.png)
5/19/20: additional info w/Pathgroup & IL Medicaid/federal funds:
Early this morning, a fellow gun rights activist reached out and brought a post to our attention here at Mom-At-Arms:
Illinois as many know is a state that is under lockdown. What does the Governor say is the “key” to re-opening the state?
SPRINGFIELD — As Illinois' COVID-19-related death toll surpassed 4,000 Friday, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said the state is focusing on expanding the number of tests performed each day — an effort he said is critical to reopening the state’s economy.
Pritzker said Illinois now has 251 sites that offer free testing, including seven drive-thru locations in Markham, Bloomington, Harwood Heights, Rockford, Aurora, Waukegan and East St. Louis. Illinois is now routinely processing more than 20,000 tests per day.
So who pays for the tests? The government, of course.
Whoa whoa whoa. Pritzker Group? Surely they have no deep connection to Cue Health......
Cue Health reeled in more than $45 million in series B financing the company said will be used to complete development and fund U.S. clinical studies of its first set of diagnostics products.
The San Diego-based company said investors in the financing round included Johnson & Johnson Innovation, Section 32, Dentsu Ventures, Synergy Ventures, Principles of Tarsadia Investments, Pritzker Group Venture Capital, Babel Ventures and Troy Capital. Returning investors included Sherpa Capital, Cove Investments and Rohan Oza.
Pritzker Group Venture Capital.....surely not the same Pritzker as J.B. Pritzker. I mean, that’s pretty fishy having one of the Governor’s investments getting government contracts to conduct the testing.....
Oct. 24, 2017
The Pritzker private-equity business takes control stakes in North American companies, focusing on the manufactured products, services and healthcare sectors. Its portfolio includes packaging companies ProAmpac and Technimark. Last week, Pritzker Group sold medical-device company Clinical Innovations to EQT, the private-equity group founded by Sweden’s billionaire Wallenberg family, The Wall Street Journal reported.
yikes.......
It‘s early and this “front line” worker has to go to work, but Pritzker’s companies are benefiting financially from this whole situation. Here are the other links from the FB post:
“Second huge company that does the testing“
More on Pritzker’s investment Pathgroup, as there has been issues with turn around in testing with them, this leading to longer COVID-19 hospital stays, thus more $$$ to the hospitals. Why outsource like this????....
Some state leaders already knew, though the public did not, that Erlanger — the region's largest hospital — had been a holdout, choosing instead to send its tests to commercial labs with which the hospital contracts. Those labs, in turn, were sending the tests out of town — a turnaround of about seven or eight days, Gardenhire said. The Baylor lab has about a one-day turnaround.
That's not a small difference when we're talking about either contagion or lay-offs because of that contagion. Gardenhire, after asking a lot of questions, came to fear that the real reason might be money.
The senator raised that concern — one he said he'd already voiced to Erlanger CEO Will Jackson without getting an answer — in an email on April 10 to a Brentwood company, PathGroup, which works with Erlanger for pathology physician services.
"It raises the question of why do people have to stay in the hospital that long to get the results back. Who benefits from longer stays in the hospital. If the public is looking to me for answers, I'm going to do my best to find out and correct the problem ... Someone is not telling the truth and I want to find out who. ... If pushing for the truth brings a solution, I'm for it," Gardenhire wrote.
And don’t forget:
August 1, 2016
PathGroup, one of the largest private providers of anatomic pathology and clinical lab services in the U.S., today announced a recapitalization in partnership with Pritzker Group Private Capital.
Founded by a team of pathologists in 1965, PathGroup is a physician-led company currently working with more than 70 hospitals and thousands of group practices across the U.S. to deliver quality results with unmatched responsiveness. PathGroup’s more than 80 in-house physician experts include a comprehensive spectrum of pathology subspecialty areas supporting the company’s mission to improve patient outcomes through high-quality diagnostics and direct physician contact.
And here’s a kicker:
Illinois changes Medicaid, food stamps and unemployment policies in response to COVID-19
Obviously, the most immediate issue is access to healthcare — particularly to testing and treatment for COVID-19. Pritzker issued a guidance to all Medicaid providers over a week ago stating that testing and treatment for the virus will be covered by Medicaid for individuals who are currently uninsured as well as those enrolled in Medicaid, said Stephanie Altman, director of healthcare justice at the Shriver Center, and new federal legislation has covered the same ground.
Do you need to guess who has a Medicaid contract with the state of Illinois?
“Billing for doctors for the testing“
“Company that provides digital messaging about COVID-19”
And more
Clearly, COVID-19 is good business for J.B. and his companies and the longer it goes on, the better. It’s probably why he‘s threatening to punish law enforcement that don’t do as he asks.
Oh, and from his 4/24/20 press conference. He was asked if he had any connections to companies making money off of COVID-19. His answer below.......
Right before he took office....... https://www.chicagotribune.com/politics/ct-met-jb-pritzker-blind-trust-finances-20190110-story.html
Billionaire Gov.-elect J.B. Pritzker's 'blind trust' is not totally blind. Here's why.
Billionaire J.B. Pritzker on Thursday promised to shift some of his immense wealth into a blind trust to avoid conflicts of interest, but it’s unclear whether he will be able to fully wall off his fortune from his official duties as Illinois governor.
Pritzker said he has appointed Chicago-based Northern Trust Co. to act as an independent trustee and make all investment decisions about his personal assets. Those same rules won’t apply to the extended Pritzker family fortune that’s held in secretive onshore and offshore trusts. Pritzker said the terms governing the family trusts do not allow for the assets to be moved into the blind trust.
In addition, Pritzker is divesting “his personally-held direct interests in companies that have contracts” with the state, his campaign said.
Pritzker, who on Monday will become the nation’s richest governor, declined to identify those companies or the dollar amount of those state contracts. Nor would Pritzker disclose the dollar amount of his personal assets going into the blind trust or reveal how much he benefits from various family trusts.
The complex and vast nature of Pritzker’s wealth and a lack of transparency illustrate how difficult it can be to learn when a wealthy politician’s financial interests might butt up against what’s in taxpayers’ best interests.
UPDATE: The nerve of this guy. Published one hour ago.
Businesses in Illinois that Gov. J.B. Pritzker has deemed nonessential but open outside of his revised and extended stay-at-home orders could find themselves facing a Class A misdemeanor, according to sources familiar with an emergency rule they say was filed late Friday. If such rules are finalized, local law enforcement would have to enforce them.
State law says, "All local boards of health, health authorities and officers, police officers, sheriffs and all other officers and employees of the state or any locality shall enforce the rules and regulations so adopted and orders issued by the Department pursuant to this Section."
UPDATE 2: Statement by Pritzker 5/18/20
What is a Blind Trust
In a blind trust, the trustees have full discretion over the assets, and the trust beneficiaries theoretically have no knowledge of the holdings of the trust. The trustor initiates the trust and maintains the ability to terminate the trust, but otherwise exercises no control over the actions taken within the trust and receives no reports from the trustees while the blind trust is in force.
Breaking Down a Blind Trust
Blind trusts are often used when a wealthy individual is elected to a political office, where his investment holdings could potentially put him in a conflict of interest with a regulatory issue or another sensitive exercise of political power. In this context, there are some obvious issues with blind trusts in that the beneficiary setting up the blind trust is at least aware of the investment mix going in and cannot realistically forget that information when weighing future decisions. The trustors may also set the rules under which the investments are managed and, of course, pick trustees that they are confident will act in a certain way in potential situations. So again, the efficacy of the blind trust in truly eliminating conflict of interest is far from proven. That said, politicians with a large amount of wealth or in high office use blind trusts to show that at least the effort is being taken to establish impartiality.