Top Cuomo Aide- Admin Hid COVID Data
Governor Andrew Cuomo (D- NY)
Melissa DeRosa, Governor Cuomo’s top aide, privately apologized to Democratic lawmakers for withholding the state’s nursing-home death toll from COVID-19. She stated they “we froze” out of fear the true numbers would “be used against us” by federal prosecutors.
Her stunning admission of a cover-up was made during a video conference call with state Democratic leaders, in which she said the Cuomo administration had rebuffed a legislative request for the tally in August for political reasons.
Poetrooper sends.
Andrew Cuomo’s Aide Admits NY Hid COVID-19 Nursing Home Deaths to Avoid Federal Investigation
ROBERT KRAYCHIK
Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s (D-NY) top aide admitted that her team withheld the number of deaths related to COVID-19 in New York’s nursing homes to shield the Cuomo government from federal investigation and political scrutiny.
The New York Post reported on Thursday that Melissa DeRosa, New York’s secretary to the governor, apologized to Democrat state legislators for “political” damage caused by the Cuomo government’s suppression of information related to nursing home COVID-19 deaths.
In a recorded call with state Democrat lawmakers, DeRosa said Cuomo’s team feared a federal investigation in the context of former President Donald Trump’s highlighting of coronavirus-related deaths in New York’s nursing homes. This fear motivated Cuomo’s government to suppress the statistics against requests for such information from the state’s government and citizens’ organizations.
Cuomo’s team prioritized political protection over transparency with New York’s citizens, assessed Assemblyman Ron Kim (D-Queens), who partook in the conference call.
“They had to first make sure that the state was protected against federal investigation.” Kim told the New York Post. He said DeRosa’s remarks sounded “like they admitted that they were trying to dodge having any incriminating evidence that might put the administration or the [Health Department] in further trouble with the Department of Justice. That’s how I understand their reasoning of why they were unable to share, in real time, the data.”
The AP is also reporting over 9,000 COVID-19 patients were released to nursing homes in New York state early in the pandemic, and Cuomo’s office’s subsequent underreporting of deaths in nursing homes. It’ll be interesting to see what spin the Cuomo Machine will put on these reports, but in the end he’ll blame Trump. Read the entire article here: Breitbart
Thanks, Poe.
Category: Guest Link
Cuomo corrupt? I’m not even a bit surprised.
And his brother’s a loser, too… who knew?
And this surprises……anyone?……anyone?…….Bueller?……Bueller?…..anyone?…….
According to many posters here this is quite impossible. Covid is a myth, or a bad cold or the flu or something. The numbers aren’t being under reported they are being over reported to collect an imaginary $39k from Medicare through some shadowy cabal of crooked doctors and teat sucking hospitals. Covid isn’t a threat, it isn’t dangerous, lots of people get better. I could go on and on repeating things written here but I could never do it as well as others as isn’t heartfelt.
You are the only one here that has made such claims.
rgr769 says:
February 8, 2021 at 4:32 am
Plus, we have all read and heard the reports of motor vehicle deaths, drug OD’s, and suicides being reported as Chicom Flu deaths. Given there is a $39K gov’t payment for every Covid death reported by a hospital or other health care facility. It is not hard to see why the numbers are so high. I imagine they are testing every stiff in the morgue for the virus so they can claim those bonus bucks.
Except for maybe the definition of; “heard reports of” These are all unsupportable lies.
What does that have to do with anything? You claim “According to many posters…” then cite one off topic comment as support for your statement?
Not even a weak argument because it is no argument at all.
5JC,
“Except for maybe the definition of; “heard reports of” These are all unsupportable lies.” Sorry to burst your bubble, but in multiple communications FIRST HAND that I’ve had with state and local officials they clearly state that ANYONE admitted to the hospital, for ANY REASON, that has a positive test for covid is listed as a covid hospitalization. The same goes for deaths. I can’t speak to other states, but here in Colorado, that’s the FACT, not an unsupportable lie. But what do I know, I’m just on the front lines of covid response, to include daily video calls with state and local officials at the height of all of it…
Also, nice attempt at a classic “logical fallicy”.. saying that because someone believes that overall covid deaths are falsely overreported, that means there’s no way that in some instances, they haven’t been underreported for political purposes.
Hey asswipe, I never said it was a myth. I said we can’t believe the numbers because they are counting people as covid deaths who were not killed by the virus. Well, I guess the ER doctors I watched on TV saying that they were counting people who had not died of the virus as covid deaths were just imaginary. Or, the official from a county morgue saying he saw death certificates of people who died in vehicle accidents reported as covid deaths. Also, if you bother to read the CDC definition of who is to be reported as a covid death, it doesn’t require that the death be confirmed as actually caused by the virus. It allows for presumed deaths, with no proof that the person didn’t die from some other respiratory ailment.
What are you trying to do, take up the slack for the mendacious mollusk aka the Commiessar?
I’m pretty sure AOC’s literally coughed up more knowledge on epidemiology than you’ve ever learned. Never mind anything I’ve drunk away. There’s a difference between “In the general populace the average is going to be .02%” and “Hey let’s create a closed system with minimal staff and high instances of other significant health problems that usually get listed as ‘co-morbidity’ regardless of the complication that eventually killed them.”
That aside, you’ve bullshitted things here before, what’s different this time?
5JC, What the fuck are you talking about?
Everyone here always understood the China Flu can be lethal to those over age 75. That’s why Leftist radicals called it “Boomer Remover”.
The argument is this is no excuse to close down the country and destroy people’s lives with artificial unemployment.
I am a PSG in an infantry BN,and almost half our battalion have had the China Flu, with zero deaths, and only 2 cases lasting more than 5 days really sick.
This might not be the statistical evidence you are looking for, but base in my personal experience, only old people and those with preconditions are at risk from the China Flu.
So stop flapping your mouth and stop drinking the Democrat kool-aid. Reality is an unforgiving bitch that bites in the ass those who pretend not to be aware of her.
And everyone said amen. Well done, Joe.
Except 5JC who said Awomen…
Ditto. Except, remember we can’t believe any anecdotal reports. We must believe reports from health care facilities where Medicare’s CMS pays them 20% more federal tax dollars for each person they claim they treated with the virus. Cuz, healthcare orgs never commit Medicare fraud; just ask Senator Menendez.
So mote it be. Amen
The $39K is hardly imaginary, 5JC. Since your google-fu seems considerably less than adequate, allow me to assist.
USA Today Fact Check
Did you even read the article? It doesn’t say that.
Being annoying isn’t a banning offense. At least not yet.
FTA:
Any other comments, Laughing Boy?
You are actually quoting the incorrect claims made portion. I guess you stopped reading there. The article continues some ways after that.
Payments are only made for uninsured people on Medicare. Not everyone who shows up with Covid. So we are talking about less than 10% of the population that the government might even pay for.
They are paying for actual medical care. And why would they pay that much?
https://www.kff.org/uninsured/issue-brief/estimated-cost-of-treating-the-uninsured-hospitalized-with-covid-19/
“For less severe hospitalizations, we use the average Medicare payment for respiratory infections and inflammations with major comorbidities or complications in 2017, which was $13,297. For more severe hospitalizations, we use the average Medicare payment for a respiratory system diagnosis with ventilator support for greater than 96 hours, which was $40,218.”
Because it is inline with normal costs. But the amount has never been shown to be $13K or $39K those are simply estimated averages of what it costs to treat actual patients. It isn’t some kind of crazy $39K bounty that hospitals get for having covid patients.
The only difference is that 20% more is paid when the patient has Covid. Which does beg the question why? Which is a fair question.
It is because the costs are much higher for treating people in the midst of a pandemic. Due to the high number of fatalities in the medical field (20X normal last year for nurses) and illnesses of staff the hospitals are being forced to pay huge dollars in overtime and incentive to keep and recruit staff. 20% doesn’t even touch it. This is in addition to the extra cost for PPE, Isolation wards, temperature checkers at the door, etc that come with the pandemic.
So no there is no extra $39K, it is simply the amount that would normally be paid anyway for a similar disease, with a 20% premium to cover the extra costs associated with the disease, which BTW isn’t enough.
I don’t think it’s AW1Ed who misread the USA Today article he linked above, or who didn’t bother to read the entire article. Quoted from the very end of that article:
There is no such thing as someone who is “uninsured” who is eligible for Medicare (that’s Medicaid, a different program entirely). Medicare coverage is in fact considered insurance coverage. And virtually everyone in the US over 65 is covered.
There is also no portion of the article linked above that I find that is titled or appears to list or discuss “incorrect claims” or “false claims”.
Perhaps you should take your own advice and read the entire article.
Oh, and last time I checked the difference between $5k and $39k is $34k. No, that’s not $39k. But that worst-case difference is certainly closer to $39k than it is to either $5k or $13k.
I already said they get paid more. They don’t get a $39k bounty for a positive test.
They don’t even get paid $39k. That number was literally drawn out of thin air.
You really need to read the article AW1Ed posted. In Apr 2020, that was the national average of what Medicare reimbursed a hospital for a Wuhan Coronavirus patient who required a ventilator. For the same patient w/o a Wuhan Coronavirus diagnosis, the Medicare reimbursement (national average) was $13k. The linked article covers that pretty clearly; and USAToday fact checked it and rated it as true. They also disclosed their sources.
The bottom line is that hospitals have a financial incentive to find people that died in their facility to have died with or of the virus so they can get that ChiCom flu bonus.
There’s got to be a reason they list COVID as comorbidity in cases where there weren’t even COVID tests done.
The reason is the 20% increase in what they get paid for treating the patient instead of the low Medicare standard payment.
To paraphrase James Carville:
Drag a 20% bonus through through a hospital administrative section; you never know what you’ll come up with…
Another graduate of the Lars Taylor School of Fact Pulling out of your Ass (aka: Empiric data).
It’s called over coding and is frequently done in crooked doctor’s offices and teat sucking hospitals. It’s one of the reasons medical care in this country is so frikkin expensvie. Promising extra money for a particular diagnosis is almost an invitation to commit fraud.
Even the nutty congressman who made the claims said there was no evidence of over reporting of covid cases. Instead he believed that there was under reporting.
As I recall, you have indicated you have a LE background.
Given that, I would expect you to recognize the rather obvious potential motivation for economic fraud – particularly as no positive confirming test is required (presumptive diagnosis w/o lab confirmation is allowable).
Oh, and your statement about the “nutty Congressman” is highly misleading. What the Congressman (speaking in April 2020) actually said was that he believed that the number of Wuhan Coronavirus total cases – not hospitalizations – was being under-reported due to lack of testing capability (re-read the article AW1Ed linked for confirmation of that point). At the time, he was correct for precisely the reason he stated: a national shortage of test capability. Further, that fact is also irrelevant to any discussion of additional payment to hospitals due to Wuhan Coronavirus treatment, whether documented or presumed. Individuals who acquire the virus but who don’t require treatment or hospitalization – and apparently around 80% of cases are either asymptomatic or mild and don’t require medical treatment – don’t generate any additional payments. And those mild and/or asymptomatic cases are precisely the vast majority of the cases that were being missed through lack of testing roughly 10 months ago.
So you are you suggesting there is some kind of fraud scheme based solely upon the basis of a possible motive?
Based upon this we could extrapolate that everyone commits fraud because they can get money out of it. No more honest people in the world, simply an entire world full of fraudsters.
The congressman has never, ever provided any documentation for his numbers. It’s not like politicians tell lies. I guess if I were to pick between hospitals and politicians on an integrity scale I’d go with the hospital so long as it isn’t a VA hospital.
Um, USAToday fact checked the Congressman’s numbers. They check out. I guess you must have missed that part – or ignored it because it conflicts with your preconceived notion.
No, not everyone commits fraud. But you’re LE; you know damn well some do. And when a system is set up that invites it – like the VA does with it’s often p!ss-poor to nonexistent verification of military service when people apply for VA benefits – well, some minority of the population will give it a try. That’s shown in articles here with disgusting regularity.
This “additional reimbursement program” outright begs to be defrauded. No lab confirmation required, and a potential gain of $25k+ for a “presumptive” diagnosis of Coronavirus for a ventilated patient? Do you REALLY think some hospitals haven’t taken advantage of that loophole to pad the numbers? That’s an extra $100k or thereabouts for every 4 patients they can get accepted as “provisional”. Hell, at 2 per week that adds up to seven figures in less than 5 months.
I have little problem with additional payments for lab confirmed Coronavirus patients; hospitals face issues during an epidemic and probably need some extra $$$ to compensate for the additional costs they incur (though I think that 3x the normal rate is a bit much). But I have a huge problem with a “provisional” diagnosis being accepted w/o any confirmation whatsoever and being used to justify getting an additional $25k per “provisional”. That’s an open invitation for someone to scam the system.
Whenever someone can get serious $$$ for lying, sooner or later someone will lie through their teeth for the cash. And from what I can see it’s generally sooner vice later.
I do not disagree with anything you said however, I would like point out one thing: USAToday ain’t the most integrity-based fact checker.
Just an observation.
They are IMO somewhat leftward-biased, though. So if the Congressman was “out to lunch” in any of his claims, I’m reasonably sure they’d have nailed him to the wall on any small error.
They didn’t; rather, they agreed with him. That fact IMO speaks volumes.
Hondo, you’re right in looking at it that the hospitals over-reporting COVID-19 can legitimately claim that there is no fraud because they’re relying on that “presumptive” loophole.
A synonym for “presumptive” is “probable” and probable carries a very broad and indefinite meaning.
The budget-embattled hospital administrators across this country who aren’t going to take full advantage of that federal loophole are few and far between if not nonexistent.
5JC is being deliberately obtuse like his fellow traveler. Perhaps they attended police academy together.
Andy lied…. and Granny died.
How many “Main” stream media outlets will cover this story? The Propaganda Ministry of the Democratic Party aka 99% of “news” outlets with either ignore or somehow blame Trump. I’m sure the Commie-sar will have a lame take on “Orange Man Bad” and any politician with a (D) is automatically an angel and forgiven of all sins. She committed outright fraud. What did Cuomo know, and when did he know it will never be asked.
Remember, Cuomo has been saying for months whenever the nursing home deaths issue is brought up that Trump made him do it. Or, he blames “the federal government,” as he did a few days ago. What actually happened is that the CDC issued guidance that said infected patients could go nursing homes, but only if the facility had a PPE and facilities to isolate the patients. Most nursing homes had neither last year in the early months of the pandemic. But Cuomo signed off on a directive to the state’s hospitals to send and the homes to accept infected patients who no longer needed hospital care. So, they complied and people died.
CNN and MSNBC mentioned it for a combined total of 0 minutes last night.
Cocksucker! We knew this was going on, but who thought there would be an admission from him of his sh^tbaggery? Oh…wait…it wasn’t his fault! Ms Thang, the Secretary is taking the fall for it. “Her” office withheld the info from everybody…including the guv.
Anyone expect any different from a political party that continued to re-elect a murdering rapist to the Senate and lionized him? Tammany Hall residents would be so very proud of how their corruption has multiplied over the years.
A murdering rapist and a Klan grand wizard. Two people that it’s astonishing they backed into this century.
Well at this point the media is fully on their side, so they won’t get held accountable to them. The Congress and White House are on their side. There’s no reason not to be open about it.
Even if the Republicans take the House and Senate next year, this scandal will be two years in the past. As Hillary famously asked, “At this point, what difference does it make?”
Cuomo may be a bit dim, but he’s learned how to play the game. He’s been in politics his entire life.
I heard on WFTL 850 AM Radio this morning that cuomo didn’t want to use the Hospital Ship because the numbers of patients would be recorded. Anyone one else out there hear the same thing, and Der Fuhrer biden should be impeached because since he took his 1,000 year new 4th Reich position, he killed a large number from covid making him a mass killer. Almost like the guy that took the pipe in his bunker back in 1945.
The why is somewhat irrelevant. The fact remains that he had resources at his disposal that he did not use. Did he refuse to use those resources? Did he just not need those resources?
Indications are that he did need them but did not use them for whatever reasons. The top two that come to mind are that he did not want the appearance of Trump having a solution to the problem he had and/or that he would have less control over the outcome for the citizen of and around New York. Either one is despicable. Denying health care for anyone is despicable.
Jeff, perhaps Gov. Whitmer did the same here in Michigan. The National Guard and the Army Corps of Engineers set up a 1000 bed facility at Cobo Hall in Detroit, that was hardly used. It never had more than 20 patients at a time.
And the state counts coronavirus deaths after a “review of death certificates”. Silly me, I didn’t know you didn’t need a medical examiner and/or an autopsy to change a cause of death.
So basically he shipped infectious people to be housed with the most vulnerable population and gave the facilities no choice on accepting them. All while ignoring the facilities that Trump went to great expense to set up to handle those very people.
The disease spread like crazy and caused tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths that were then not reported. They were not reported so he could win reelection. That is like some socialist death camp shit, literally.
Give this another few months. -Much- worse will come out.
Once Cuomo the Executioner is obviously in major jeopardy, his former associates will reveal more.
Pass the popcorn.
I’m waiting (hoping) for Joe Pesci to make an appearance.
As edited above, your quote is now correct.
Cuomo and his cronies have much blood on their hands for their asinine policy that forced nursing home and other elder care facilities to admit patients that were known or suspected to be positive for the Wuhan Coronavirus.
Ok. The actual deaths were reported, even in NYC you can’t hide that many dead bodies.
The cause of death were not properly reported. This is crazy on a number of levels.
I’d say at the very least he needs to be recalled. It would be better if he were prosecuted for the wrongful deaths, but am unsure how that fits in the NY Code as I know nothing of NY law. Certainly under the current political scheme that will likely never happen. But IMO it should.
I know NY has recall laws but not sure how they function.
New York does not have a recall statute that would apply to the governor. That was confirmed by a couple of NY lawers last night on the report I watched. They said the only recourse against the governor is a criminal proceeding/ and or civil litigation. Although, in a civil damages suit, the governor could claim governmental immunity. NY already has a statute enacted that gives healthcare facilities immunity from civil suit liability for any patient treated for the virus.
Qualified immunity=bad for cops to have but good for judges, lawyers and elected officials.
Hypocrisy thy name is legion.
If Lars had a father.
If this were a republican Gov Pataki, the lamestream media would be shredding him 24/7 – he would have been done months ago. This shitbag has a ‘D’ next to his name, and there is no curiosity by the MSM. It takes children, grandchildren, and in laws of these deceased elderly to raise hell to get any traction. Now the dirt is piling up so fast, Cuomo’s lieutenants can no longer just brush it under the rug. Pathetic.