Associated Press
There are no 33-page change-of-address forms here.
A video made the rounds yesterday, featuring Mitt Romney expressing amazement at his ability to order a sandwich on a touch-screen at a WaWa's in Pennsylvania. Dylan Byers makes the case that the larger context is far less damaging to Romney, and he appears to have a point.
But immediately before Romney's WaWa comments, the Republican shared an interesting anecdote with his Pennsylvania audience.
"I met an optometrist this morning and ... this optometrist wanted to change his billing address. He moved his office from one side of town to the other, same Zip code, same post office. But he wanted to change his address. He got a form from the federal government. This is so he could get reimbursement from the federal government for the services he provides for the poor and seniors.
"The form he gets to change address is 33 pages long -- 33 pages long. He calls someone to ask how to fill it out. He calls someone in government. They tell him what to do. He sends it in. They sent it back. It wasn't done right, got to do it again, another 33 pages. He calls another person. They tell him what to do. Doesn't get it right the second time. The third time's the charm, though. This takes several months during which time he's not getting the checks for the work he's doing for people who need his care. That's how government works."
While the WaWa story caused a bit of a stir, this little story about the change-of-address form at the post office is infinitely more interesting -- in part because it's so ridiculously untrue, and in part because it helps underscore the absurd philosophy Romney is trying to peddle on the campaign trail.
As Paul Waldman explained, "Have you ever changed your address? You probably have. Did you have to fill out a 33-page form? Of course you didn't. The form to change your address is a friggin' postcard. Old address, new address, when you want the change to happen. Done. You can do it online now, and it'll take about 2 minutes. Yet Mitt Romney gets up in front of a crowd of people and tells them that government is so awful, at the Post Office you have to fill out a 33-page form to change your address."
Romney wants -- and in fact, needs -- voters to have nothing but disdain for public institutions, which leads him to tell outlandish falsehoods like these with a straight face. And Republican voters, conditioned to believe that public institutions are broken and untrustworthy, accept the lies at face value.
But the non-existent 33-page change-of-address form underscores an important truth: if government is so awful, and the public bureaucracy is such a Brazil-like nightmare, why can't Romney point to real examples instead of passing along nonsense?
Update: There is a separate form for Medicaid fee-for-service providers to change their addresses, but the relevant form is 2, not 33, pages long.
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Recent reporting by Andrea Mitchell has shown that the NBC News organization has sunk below the level of farcical tabloid-ism. To deliberately manufacture a false impression of ANY presidential candidate and parade that false image out as "news" has given your viewers another reason to distrust NBC and hold the organization and its staff in deep disdain. If you wonder why citizens feel compelled to lobby for strict government oversight on firms and industries that abuse their role in society, look no further than NBC News. Viewers will no longer weigh "information" provided by NBC News; instead they will only wonder what the real story is and what NBC News has done to transmogrify the real story into Orwellian fiction.
Bottom Line: NBC News has embraced the act of deliberate deception as "normal" journalistic practice and is no longer believable, credible, respectable, or trustworthy. It is time for the American public to demand that such behavior be defined and punished as a criminal act.
WH, right on target! I can't believe that Maddow is so ignorant as to assume Romney was referring to a post office address change rather than what is required for Medicare or Medicade. Unfortunately, her agenda overcomes her common sense. George Orwell saw this coming although he was a few years off. Rather than 1984, we have 2012 when the so called Press lie, fabricate and create "facts" and then report on their own lies. And then people listen or read these lies and comment on them and create new lies. What a shame that so many people are gullible enough to read these "facts" and just know that they are real.
Gee, Mitt told a horse-@!$%# story! Good for him, and I'm sure all the hoagies just ate it up!
OK so all the Republicans who are so worried about Medicaid and Medicare fraud, (you know the sort of thing that never ever happens in the private sector,) are now upset because it takes some actual work and verification for providers to switch addresses and still get reimbursed by the government. It takes a few minutes to fill out a couple of pages of forms. If it DIDN'T take any work, if it were REALLY EASY, you would all be complaining that it's just too easy for fraudsters to rip the American people off.
CMS can require that any individual, group or organization making a change to its pay-to address without an initial enrollment application (CMS-855) on file must complete the CMS-855 in its entirety before a change can be made to the pay-to address. In general, this may affect any individual or organization enrolled prior to 1998.
It appears that the one for optometrists is the form CMS-855s. The form does appear to be 33 pages long:
http://www.cms.gov/Medicare/CMS-Forms/CMS-Forms/downloads/cms855s.pdf
Well done, Michael! You have out done the entire crack staff of Rachel Maddow, MSNBC and Mediaite.
Do you think they know that Medicare is administered by the states and each state or set of states has its own rules?
Evidently not. This means that they are extremely incompetent or they don't mind having "inaccurate" information out there as long as it meets their agenda.
Why don't you show the video to see what a hatchet job Andrea Mitchell and NBC tried to do on Romney??
There is a lot of talk above about which form Romney may be talking about, but no one has asked the question "Why would a 33-page form be required to change addresses"?
This provider may have had to complete a long form, but there was a very good reason for this.
As noted above, there is a long CMS 855i form that is required for a change of address, but why? The answer only took a few minutes to uncover. This long form is required if a provider has not updated their information since 2003 as part of ongoing modernization efforts to detect fraud and abuse begun with the 2003 Medicare Modernization Act.
Essentially Mitt Romney is mocking an attempt by CMS to detect fraud and protect providers from having their medical identities stolen or compromised. He must be a rhino. Once again the Romney campaign decides to mock what they don't understand and they should be called out for not doing their homework.
Ask the right questions and you will uncover so much more.
see CMS Center for Program Integrity: New Strategic Direction and Key Antifraud Activities
and CMS 855I
A lot of you are complaining about Mitt. How about a (so called) news reporter Editing and changing the meaning of what someone says She is the one lying to you
A lot of you are complaining about Mitt. How about a (so called) news reporter Editing and changing the meaning of what someone says She is the one lying to you
What does it say about the GOP electorate if they can, be clueless to accept this or patronize their friends or dishonest enough to portray this as a fact.
Does anyone with an IQ over 60 actually write in this comment section? You folks have completely missed the main point. You argue over which form to use to change an address (and whether Romney was referring to a post office address change or Medicare/Medicade address change) but you miss the fact that Andrea Mitchell completely misrepresents the speech and edited it to fit her agenda!! I could take a snippet of President Obama's speech and make him sound like a child molester or a Marxist (probably easier to make the Marxist label stick for obvious reasons) so do we really want ANY journalist fabricating stories by creative editing? Look at what happened with the Travon Martin case. The NBC edited version of the 911 call was a far cry from the actual 911 call. People, everything is in context!! If you look at her piece and then look at the entire speech in context, it doesn't matter what anyone thinks about address changes. What matters is how most of you people disregard facts that get in the way of your agenda. Facts are facts. What I find most scary is the press and the moron drones who believe this propaganda! Do your own reseach! Just because it is on Fox News doesn't mean it is a lie and just because you see a story like this from Andrea Mitchell doesn't mean it is true! Don't be mindless kookaid drinkers! My god people! You sicken me.....
Not that I love Romney, but the only mistruth I see in this story is from the author, Mr. Steven Benen. It's rather obvious that the optometrist was not receiving a 33-page form from the post office to change his mailing address, he was receiving a from from some branch of branch of government involving medicare.
Romney said: "He got a form from the federal government. This is so he could get reimbursement from the federal government for the services he provides for the poor and seniors."
But, yes indeed, the optometrist did pick up this mail at the post office, which, you know, is kind of the way it works when you get mail.
Very dishonest reporting here and not worthy of being associated with Rachel Maddow.