"Feds break up $18 million Medicare scam, arrest 16 in raids on Los Angeles-area pharmacies"

By Associated Press
The Washington Post
October 27, 2011
Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/feds-break-up-18-million-medicare-scam-arrest-16-in-raids-on-los-angeles-area-pharmacies/2011/10/27/gIQAmf4CNM_story.html

"Nurse Making $269,810 Demonstrates California Public Worker Overtime Binge"
By Michael B. Marois
Bloomberg
October 25, 2011
Link: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-26/nurse-making-269-810-demonstrates-california-s-overtime-binge.html

Excerpts (see news article cited directly above):

• Jean Keller earned $269,810 last year working as a nurse at a men’s prison on California’s central coast by tripling her regular pay with overtime hours.
• The extra compensation underscores a broader trend in California, where government workers are paid more than in other states for similar duties. Among them: city managers whose pay is higher than the governor’s, prison doctors who make more than counterparts in other states and Los Angeles firefighters who collect twice the national mean.

Commentary:

• California's public employees are the new Gilded Class.

"Healthy paychecks for Sutter Health bosses, nurses"
By Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross, Chronicle Columnist (Matier & Ross)
San Francisco Chronicle (sfgate.com)
October 5, 2011
Link: http://articles.sfgate.com/2011-10-05/bay-area/30245605_1

Facts (see news article cited directly above):

• Last year, 20 nurses at Alta Bates Summit Medical Centers in Oakland and Berkeley were paid between $200,000 and $291,000. 
• Average pay for the centers' 1,800 nurses was $136,000 per year. 
• 20 Sutter Health bosses were paid more than $1 million. Company CEO Pat Fry was paid nearly $4 million.

Commentary:

• Despicable exploitation of the sick and injured, many of whom are poor, generated the revenue that was used to pay Chief-Parasite Pat Fry (who was paid nearly $4 million), the other parasitic bosses, and the parasitic nurses. 
• Don’t support nurses who go on strike. They’re all obscenely overpaid. 
• This obscene compensation is one of the reasons why healthcare is unaffordable.