OPINION Thursday, January 27, 2005 Opinion News Archives for:
Pull the bear
The "Crazy for You" bear controversy inches toward resolution with a meeting planned between the president of Vermont Teddy Bear Co. and the state's mental health care advocates.
In the meantime, the $69.95 honey-colored bear, wearing a straitjacket and carrying commitment papers, continues to sell. On the company's Web site, the bear is posed under the heading, "She'll go nuts over this bear."
Although Vermont Teddy Bear President and Chief Executive Officer Elisabeth Robert deserves credit for agreeing to meet with local groups, the meeting isn't scheduled until Tuesday -- less than two weeks before Feb. 14, when the shelf life of this Valentine's Day gift will essentially expire.
Previously, Robert had declined to meet Vermont advocates, preferring to limit the discussions to the National Association for the Mentally Ill at a meeting the week before Valentine's Day, according to Rep. Anne Donahue, R-Northfield, an advocate who has suffered mental illness.
These meetings shouldn't be necessary. The "Crazy for You" bear should be pulled today. It doesn't represent a light-hearted message of love. It is a demeaning and humiliating symbol that perpetuates a stigma about the mentally ill that people have fought hard to change.
Gov. Jim Douglas, who is among the heavy hitters who have stepped into this debate, has said he wouldn't have marketed the bear in the first place. It sends a "dramatic and inappropriate statement" about mental illness, he said.
The bear was a mistake, but the bigger mistake has been the company's lack of recognition that a bear in a straitjacket isn't funny to people who have suffered such a debilitating illness, especially those who have been committed to a mental health institution.
Donahue, who will be among the advocates meeting with Robert, said she wants to focus on helping the CEO understand the gravity of the issue.
Robert must also answer to Fletcher Allen Health Care, where she has been a member of the board of trustees since December 2002. This hospital has had enough conflict with the mental health care community in the past that the board's handling of this issue will be a test of its values. The board plans to discuss the bear at its Feb. 8 meeting, and board Chairman William Schubart says the hospital and board of trustees take the issue "deadly seriously."
"This is our patient community," Schubart said Wednesday. "We mended a number of historical fences with them and we have a partnership -- we don't want to jeopardize that. I know Liz (Robert) knows this."
If Robert knows it -- really knows it -- then the bear will be retired. click here to chat about this news item in our subscriber only forum! -->
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http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/
Former CEO guilty in hospital conspiracyBoettcher misled state on cost of constructionBy Jill Fahy Free Press Staff Writer
Published January 19, 2005
William Boettcher, former chief executive officer of Fletcher Allen Health Care, pleaded guilty Tuesday to federal conspiracy charges, ending a major chapter in the story of a scandal that rocked the hospital and called into question the honesty of its leaders.
Appearing before U.S. District Court Judge William Sessions, Boettcher, 57, agreed to a plea deal in which he could face up to two years in prison. He also has agreed to pay $733,210 in restitution to Fletcher Allen, the approximate amount of the retirement package he received upon his resignation from the hospital in 2002.
Boettcher, who waived his right to a trial when he accepted the plea deal, admitted during the hearing that he was part of a conspiracy to hide the real costs of the hospital's $367 million expansion -- dubbed the Renaissance Project -- from state regulators. He will be sentenced at a hearing that is to begin April 18 and which could last a week.
Boettcher is the second former Fletcher Allen executive to be criminally charged in the scandal that led to the resignations of several top hospital executives and eight trustees.
"My, how the mighty have fallen," Vermont Attorney General William Sorrell said Tuesday. "Before today, Boettcher was a free guy with a clean resume living on a yacht in Seattle, and he starts right now as a convicted felon. Bad day at the office."
Boettcher's case was investigated on both a state and federal level, but the former CEO was brought up on only federal charges because the financing of the Renaissance Project involved issues that crossed state borders, Sorrell said. Conviction of the hospital's top executive does not close the book on a multi-faceted investigation that involves "tens of thousands of documents, e-mails and numerous individuals," Sorrell said.
"Boettcher's plea is a major step, and we're pleased to have gotten here," he said, "but there is much left to be done."
Sorrell and acting U.S. Attorney David Kirby declined to comment on the investigation, noting only that the facts remain under litigation.
Facts of the case
During Tuesday's hearing at U.S. District Court in Burlington, Kirby and assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Drescher laid out the facts of a case they believed would prove Boettcher conspired with others between 2000 and 2002 to stonewall state regulators and hide from them the true costs of the hospital's expansion project.
Drescher said Boettcher and other top hospital officials created two budgets for the Renaissance Project -- one for state regulators and the Fletcher Allen board that showed the project coming in on budget at $173 million -- and another that reflected the project's true costs, which had actually increased to more than $250 million.
Prosecutors also said Boettcher and conspirators concealed from Fletcher Allen trustees the full cost of the hospital's agreement with the University of Vermont to develop the education center component of the expansion project.
Boettcher, dressed in gray slacks, a navy blazer and a light blue shirt, appeared relaxed through much of the proceedings. He leaned back in a chair, his feet rocking back and forth. He nodded when affirming statements by Sessions, saying he was of a good mind to admit guilt.
Boettcher's demeanor changed when Drescher read the charges against him. He leaned forward. Whispers to his lawyer, Jerome O'Neill of Burlington, grew louder.
O'Neill told the court he and his client don't agree with all the facts Drescher laid out, saying Boettcher did not participate in any conspiracy to dupe the hospital's board of trustees about the project's costs.
"We're not here to minimize ... (Boettcher's) involvement. He was involved, but many other people also participated in this very complicated project," O'Neill said. "Many events took place without his knowledge, and some took place with his knowledge."
Later, when Sessions was placing restrictions on what Boettcher can do between now and his springtime sentencing, the former hospital CEO interrupted his lawyer while he was speaking to the judge. After a series of whispers, O'Neill asked the judge to allow Boettcher to bring a boat from Mexico back to the United States in March, as he had planned. The boat in Mexico is not the one he lives on. His boat is docked in Seattle.
Sessions told O'Neill his client would have to work it out with his pre-trial services officers.
After the hearing, Boettcher paused to speak to reporters, but was stopped mid-sentence by O'Neill, who urged him not to comment.
"I'm happy to see you guys," Boettcher said to reporters, "and I'll have to talk to you later. I have to go with (O'Neill) now."
Reputation declined
Boettcher was hired as Fletcher Allen's CEO in 1998. He was chosen because he had a reputation for cutting costs at troubled hospitals. His salary and benefits were tied to the hospital's prosperity. But his tenure at the hospital only worsened the hospital's reputation and financial situation.
Soon after his arrival at Fletcher Allen, he pushed through the long-stalled $173.4 million Renaissance Project. State regulators, embodied in the Department of Banking, Insurance, Securities and Health Care Administration, are required to give a nod to projects costing more than $1.5 million in an effort to control healthcare costs. Boettcher was required to notify the regulators if the total cost of the project rose more than 10 percent or $500,000, whichever was less.
As the project's price rose, Boettcher persuaded high-ranking hospital officials to lie to the state. Concerned the public and regulators wouldn't support a cost-inflated project, he insisted his subordinates find a way around the public process.
Ultimately, the hospital's chief financial officer quit. State regulators later determined if this had been done in the open, tens of millions of dollars would have been saved.
Boettcher is the second former Fletcher Allen executive to be criminally charged in covering up the real cost of the hospital's now $367 million Renaissance Project. Thad Krupka, the hospital's former chief operating officer, pleaded guilty last fall to three misdemeanor false claim counts. As part of his plea deal, Krupka agreed to cooperate with state and federal investigators and be a government witness at any trials connected with the Fletcher Allen scandal.
Boettcher's agreement gives him immunity from cooperating in ongoing investigations into the Renaissance Project, and guarantees that no new criminal or civil charges will be brought against him concerning the project. Also as part of the agreement, Boettcher was ordered to relinquish his passport and must remain within the United States and U.S. territorial waters until his sentencing.
Meanwhile, prosecutors are looking to Boettcher's sentencing as a time to show just how Boettcher's dirty dealings hurt the hospital and how he might have personally gained from his actions.
While the investigation has yet to reveal the true scope of the scandal, Sorrell said, Boettcher's conviction is a major piece of the whole.
"This is a man at the top of the food chain at Fletcher Allen saying, 'Yes, I was involved in a conspiracy with others to lie, fraud and mislead the state,'" Sorrell said. "Here, we have the number one guy saying, 'I'm guilty.'"
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