Wellpoint Will No Longer Pay For "Preventable" Medical Errors

Wellpoint is changing its policies to no longer reimburse hospitals and doctors for 11 medical errors it says are preventable according to the Star's Daniel Lee. The purpose in the change in policy is to link reimbursement rates with quality of care Lee says. The story provides a list of the 11 medical errors, which will no longer be covered, including hospital-born infections. Who doesn't know someone who entered the hospital with a minor illness and wound up much sicker because of an infection acquired during their stay in the hospital? Somehow I have to believe the medical providers will still find a way of passing these costs on to us. Here's the list of medical errors for which Wellpoint will no longer provide reimbursement:

• Surgery performed on the wrong body part.
• Surgery performed on the wrong patient.
• Wrong surgery performed on a patient.
• Object left in the body during surgery.
• Air embolism or blockage.
• Blood incompatibility.
• Catheter-associated urinary tract infection.
• Decubitus (pressure) ulcers.
• Vascular catheter-associated infection.
• Mediastinitis (an infection inside the chest) after coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery.
• Hospital-acquired injuries, such as fractures, dislocations, intracranial injuries, crushing injuries and burns.

Day Of Big Endorsements

The Indiana campaign of Sen. Barack Obama scores a big endorsement in former U.S. Rep. Lee Hamilton (D). This is a bit of a surprise as Hamilton has been closely allied with the Evan Bayh crowd in charge of the party's political machinery, which is backing Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign. Former Gov. Joe Kernan announces his support for Democrat Jim Schellinger for governor. The South Bend native could help Schellinger in the northern Indiana region, which currently belongs to former U.S. Rep. Jill Long Thompson.

Obama's campaign brings star power to his Indiana campaign. Dave Matthews is performing a concert at IU's Assembly Hall on Sunday, April 6 at 7:00 p.m. for Obama's campaign. Actor Jeremy Piven made several appearances today at college campuses across the state on behalf of Obama and is scheduled to make more tomorrow.

Former President Bill Clinton made a series of four appearances across southern Indiana today on behalf of his wife's campaign. This is his third entry into the state in as many weeks. Obama is scheduled to be in Muncie on Friday for his second appearance. [Update: Make that Ft. Wayne where the event has been moved because of logistical issues. The Muncie visit will be rescheduled for next week]. Ethel Kennedy is making appearances for Obama in Fishers and Indianapolis on Friday and in South Bend on Saturday.

McGoff's Message: Integrity Matters

Dr. John McGoff introduces his first TV commercial in his bid to oust U.S. Rep. Dan Burton in the Indiana Republican primary on May 6. "Integrity matters" is the theme of this biographical pitch.

John Okeson R.I.P.

John Okeson, the former Clerk of the Indiana Courts and former Legislative Liaison for Gov. Mitch Daniels died much too young this past day according to Fort Wayne Observed's Mitch Harper, a friend of Okeson's. He had just recently returned to the practice of law after serving the Daniels' administration. The Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette reports that Okeson had entered a Fort Wayne hospital with flu-like symptoms and died there Tuesday night. Harper writes of Okeson:

John was well-liked. He was professional. He was a public man in that he had an interest in the full range of public policy questions facing Indiana.

Most importantly, John was a father. My memory of John will be fixed in knowing the joy he took in being able to run with his daughter.

Condolences to Okeson's family and his colleagues at Hall Render Killian & Heath.

Indianapolis Graduation Rate Second Worst In The Nation

ONLY DETROIT'S GRADUATION RATE IS WORSE
Indianapolis officially scores the designation of having the second worst graduation rate among the nation's 50 leading cities. "Seventeen of the nation's 50 largest cities had high school graduation rates lower than 50 percent, with the lowest graduation rates reported in Detroit, Indianapolis and Cleveland, according to a report released Tuesday," the AP's Ken Thomas reports. Detroit finished last with a graduation rate of 24.9%. Indianapolis finished 49th with a 30.5% graduation rate, finishing just head of 48th-ranked Cleveland with a 34.1% graduation rate. Oh well, Mark Miles says our chances of winning the 2012 Super Bowl are real good. Why worry about a silly report like this?

Clinton Ahead In Indiana

A SurveyUSA poll released today shows Sen. Hillary Clinton leading Sen. Barack Obama by nine points in the May 6 Democratic presidential primary race for Indiana. The poll shows Clinton leading Obama by 52%-43%. Clinton holds a lead over Obama in all areas of the state except the greater Indianapolis area. Clinton leads Obama by 21 points among white voters, while he leads among black voters by 58 points. Clinton has a 17-point lead among female voters and just a 2-point lead among male voters. According to the poll, Clinton's support from Republicans boosts her lead slightly. That could become critical if a significant number of Republicans choose to cross over and vote in the Democratic primary.

That same poll shows Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jim Schellinger with a narrow, 2-point lead over former U.S. Rep. Jill Long Thompson according to a press release from Schellinger's campaign. The poll gives him a 41%-39% advantage. Earlier polls had shown Schellinger trailing Thompson badly. His big fundraising advantage over Thompson has allowed him to go up on the airwaves sooner than Thompson to familiarize voters with him. "As we expected now that Jim’s message is on the air, these results are a stunning turnaround from some previous polling, and they show that Jim's fresh, authentic leadership is resonating with voters," the press release says.

Is This Pierre Pullins?

A reader of this blog called my attention to this photo I took during the Democratic special election slating caucus in January. The reader tells me it is Pierre Pullins, the man who was shot at the Starbucks at Fall Creek & College last night and who also happens to be a candidate in the 7th district congressional race. There is certainly a similarity to the man interviewed as Pierre Pullins in this evening's television news broadcasts. And look, he's holding a cup of Starbucks. Or is it April Fools?

In other 7th district news, Democratic hopeful Woody Myers is hosting a "Blues in Broad Ripple" concert and rally on Friday, April 4 at 6:00 p.m. at MugShots. Gov. Davis and the Blues Ambassadors will perform.

Will Obama's Indiana Truth Squad Address The Larry Sinclair Story?

The Indiana campaign of presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama announced the formation of an "Indiana Truth Squad" today to “debunk any unfounded attacks against Senator Obama in the final weeks of the Indiana campaign and show Hoosiers why Barack Obama is the only candidate in this race who will bring change we can believe in.” A press release from the campaign identifies former U.S. Rep. Tim Roemer and Sen. Earline Rogers as members of Obama’s Indiana Truth Squad, along with Obama’s Chicago media guru, David Axelrod. Allow me to offer the first challenge to this so-called truth squad to tell Hoosiers and the American people the full truth about Sen. Barack Obama’s drug use.

Before the Obama people start jumping up and down screaming that this is just another “unfounded attack”, let me remind them that it was none other than Obama himself who injected the issue of drug use into this campaign. As an aspiring, young politician, Obama openly admitted his drug use in his 1995 book, “Dreams From My Father.” "Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it. Not smack, though,” he wrote. He talks about “smoking reefer” in “the dorm room of some brother” and “getting high.” As a candidate for the state legislature or the U.S. Senate in Illinois, Obama didn’t have to answer questions about his past drug use according to Sun-Times political columnist Lynn Sweet. As a candidate for president, Obama has answered few questions about his past drug use.

“Mr. Obama, of Illinois, has never quantified his illicit drug use or provided many details,” wrote the New York Times’ Serge Kovaleski earlier this year. Kovaleski endeavored in a February 11 feature story in the Times to learn more about Obama’s past drug use by interviewing more than three dozen classmates and acquaintances of Obama’s from high school and college. Obama’s account of his drug use in his book differed significantly from the recollection of others Kovaleski interviewed. They couldn’t recall drug use by Obama. “That could suggest he was so private about his usage that few people were aware of it, that the memories of those who knew him decades ago are fuzzy or rosier out of a desire to protect him, or that he added some writerly touches in his memoir to make the challenges he overcame seem more dramatic,” Kovaleski concluded.

While the memories of Obama’s school chums may be a little fuzzy or rosy after all these years as Kovaleski suggests, a 46-year-old Duluth, Minnesota man says he has a very vivid memory of a chance encounter he had with Obama during a trip to Chicago nine years ago. Lawrence "Larry" Sinclair, shown in the photo above taken during his memorable Chicago trip, paints a picture of Obama using drugs and having sex with men on the “down low” after he entered politics. The New York Times interviewed Larry Sinclair at length about his encounter with Obama during the 1990s but has not reported on his allegations since its February 11 story, which essentially left readers to believe Obama may have been exaggerating the extent of his past drug use in his 1995 book.

In a YouTube video clip released earlier this year, Larry Sinclair recounts how he was introduced to Obama by a limousine driver for Five Star Limousine Service while he was visiting the Chicago area to attend a graduation ceremony for his god son from the Great Lakes Naval Training Center on November 6, 1999. After sharing drinks with Obama in a Rush Street neighborhood bar for about an hour, Sinclair says he told Obama he “could really use a couple of lines [of cocaine] to wake up", Obama offered to get some cocaine for him. According to Sinclair, Obama made a quick cell phone call, the two returned to Sinclair’s limousine, and the driver drove to another location at Obama’s instruction. Obama left the car with $250 cash he requested from Sinclair and returned to the limo five minutes later Sinclair said. Obama next handed Sinclair a packet containing the white powder. Sinclair then goes on to describe how he snorted cocaine while Obama smoked it using a glass cylinder he pulled from his pocket. Adding to the sensationalistic nature of his story, Sinclair claims Obama lowered his pants and allowed Sinclair to perform oral sex on him. After Sinclair’s limo driver dropped him off at his Gurnee, Illinois hotel that evening, Sinclair claims Obama returned to his hotel once during his short trip unexpectedly. Sinclair says he again performed oral sex on Obama. And Sinclair has recovered hotel records confirming his stay at the hotel on the dates in question.

Although Obama had identified himself to Sinclair as being involved in public service, Sinclair says Obama didn’t disclose to him that he was a state senator at the time of his encounter. Sinclair says he discovered Obama’s political position after seeing him on TV delivering a speech at the 2004 Democratic convention as a candidate for the U.S. Senate in Illinois, a widely applauded appearance which propelled Obama’s eventual run for president this year. Sinclair says he began contacting Obama’s Chicago campaign office in September, 2007, leaving messages with campaign advisors, including David Axelrod. Sinclair insists his story is not about money. He says his messages urged Obama to come clean and tell the truth about his drug use with him. Voters have been left with the impression that Obama’s drug use was confined to his earlier years. Sinclair wants Obama to acknowledge his drug use with him in the late 1990s after he became a practicing attorney in Illinois and after his election to the Illinois Senate.

After Obama’s campaign ignored his messages and attempts he made to contact the media about his story went unanswered, Sinclair finally got the attention of some in the media after he self-produced a video which he uploaded to YouTube on January 18, 2008. The video clip has been viewed more than 777,000 times over the last 75 days. At the end of February, Sinclair started his own blog to tell his story and respond to critics. A meter on the blog registers more than 136,000 hits over the past month. Sinclair has also gotten the attention of the mainstream media. In addition to the NY Times, Sinclair has given lengthy interviews to the New York Post and the Chicago Tribune. Sinclair says he even provided personal medical records to the Tribune at their request. Still, nobody will touch the story, although a number of interviews with Sinclair have aired on talk radio, including Bill Cunningham and The Right Perspective.

To be sure, Sinclair has had many problems in his life which are enough to give any serious investigative reporter pause. He had a troubled childhood and admits to running away from home. He’s used drugs. He’s trafficked in drugs. He has a criminal record. He changed his legal name three times. He has a host of medical problems too lengthy to discuss here which have rendered him disabled. And if that isn’t enough, Sinclair consented to a polygraph examination offered by Whitehouse.com in consideration for $20,000. The reported results didn’t help Sinclair’s cause with inconclusive results or deception indicated, depending on whose interpretation you choose to rely. Given the sheer weight of his baggage, it would be easy enough for the Obama campaign simply to ignore Sinclair’s existence. But it has not, at least according to Sinclair.

Sinclair complains in a defamation lawsuit he filed in the federal district court in the District of Columbia that several anonymous bloggers set out in a series of posts after his YouTube video clip appeared to discredit him by accusing him of fabricating his entire story about his sex and drug romp with Obama, claiming Sinclair was in a mental institution at the time he claims his encounter with Obama occurred in 1999. Sinclair’s lawsuit was filed by Blair Sibley, a controversial attorney who also represents Deborah Jean Palfrey, the D.C. Madam, against federal racketeering charges arising out of a prostitution business she allegedly ran.

Court documents show that Sibley filed a motion with District Court Judge Henry Kennedy, a Clinton appointee, on March 13 to initiate discovery to learn the identities of three anonymous bloggers who allegedly posted defamatory comments about Sinclair at YouTube, Democraticunderground.com and Digg.com. Sinclair believes the attacks on him are being orchestrated by persons acting on behalf of Obama. Judge Kennedy has not yet acted on Sibley’s motion. A self-identified Obama supporter, Paul Tarlow, has also registered the domain name, larrysinclair.com. This is the same tactic blogger and Indiana Democratic Party spokesperson Jen Wagner recently deployed against Republican 7th district congressional candidate Jon Elrod.
The “nuts and sluts” defense against Sinclair’s claims are not unexpected. Political operatives for Bill Clinton used such tactics very effectively against sexual claims made by Jennifer Flowers and Paula Jones in the early going. As Clinton political advisor James Carville was fond of saying, “Drag $100 through a trailer park and there’s no telling what you’ll find.” Admittedly, neither Flowers nor Jones appeared credible at first. After a brief media frenzy early in the 1992 presidential primary season, concerns about Clinton’s womanizing faded away as an issue. After the Monica Lewinsky scandal erupted in Clinton’s second term, which resulted in his impeachment by the House of Representatives and his eventual acquittal in the Senate, the American public finally learned that the claims by Flowers, Jones, et al were largely true, but only after Clinton perjured himself while testifying. An acquittal in the Senate, however, didn’t save him from the loss of his license to practice law for that transgression.

In early January, the Hillary Clinton campaign tried unsuccessfully to focus attention on Obama’s past drug use. The co-chair of Clinton’s campaign, Bill Shaheen, warned that Republicans would have a field day with Obama’s past drug use. In an interview with the Washington Post, Shaheen was quoted as saying: "It'll be, 'When was the last time? Did you ever give drugs to anyone? Did you sell them to anyone?'" he said. "There are so many openings for Republican dirty tricks. It's hard to overcome." Sen. Clinton later apologized to Obama for Shaheen’s statements and accepted his resignation from her campaign after his comments were negatively received in Democratic circles. Sinclair, for his part, denies working on behalf or with the assistance of either the Clinton campaign or Republicans.

Obama, himself, owes his own political success to public inquiry into his political opponent’s personal sex lives. When he ran for the Senate in 2004, his leading Democratic rival, Blair Hull, saw his campaign unravel when David Axelrod and Obama succeeded in getting the Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times to report on the contents of previously sealed divorce records of Hull's, which recounted incidents of domestic violence by Hull during his former marriage. A short time later, at the instigation of the Chicago Tribune, divorce records for Obama’s Republican opponent, Jack Ryan, became fodder for public consumption, sinking his campaign to the point where he was forced to drop out of the race. The Tribune, coincidentally, is the former employer of David Axelrod. Obama wasn’t heard to complain about the media delving into the personal lives of his opponents for a much lesser important office than president of the United States. Instead, he was encouraging it. If the Chicago Tribune thought the voters of Illinois should know all about the sex lives of Blair Hull and Jack Ryan, then it should be equally concerned that voters know all there is to know about Obama’s past drug use. Why isn’t it?

There is also a late-developing twist in Larry Sinclair’s story. Sinclair claims that he believes Donald Young, a gay choir director at Obama’s Trinity United Church of Christ for nearly 20 years, is a man who initiated several telephone calls to him late last year prior to the airing of Sinclair’s video on the Internet. Sinclair does not know how Young learned of Sinclair’s identity or his telephone number, but he notes he had given several phone numbers to Obama's campaign. Sinclair reveals that during those telephone conversations a man identifying himself as Mr. Young revealed to him he had an intimate, personal relationship with Obama. He says Young told him that Obama was concerned about whether Sinclair had publicly disclosed their sexual encounter. According to Sinclair's account, Young had told him Obama had talked to his minister and planned to publicly address his past drug use. Sinclair says he didn’t learn until weeks ago that Young was found murdered in his south side Chicago apartment on December 23, 2007. Chicago’s gay community expressed concern that Young’s death was just another in a string of hate crime killings being committed against gays in Chicago. The case remains unsolved, although limited press accounts of Young’s murder suggested robbery as a possible motive. Young has detailed his telephone contacts with Young in an affidavit addressed to Chicago Police.

It all sounds crazy, doesn’t it? It’s about as crazy as Jennifer Flowers, Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey, Juanita Broderick and Monica Lewinsky. If the New York Times can devote a lengthy, front-page story in late February discussing Sen. John McCain’s supposed romantic link to a female D.C. lobbyist based on innuendo and speculation by anonymous sources, surely it can find some column space to get to the bottom of the Larry Sinclair story. To many, it no doubt seems unlikely that the Harvard graduate, attorney and state senator, Obama, would be hanging with someone like Larry Sinclair. Some people in Illinois are asking why Obama would have kept such close company with political fixer Tony Rezko, who is currently on trial for corrupt influence peddling involving the Illinois governor's office. Rezko, who raised nearly $250,000 for Obama's past campaigns, helped Obama out in the purchase of an adjoinig lot for his south side Chicago mansion in 2006 after it had been publicly revealed that Rezko was under investigation by federal prosecutors. Interestingly, the prosecution's star witness to date has been sleazebag extraordinaire Stuart Levine, a political associate of Rezko. He explained to jurors yesterday how he regularly hosted all-night drug parties in Springfield and Chicago.

To date, Obama has been a very lucky man. The media has never subjected him to the political scrutiny it has subjected his political opponents. The Clinton campaign no doubt hopes that someone in the media starts taking a hard look at the Larry Sinclair story. She can ill-afford to raise the issue herself. The media response to her attacks on Obama to date have been very predictable and not at all helpful to her. As interest in this story intensifies in the blogosphere, it's going to become increasingly difficult for the mainstream media to ignore this story. I could not find any public response by anyone associated with the Obama campaign in responding to Sinclair's allegations in my research for this post. So have at it, Obama Truth Squad. What have you to say about Larry Sinclair?

Democrats Misfire On Student Who Questioned Chelsea About Lewinksy

During this last week's broadcast of Indiana Week In Review, Democrat Ann DeLaney jumped all over Butler University student Evan Strange, falsely accusing him of being a Republican plant. Strange is the student who questioned former first daughter Chelsea Clinton about her father's affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. DeLaney asserted that Strange was a registered Republican primary voter and a member of the Young Republicans. DeLaney's source was the Indiana Democratic Party. Today, WISH-TV's Jim Shella sets the record straight. It seems the state party confused Strange with another person with the same name. Shella writes:

Democrats accused Evan Strange last week of being a Republican primary voter and a member of the Young Republicans. They were in error.

Strange is the fellow who asked the Monica Lewinsky question of Chelsea Clinton at Butler University. I e-mailed him today for a response to the accusations and this is his answer:

“This upcoming election will be the first time I have ever voted in any election. I am in no way, nor have I ever been, associated with Young Republicans, or any political group or club.”

When confronted with that response state Democratic Chairman Dan Parker admitted that his research found two people named Evan Strange in Indiana (from the same age group) and apparently confused the two.

The Indiana Democratic Party and Ann DeLaney both owe Strange a big apology. This is not the first time this type of thing has happened. Former state party spokesperson Jen Wagner falsely accused Ryan Vaughn of being a registered voter in a different council district when Republicans caucused to appoint him to take the place of Jim Bradford. I made the mistake at that time of repeating the information Wagner furnished about Vaughn's voting address on this blog. As it turned out, Wagner had the voting address of a different person with the same name.