Kansas couple on trial for enslaving mentally ill

Last night my fiance and I were talking about how hard it is for social workers (clinical or otherwise) to make any real money. I explained to her that the base scale for a social workers income is much less than she's used to working in the private sector because of a variety of factors. One of those factors is that many elected officials as well as their constituents believe that tax money spent on social welfare programs are just a big waste and should be spent sparingly if at all. Many people believe in the donor or private healthcare models of social welfare and further believe that the government (tax dollars) should stay out of peoples lives entirely. Therefore, because I'm considered to be drain on society, until I go into private practice or start my own agency, I'll have to scratch out a living on less than a starting teacher's salary along with the rest of my colleagues.

When I read stories like the one below, I reflect on issues like this. I sit here and argue that social workers should be paid more and then creeps like the ones in this story demonstrate why that will never happen (unless we get create one hell of a union). According to the story, "The Kaufmans submitted just under $1 million in claims to Medicare from 1991 through 2000 and were paid $216,906, authorities said." That's insanity! What a phenomenal waste of tax payer income.

The problem is that this is just one of many stories where there's been rediculous amounts of fraud and waste committed in the helping industry. It's also sad that when folks who already don't appreciate the work social workers do will most likely cite this story as to why they think the entire welfare state should be condemned in whole, regardless of how many of us actually do the work we're paid to do and do it well.

Here's the sick sad story:

A Kansas husband and wife who ran a psychotherapy practice went on trial on Tuesday on charges that they kept mentally ill people as slaves, forced them to perform sex acts on videotape and then billed Medicare nearly $1 million for the "therapy."

Prosecutors charged that Arlan Kaufman, 68, and his wife Linda Kaufman, 62, spent 18 years taking advantage of patients entrusted to their care. The couple ran a residential care facility in Newton, Kansas, where they worked with at least 20 mentally ill individuals from 1980 until 2004.

Jury selection began Tuesday for an expected five-week trial in U.S. District Court in Wichita.

Authorities are seeking to prove that while the couple was billing relatives and insurers for therapy, rent, utilities and food, they were forcing the residents to engage in hard manual labor in the nude on a farm the couple owned outside of town.

Prosecutors charged the residents were also forced to engage in a variety of sexually explicit acts, including masturbating, fondling each other and shaving each other's genitals, much of which was videotaped.

Patients were physically injured or restrained if they resisted, authorities charged.

Prosecutors have filed 33 criminal counts against the Kaufmans including charges of forced labor, involuntary servitude, health care fraud, mail fraud and obstruction of a federal audit.

The Kaufmans submitted just under $1 million in claims to Medicare from 1991 through 2000 and were paid $216,906, authorities said.

Defense attorneys for the Kaufmans declined to comment. The couple faces more than 200 years in prison if convicted of all the charges.