by Sylvia Xu via The Epoch Times,
Massachusetts sued UnitedHealthcare on May 29, alleging the company defrauded the state’s Medicaid program by making seniors appear sicker than they were to secure higher payments.
The company contracted with MassHealth to provide a Senior Care Options—which combines Medicare and Medicaid benefits into one plan—for seniors aged 65 and older.
UnitedHealthcare allegedly received more than $100 million in fraudulent payments from MassHealth between 2015 and 2025, Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell stated in the complaint.
UnitedHealthcare, a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group, said the complaint is “meritless and doesn’t accurately describe our Senior Care Options program” in a statement emailed to The Epoch Times.
The legal complaint alleged UnitedHealthcare inflated payment rates in three ways.
Massachusetts paid UnitedHealthcare a per-member, per-month rate for each senior enrolled in the plan based on UnitedHealthcare’s assessments of the member’s health conditions.
UnitedHealthcare allegedly labeled members as having behavioral health disorders such as depression or anxiety, or substance use disorders to gain higher reimbursement rates, according to the complaint, when the members had no diagnosis or treatment on record for such conditions.
An analysis by the attorney general’s office revealed that nearly 30 percent of UnitedHealthcare’s 2014 through 2024 behavioral health assessments lacked any matching medical claims to support the mental health diagnoses reported to the state.
The insurer’s internal reviews identified that many members were incorrectly placed in the highest and most expensive level of care despite not qualifying for it, according to the lawsuit.
While the company eventually downgraded these members to lower-paying levels, it allegedly failed to inform the state of the prior errors or return the extra money it had already collected.
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The insurer was paid $1.4 billion for members who did not qualify for the most expensive status, but the insurer justified the rate by submitting assessments claiming members required daily or frequent skilled nursing care, the complaint alleged.
However, an investigation revealed that most of these members neither received nor actually needed the specialized nursing services, according to the complaint.
Out of more than 88,000 assessments for the highest payment level, UnitedHealthcare asserted that 99.3 percent of those members were receiving nursing visits seven days a week. However, the complaint alleged that almost 90 percent of those members had not received a single nursing visit in the week before UnitedHealthcare filed the assessment.
A January Senate report accused UnitedHealth Group of using high-tech scanners and a team of specialists to capture profitable, extra diagnoses in beneficiaries to maximize federal payments from the Medicare Advantage program.
The corporation issued a statement that same day, citing studies that it had commissioned to argue that Medicare Advantage saves money for both the government and beneficiaries.
The Attorney General’s Office alleged that these were intentional failures, the result of a “growth at all costs” strategy employed by UnitedHealthcare that incentivized and encouraged field nurses to code MassHealth members as sicker or less able than they were.
Bernadette Di Re, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare’s plan in Massachusetts from 2011 through 2020, allegedly attributed pressure to “cut staff,” “[g]et more numbers,” and “[g]et more money from the state” as the reason she resigned and left the company, the lawsuit stated.
“The state’s managed care plans need to act in good faith on behalf of their members and the financial resources of our state’s Medicaid program. Our investigation found that UnitedHealthcare knowingly violated these obligations by manipulating health assessments to increase its profits,” said Campbell in a statement.
The company responded in a statement: “The Attorney General is simply wrong that Massachusetts seniors with complex care needs should not be receiving the support and services UnitedHealthcare is helping to provide. We remain focused on working with our state partner to help our members live healthier lives.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/massachusetts-sues-unitedhealthcare-over-alleged-100-million-fraud
by Noel S. Williams
Given their proclivity for protesting, there’s this double entendre: “The French are revolting.” They’re at it again, even more violent than ever, after soccer team Paris Saint-Germain won the prestigious Champions League tournament this past Saturday.
Despite their team winning, the violent and filthy Paris urchins took to the streets in mass mayhem to “celebrate” the victory with violence. Admittedly, they are cursed with being French, but are there red flags for the pending World Cup soccer tournament?
It is his job, so we shouldn’t be surprised when Gianni Infantino, the president of FIFA (essentially, the governing body for soccer), proselytizes that football (soccer) unites the world. I wish it were that simple, but his stance may be grossly Panglossian.
Soccer is a cheap game that even riff-raff in shanty towns and squalid communities throughout the world can play -- they just need a ball and some space that doesn’t have unexploded mines. Even proper boots are dispensable. It engenders intense national pride, and many of the nations that play each other can’t stand each other.
There may be some shallow and token consort between rival fans who manage to remain sober before matches. Add some liquid courage, and the “wrong” result, and that often turns to tribal savagery. As this video documents, the World Cup is not just about “football,” but chaos. It’s incongruous that an event that supposedly “unites” the world requires such robust policing.
The U.S. could potentially face Spain in the quarterfinals. Iran will play Egypt in Seattle. Seeding permutations make it possible that Brazil plays Argentina in the knockout stages of the tournament -- traditionally, they hate each other. Good luck to the authorities responsible for controlling their rival fans (and the on-field refs controlling players). There’s even potential for an Argentina versus England matchup. (Memories live long, including the Falklands and “Hand of God.”) Germany could also face England in the later rounds -- those memories live even longer, especially among the uncouth, uneducated, riff-raff who are inclined to imbibe too much.
Those are just a few of the soccer rivalries that could boil over amongst overwrought hooligans. The point is that the World Cup will, if past is prologue, likely exacerbate disunity, not engender harmony. Then there are this year’s co-hosting nations. International relations are fraught with complex contingencies, but there is only sporadic (at best) unity between the U.S., Mexico (Iran’s team will be based there), and Canada.
If we relish a sporting event that may, at least temporarily, bring some negligible unity to the world, then bring on the Summer Olympics Games (2028 in LA.) The uplifting spirit and touching camaraderie of that glorious spectacle can inspire (minus the occasional cheating) even grizzled grumps. There’s occasional bad sportsmanship (e.g., Australia), but it’s an event that at least attempts to blend sport, culture, and education to help better our world.
For the World Cup, summon the police. For the Summer Olympic Games, Summon the Heroes.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2026/06/the_world_cup_is_divisive.html
For decades, Democrats and their media allies have aggressively branded
Support voter ID? Racist.
Oppose affirmative action? Racist.
Criticize DEI programs? Racist.
Advocate merit over quotas? Racist.
The accusation is so persistent that many Americans simply accept it as fact without asking a simple question:
Which political party actually built the system of racial segregation in America?
The answer is remarkably clear.
Jim Crow laws were Democrat initiatives. Poll taxes were enacted by Democrats. Segregation was defended by Democrat governors, mayors, sheriffs, and legislators throughout the South.
The Ku Klux Klan was founded by Democrats and operated for decades as the violent enforcement arm of Democrat political power in the post-Civil War South.
Bull Connor, the Birmingham official who unleashed police dogs and fire hoses on civil rights protesters, was a Democrat.
George Wallace, who famously declared “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever,” was a Democrat.
Robert Byrd, a former KKK recruiter who later became one of the Senate’s most influential Democrats, served until 2010 and was praised by many Democrat leaders upon his death. His career is a reminder that the historical links between the Democratic Party and racial politics are not ancient history from the nineteenth century.
It was a Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, who fought a war to end slavery.
These are not disputed facts. They are history.
The question is not whether these things happened. The question is why so many Americans have forgotten them.
Modern Democrats speak as though Republicans created segregation while Democrats spent the last two centuries marching beside Martin Luther King, Jr., the latter of whom, by the way, was a lifelong registered Republican.
Even the Civil Rights Act of 1964 tells a more complicated story than the modern political narrative allows. Republicans cast a higher percentage of votes for the legislation than Democrats did, while Southern Democrats mounted the fiercest opposition, including a lengthy Senate filibuster.
None of this means Republicans were historically perfect or that racism existed only within a single political party. History is rarely that simple.
But the modern caricature, Democrats as racial liberators and Republicans as racial oppressors, collapses under scrutiny.
More importantly, it ignores an uncomfortable truth:
The Democratic Party may have abandoned overt segregation, but it never fully abandoned paternalism.
It simply modernized it.
In 2000, President George W. Bush famously warned against “the soft bigotry of low expectations.”
He was speaking primarily about education, but the phrase captures a broader problem. The assumption that certain groups cannot succeed without special accommodations, reduced standards, or government intervention is still a form of condescension, even when wrapped in the language of compassion.
Consider voter ID laws.
Democrats routinely argue that requiring identification to vote is somehow discriminatory because minorities — particularly black Americans — supposedly face unusual difficulty obtaining identification.
The implication is strikingly condescending.
Black Americans can obtain driver’s licenses. They board airplanes. They cash checks. They open bank accounts. They purchase alcohol. They check into hotels. They enter government buildings and office complexes requiring identification.
Yet we are expected to believe they are uniquely incapable of obtaining an ID to vote.
That is not respect. It is paternalism. And condescension.
And it is remarkably similar to the underlying assumptions that drove earlier eras of Democrat racial politics — the belief that minorities require special treatment because they cannot compete or function under ordinary societal standards.
The rhetoric has changed. The assumptions remain.
Today’s progressives rarely express overt racial prejudice. Instead, they promote a gentler, more socially acceptable form of condescension.
Minorities, we are told, cannot succeed without racial preferences.
Students cannot compete without lowered standards and DEI bureaucracies.
Economic disparities must always be attributed to systemic oppression rather than the complex interplay of culture, family structure, education, economics, and personal choices.
Government must permanently intervene because equal rules supposedly lead to unequal outcomes.
This worldview traps minorities in perpetual victimhood while casting progressive elites as enlightened protectors.
It is less overt than Bull Connor standing in a schoolhouse door.
But it still rests on diminished expectations.
Ironically, many minority voters themselves reject these assumptions. Polling repeatedly showsstrong support among black and Hispanic voters for voter ID requirements. Many immigrant families strongly support merit-based education and oppose race-conscious admissions policies that disadvantage their children.
But progressive activists insist they know better.
That is because modern racial politics is not fundamentally about empowerment. It is about political dependency.
A population encouraged to see itself primarily through the lens of grievance is easier to mobilize politically. Identity politics keeps Americans divided into categories of oppressor and oppressed while allowing political elites to position themselves as moral saviors.
And maintaining that narrative requires historical revisionism.
If Americans fully understood which party defended segregation, imposed Jim Crow, opposed civil rights legislation, and built much of the racist infrastructure of the old South, the simplistic modern narrative would collapse.
So history must be rewritten.
Democrats must become the eternal heroes of civil rights while Republicans are cast as permanent villains.
The media, academia, and progressive activists have spent decades reinforcing this inversion.
But facts still matter.
The party of slavery was the Democratic Party.
The party of Jim Crow was the Democratic Party.
The party of Bull Connor was the Democratic Party.
And many of the paternalistic assumptions embedded in modern progressive politics bear an uncomfortable resemblance to the “soft bigotry of low expectations” that George W. Bush warned about more than two decades ago.
Why has this history been forgotten, and what modern political purpose does that forgetting serve?
Bull Connor’s fire hoses are gone.
Jim Crow’s poll taxes are gone.
But the assumption that minorities cannot compete without special treatment remains very much alive.
The language changed.
The politics changed.
Yet the soft bigotry of low expectations endures.
Brian C. Joondeph, M.D., is a Colorado-based ophthalmologist who writes frequently about medicine, science, and public policy.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2026/06/the_soft_bigotry_of_historical_amnesia.html
Alphabet Inc. announced on Monday that it's going to sell $80 billion in shares "to fund investments in its world-class AI compute infrastructure to meet its unprecedented customer demand."
The fundraising bid includes $30 billion in underwritten public offerings, a $40 billion at-the-market (ATM) offering and a $10 billion investment by Berkshire Hathaway via a private placement.
"AI is driving an expansionary moment for Alphabet. The company is experiencing strong demand for its AI solutions and services from enterprises and consumers, at levels that are exceeding the company’s available supply," the company said.
The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah does not approve of a partial ceasefire with Israel, demanding that the southern neighbor halt strikes altogether and not only in the area of the southern suburbs of Beirut, Al Jazeera's correspondent Ali Hashem reported on Monday.
"Hezbollah will not agree to a limited ceasefire for Beirut and the southern suburbs while the war continues in the south," he wrote on X, explaining that "the Israeli position now is that [United States President Donald] Trump has effectively adopted its formula: no strikes on the southern suburbs in exchange for Hezbollah refraining from targeting Israel."
"Publicly, however, there remains a significant gap between the two sides," Hashem claimed. Earlier, Trump announced that he had agreed with both Hezbollah and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end the exchange of fire.
https://breakingthenews.net/Article/Hezbollah-said-to-disagree-with-partial-ceasefire/66412675
Cops on both sides of the US-Mexico border are investigating a sprawling underground passage uncovered in the Tijuana area that is believed to extend toward the US.
The tunnel was found Saturday in the Nueva Tijuana neighborhood during a raid carried out by Mexican federal authorities, with support from the Mexican navy, according to Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office.
Investigators said the hidden passage stretches roughly 869 feet and sits about 21 feet below ground, making it one of the more substantial cross-border tunnel discoveries in recent years.
The underground route was uncovered after authorities executed a search warrant at a property in eastern Tijuana.
During the operation, officers seized a variety of items, including ammunition, cellphones, bank cards, a digital video recorder and dozens of doses of methamphetamine.
While inspecting the site, investigators located a wood-lined tunnel that officials believe was constructed to reach the US border.
Mexican authorities said evidence recovered during the raid suggests the property may have been used as a logistical center for criminal activity, including the storage and movement of narcotics, weapons and explosive materials.
Following the search, the seized evidence and the property were transferred to federal prosecutors, who are continuing the investigation.
The discovery has also drawn the attention of US authorities.
In a statement, Homeland Security Investigations confirmed agents are participating in an active probe involving the underground passage near Otay Mesa, a major border crossing area between Tijuana and San Diego.
“To protect the integrity of the ongoing investigation and ensure the safety of all involved, we are unable provide additional details at this time,” the rep added.
Officials have not yet disclosed where the tunnel may emerge on the US side of the border, how long it may have been in operation, or whether any arrests have been made in connection with the discovery.
Cross-border tunnels have long been used by transnational criminal organizations to move drugs, cash and other contraband between Mexico and the United States while avoiding heavily monitored ports of entry and border security infrastructure.
