendations For Money
  
  When asked if the recommendations for reform from the Blue Ribbon Commission 
  were acted on, Rep. Parente answered that DSS implemented those parts of the 
  Commission "Report" that Andersen liked which increased the federal revenue. 
  She said, "What they did was the parts that Andersen liked, you know, the 
  money part, the federal reimbursement. But my special committee filed a 
  minority report because I thought they focused on the wrong thing."
  
  A look into the Committee's "Final Report" reveals the "money part" Parente 
  speaks about where it states: "DSS should undertake an immediate revenue 
  maximization effort." And it continued that DSS should be sure that the 
  money stays in its hands and does not go to the state. "A retained revenue 
  account should be established to ensure that funds brought in through the 
  revenue maximization effort are retained and used by DSS." Andersen reported 
  to the Commission that enhanced revenues held the potential of claiming up 
  to $40 to $70 million extra dollars per year. 

[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD:
with children the pawns. The more that can be brought into the system and the longer they
can be kept there, the more revenues can be maximized, the end-point, having nothing to do
with the welfare or damage to the child or to that childs family in the most extended sense
of the word.]

  
  The "Final Report" also reveals that DSS was sticking its toe into the 
  "revenue maximization waters" nineteen months prior, when DSS conducted an 
  analysis on the "potential for enhancing federal reimbursements from 
  Medicaid and other entitlement programs" even as it had "enhanced its 
  federal reimbursements significantly over the last few years through the use 
  of a consultant on a contingent contract." 

[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD:
Here we read of the plundering of MediCal-Medicaid, already plundered, already unable to afford basic, legitimate, truly necessary health care. Here we see we are a nation ruled by greed, by maximizing the dollar. Will this not be our demise? When we buy and sell our children, do we have any further to fall.?]

  
  This concept of maximizing federal revenue is beginning to cause trouble in 
  many other states as well. In California, plaintiffs sued Health and Human 
  Services and Contra Costa County for allowing children classified as 
  disabled to languish for years in foster care while the county seized and 
  misappropriated their personal SSI and other federal benefits. 

[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD:
Here is California. It is just a matter of some states being a bit slower to get on the gravy train, it is a national phenomena]

  
  Texas Is Imitating Massachusetts
  
  An illuminating report by the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, titled 
  "Maximize Federal Revenues for Health and Human Services," is a case study 
  in the thought processes and cost shifting schemes associated with 
  maximizing federal revenue. While some of it is sound management techniques, 
  it is a short leap from creatively squeezing federal dollars from active 
  cases to directly targeting children for removal from the home based on 
  certain demographics and categories - especially if consultants are paid on 
  a contingency basis. Some examples of children who would bring federal money 
  with them would be those who are eligible to receive Medicaid (which would 
  be given to the state if they become foster children) and special needs 
  children who receive Social Security money.

[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD:
here they speak of the forthright targeting of children all who come with dollars
appended-our glorification of money throughout our government assures they will be
targeted and enslaved with no other consideration paramount, for as long as possible.
Could it be more ugly]

 
  Incredibly, the Texas report frankly admits, "States typically obtain more 
  revenue from the federal foster care program by increasing the number of 
  cases that are eligible for federal reimbursement." Another admission from 
  the same office is a report titled, "Maximize Federal Funding for Child 
  Welfare Programs," which reveals that financial consultants indeed train 
  agency staff directly to maximize federal funding. "Some states," says the 
  report, "that have hired Title IV-E expert consultants have increased their 
  federal reimbursements by as much as $20 million or more per year. These 
  consultants work with child welfare program staff to improve policies, 
  forms, training and other program elements to generate additional federal 
  reimbursements."
  
  The Texas Comptroller's Report uses - who else but - Massachusetts as a 
  shining example of how revenue maximization should be done by confirming 
  that Andersen's recommendations were put into effect. "For example" says the 
  Texas Report, "Massachusetts raised its percentage of children's eligible 
  cases for reimbursement from 23 percent of all children receiving services 
  in 1993 to nearly 65 percent in 1996. Massachusetts also changed how it 
  accounts for its essential program costs so that the state could claim full 
  instead of partial reimbursement. Massachusetts received $58 million more in 
  federal funds in the first year, $64 million in the second, and expects net 
  additional revenues in the third year to reach from $88 million to $90 
  million.
  
  Massachusetts also considers clients who are eligible for Medicaid and are 
  either abused and neglected, or at risk of being abused and neglected, to be 
  eligible for Medicaid services through the child protective services agency."
  

[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD: No child "unprotected"! ]

  
  Money Influences Workers
  
  The big question that arises out of the quest to maximize federal dollars 
  is, are financial consultants hired to advise and train DSS workers in 
  determining who gets taken out of the home? Do they design risk assessment 
  models for caseworkers to use on home visits which serve to provide 
  interesting details that perhaps raise a flag to supervisors about a child's 
  potential federal funding eligibility status? For example, a minority child 
  is automatically considered "special needs" and therefore eligible for 
  Medicaid. Broadly defined "disabled" children are also very profitable. The 
  foster child population is in fact heavily weighted in those categories now 
  and those parents are least able to fight their removal. 

[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD:
Absolutely vile! An absolute cancer within what we would still call our democracy]

  
  An innocent notation of these "trip wires" by a caseworker may have serious 
  implications for the child. If, as DSS claims, a caseworker's notes are 
  reviewed by supervisors, do revenue maximization considerations enter the 
  equation when deciding who gets pulled from the home? Perhaps seemingly 
  irrational decisions by caseworkers to pull a child can be explained better 
  in this light rather than a case of widespread incompetence.
  

[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD: no doubt about it]

  Perhaps 
  incompetence comes into play only in the fact that a more educated worker 
  may question the guidelines, while less trained field personnel dutifully 
  act without questioning.
  
  Virginia based researcher Emerich Thoma, who uses foster care and child 
  welfare data from many states, mentions that, "Two Massachusetts studies 
  serve to demonstrate the inextricable link between poverty and child 
  removal." He says that in a study of abused and neglected children entering 
  a hospital emergency room it was found that if a physical injury was severe, 
  it was less likely that the child would be removed. "Specifically, the 
  researchers found that the highest predictor of removal was not the extent 
  of a given physical injury, but rather whether or not the family was 
  Medicaid-eligible.

[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD:
Vile]

  
  In a follow-up study of 805 children, researchers found that the degree of 
  physical injury to a child only became statistically significant in the 
  reporting of child abuse when the family's income was excluded from the 
  analysis." Both studies involved Boston-based Dr. Eli H. Newberger who also 
  served on the Governor's Blue Ribbon Commission on Foster Care.
  
  Attempts to reach Dr. Newberger in time for comment were unsuccessful. 
  Speaking to Massachusetts News, Thoma quotes the Texas Comptroller of Public 
  Accounts, John Sharp, as saying that before a social service agency is 
  considered to be well managed, there must be at least 50% of its children 
  who are eligible for Social Security. The Texas Comptroller said, "There is 
  a little known formula employed by child welfare agencies, this formula is 
  called the "penetration rate." What that means is before a system is 
  considered fiscally well managed, it has to have a minimum ratio of 50% of 
  its children as eligible for SSI."
  
  Thoma says the Comptroller "received that information from a communication 
  with one of the big consulting firms, I believe it was Maximus.  Federal Grand 
  Juries have looked at this problem in California and what they have found is 
  that these agencies are dipping into Medicaid, SSI, Title IV-E, and 
  virtually everything else they can get their hands on. You end up with six 
  or eight times the amount of money that is needed for that foster placement, 
  and many states bill the parents on top of it. As the Santa Clara County 
  Grand Jury put it: 'Agencies benefit financially from foster care 
  placements.'"
  
  "Cooking the Books"
  
  Thoma provides numerous examples of creative, some call fraudulent 
  techniques, which consulting firms perform for state agencies. He cites a 
  recent study issued by the Office of the Inspector General of Health and 
  Human Services. That study, "Review of Rising Costs in the Emergency 
  Assistance Program," laments that we are cooking the books to claim federal 
  funds by "lengthening eligibility periods, defining emergencies broadly, and 
  setting high income limits for determining eligibility.thereby maximizing 
  federal revenue. The Emergency Assistance expenditures are escalating at a 
  rapid pace due mainly to three types of costs, juvenile justice, foster 
  care, and child welfare services."
  
  The prospectus from the consulting firm Maximus Inc. warns investors, "To 
  avoid experiencing higher than anticipated demands for federal funds, 
  federal government officials on occasion advise state and local authorities 
  not to engage private consultants to advise on maximizing revenues."
  
  Thoma uses Massachusetts as an example. "Conna Craig a Boston-based 
  children's advocate points out that in her own home state of Massachusetts, 
  child welfare agencies are known to defer requests for termination of 
  parental rights until children reach the age of seven, as at that age 
  children are deemed to have 'special needs' for which child welfare agencies 
  may claim additional federal reimbursements."
  
  Massachusetts News has been unable to reach Craig for comment.
  
  Ten Thousand Children Every Year
  
  Approximately 10,000 children per year are taken from families in 
  Massachusetts and placed into foster care, according to DSS spokesman David 
  Van Dam.

[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD:
In what % is a psychiatric diagnosis given as the justification for "custody relinquishment"?]

  
  Rep. Parente describes for Massachusetts News the important role federal 
  dollars play in decision-making about those children at DSS. "I remember 
  Congresswoman Schroeder," recalls Parente. "She said her greatest fear about 
  federal funding for DSS is that every time they decided to put more money 
  into a different facet of DSS, then DSS focused the attention on that.
  
  It is that way across the country. If they thought that children should stay 
  with families and that was their big thing that year, all kids stayed with 
  their families because then the state would get a lot of money. If the focus 
  of the federal government and funds change to adoption, then everybody would 
  get adopted."
  
  Is it really possible that decisions affecting the well-being of children 
  who cross paths with the Department of Social Services are being made with 
  emphasis on what will bring in the greatest amount of federal revenue, 
  rather than what's best for the child? There are indeed monetary inducements 
  for DSS to take children from their parents. Federal funding, such as Title 
  IV-E of the Social Security Act, reward the placement of children into the 
  foster care system. Services that focus on family preservation - cases where 
  no child is placed into the system - are not as lucrative.
  
  As Conna Craig of the Boston-based "Institute for Children" wrote in 1995, 
  "The problem with foster care is not the level of government spending, it is 
  the structure of that spending. As more children enter the system, so does 
  the tax money to support them in substitute care. As one foster child put 
  it: 'Everywhere I go, somebody gets money to keep me from having a mom and 
  dad.'" 

[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD:
Every case, lost in the dollar shuffle is a human tragedy-tragedy for the child,
tragedy for the family, for every member of the family with an emotional-biological
tie to the child. Let the clergy of the nation begin to confront this if they want
something meaningful to do.]

  
  "Foster Children" Changes With New Laws
  
  The number of foster children in the mid to late seventies numbered a half 
  million in the United States. In 1982, a low of 262,000 was recorded, a 
  reduction by almost half. Thoma credits a short-lived requirement passed by 
  Congress with helping to reduce those numbers so dramatically. "In 1980," 
  Thoma writes, "Congress passed the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare 
  Act, or Public Law 96-272. The Act included a provision that "reasonable 
  efforts" be made to prevent placement in foster care. The reasonable effort 
  requirement was implemented, in part, because the Congress determined that a 
  large number of children were being unnecessarily removed from their homes."
  
  The "reasonable efforts" requirement however, lacked enforcement from the 
  Dept. of Health and Human Services. State agencies soon saw it as a paper 
  tiger and returned to routine foster placements which shot past the half 
  million mark, where it hovers today.
  
  Still, in order for DSS to get paid for the foster child, a judge is 
  supposed to be convinced that reasonable efforts were made to keep the child 
  at home. Critics, such as the Cape Cod-based, parent support group "Justice 
  for Families," charge that this legal proceeding takes place in a secret, 
  rubber stamp session with nobody else present "to rebut, object, or verify 
  the truth" except a DSS attorney and a judge. The group claims the judge 
  routinely signs off on a little known federal form called a 29-c which is 
  the ticket for federal funds. They charge DSS is guilty of defrauding the 
  federal government - not to mention traumatizing children and their 
  families. Signed 29-c forms obtained by the parents' rights advocates appear 
  to provide evidence that children are placed into foster care no matter what 
  the form says when the judge signs off on it. At times it is blank.
  
  In a report issued by the parents' group Cape Cod-based, parent support
  group "Justice for Families titled "Findings and Suggestions on 
  DSS Reform," they charge, "By seizing children illegally, in violation of 
  Title IV-E requirements via the filing of false and fraudulent documents in 
  secrecy through the courts to obtain federal funding, DSS is defrauding the 
  federal government with deliberate intent."
  
  This was foreseen by the Finance Committee of Congress in 1980 when it 
  stated: "The Committee is aware of allegations that the judicial 
  determination requirement can become a mere pro forma exercise in paper 
  shuffling to obtain federal funding. While this could occur in some 
  instances, the Committee is unwilling to accept as a general proposition 
  that judiciaries of the States would so lightly treat a responsibility 
  placed upon them by federal statute for the protection of children."
  
  Now, a new bonus is promised to states who can put kids into the adoption 
  phase in a year or so. Like circus lions leaping to the crack of a whip, 
  states are reordering their priorities by passing adoption laws that will 
  bring them into compliance with federal requirements.
  
  Massachusetts passed their adoption law in March of this year.
  
  As Thoma observes, "The Congress failed to ask one crucial question when it 
  passed the legislation; Why are so many children in the foster care system 
  to begin with?"
  
          ###