Finally …
CBS is reporting that The Scooter Store is no more.
This scam did an obscene amount of advertising on cable television channels that were targeted at seniors. After I heard the first ad, I told my Mother it was a scam to get money from Medicare and other insurance companies.
After a while my Mother automatically changed channel or muted the television if one of their ads came on while I was at her house. She didn’t want to set me off about what con artists they were.
Finally they got investigated, knocked off the Medicare vendor list, and have gone bankrupt.
There are a lot of people zipping around in electric wheelchairs that would be better off using a walker and getting some exercise.
5 comments
I don’t know, Bryan; I’ve seen some of those people waiting for their rehab, zipping around the waiting room on their terrifyingly fast scooters, and some of those people are awfully… wide. I wonder how they could survive “getting some exercise” … <eye-roll />
Seriously: of course you are right. Our tax dollars can be spent for the benefit of disabled people… spent far better, far more effectively than by buying them those scooters… spent for, say, two dozen walkers or a hundred canes. And nobody will miss those TV ads.
It would be nice if the millions of dollars spent at the Scooter Store had been used to create decent manual wheelchairs that were lightweight and more adjustable. Carbon fiber comes to mind, as does inflatable cushions for more comfort, and more comfortable hand rims. There are a lot of things that would have made life better for more people, than the over-priced energy wasters financed by Medicare for years.
“… to create decent manual wheelchairs that were lightweight and more adjustable.”
It is possible those two factors to some extent work against each other. Thanks to the doc who is my case manager at TIRR, I have a really fine, very lightweight wheelchair constructed to spec by Quickie… very lightweight, but not highly adjustable, rather, customized to my body dimensions. It is perfect for my form, and if I should have the luxury of growing old, I look forward to doing so in this wheelchair. Right now, I can walk a couple of blocks, with a cane on good days, or a walker on difficult days. The wheelchair is good for longer trips. My prior wheelchair, rented from the hospital, was a POS, and weighed a ton.
I don’t know; perhaps you disapprove… but AFAIK no tax dollars were used in paying for this chair. It was paid for with our private insurance, to a doctor’s prescription and a spec sheet written up by the TIRR Mobility Clinic after many, many measurements of what remains of my elderly frame. I don’t think they prescribe scooters for anyone…
The sad thing is the people who say “there the government goes again, destroying 1500 jobs!” Apparently they equate jobs created by fraud with jobs created by gainful employment. Sure, criminals can get rich from their crimes, but that doesn’t mean crime is okay. Sigh! Morals. We needs some. Real ones, I mean, not the fake shit that the right wing peddles every day.
Steve, I was thinking of the ‘beast’ that Medicare provided for my Mother for two months. I had to get that sucker into and out of the trunk, it was costing Medicare an obscene rental amount every month, and it was never comfortable. They had a limited number of height adjustments in 1-inch intervals, when the same thing could have been accomplished with a threaded pipe to achieve ‘just’ right without the bolt ends to gouge people and property.
Custom-made is obviously the best solution, but there are ways of building that would accomplish nearly the same thing with a limited inventory of parts that could be fitted to a common frame. There are a few kids in wheelchairs that I have seen around for years, and their parents have to buy whole new chairs when the child grows. There has to be a better way that can be distributed around the world. Just look at how adjustable modern bikes are – why aren’t wheelchairs?
The proper response for the complainers, Badtux, is that those employees were stealing tax money tp give ‘takers’ something they didn’t deserve. Then you ask them why they haven’t read Ayn. 😈
If that reasoning were valid the War on Drugs™ would have ended a long time ago. Just look at the number of people who are involved in that enterprise.