Exploiting addiction

Andrea Peyser

He’s ringmaster in the Circus of the Damned.

Dr. Drew Pinsky is the nation’s leading huckster for celebrity addicts — the go-to guy for almost-famous faces lost to liquor, sex, ecstasy and crack.

Since 2008, Dr. Drew has glammed up and tarted up B- and Z-list celebs on his hit VH1 show, “Celebrity Rehab” — renamed “Rehab” last fall so as not to exclude folks who’ve yet to make it big by falling on their faces. He’s turned addiction from an affliction to a wise career move.

From Tiger Woods’ Bimbo in Chief Rachel Uchitel — self-diagnosed as addicted to inappropriate men — to plastic-surgery enthusiast Janice Dickinson, no life is too trivial or sad to exploit.

ABC via Getty Images

Dr. Drew and Mindy McCready

Thanks to the good doc, feeling powerless in the face of drugs or, who knows, compulsive, naked tweeting, are not weaknesses. He’s done more to make addiction look hip and trendy since stoned rocker Jimi Hendrix choked to death on his own vomit in 1970 at age 27.

Eight days ago, Dr. Drew lost it. With the passing of country singer and “Rehab” alum Mindy McCready (pictured with him), who died of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, folks suspicious of the Rehab Industrial Complex are taking a dim look at Dr. Drew.

It’s about time.

“I think ‘Dr’ Drew Pinsky should change his name to Kevorkian. Same results,” singer Richard Marx tweeted the day McCready died Feb. 17, referring to the late Dr. Jack Kevorkian, who helped terminally ill patients off themselves.

Marx backed off the next morning. Sort of. “I went too far with the Kevorkian crack.” Then he continued to lay blame at Dr. Drew’s feet. “It is, however, my opinion that what Dr. D does is exploitation and his TV track record is not good.”

“Dr. Drew has lost another one,’’ was the reaction to McCready’s death from Eugene Kovar, grandfather of dead “Rehab” player Joey Kovar.

Five of Dr. Drew’s “Rehab” stars have, to date, succumbed to their demons, including actor Jeff Conaway and Rodney King. Three have died from the 2009 season alone — rocker Mike Starr of Alice in Chains was lost to a drug overdose in 2011, “Real World” star Kovar died in August from opiate intoxication, and McCready. Dr. Drew diagnosed her on the show as suffering from “love addiction.”

This is serious?

Dr. Drew is no killer. But he has reason to fail. He sits at the epicenter of the multibillion-dollar addiction industry, whose existence depends on the relapses of people he’s trying to cure.

“Whenever a celeb overdoses or has an addiction problem, buy Drew Pinsky stock. It’s good for his brand,” said Michael Levine, a Hollywood publicist and author who says he likes and respects the doctor.

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Miami medicine goes digital

About 10 years ago, Dr. Fleur Sack quit her practice as a family physician to become a hospital department head. Spurring her decision was the need to switch from paper records to electronic ones to keep her private practice profitable. “At that time, it would have cost about $50,000,” Dr. Sack recalled. “It was too expensive and it was too overwhelming.”

But times and technologies changed, and last year, Dr. Sack left her hospital job to restart her medical practice with an affordable system for managing electronic patient records. She agreed to a $5,000 setup fee and a subscription fee of $500 per month for the system. Her investment also qualified her for subsidy money, which the federal government pays in installments, and to date, her subsidy income has paid for the setup fee and about two years of monthly fees. “So far, I’ve got my check for $18,000,” she said. “There’s a total of $44,000 that I can get.”

That kind of cash flow is one reason why so-called EHR software systems for electronic health records have been among the hottest-selling commercial products in the world of information technology. EHR system development is a growth industry in South Florida, too. Life sciences and biotechnology are among the high growth-potential sectors identified by the Beacon Council-led One Community One Goal economic development initiative unveiled in 2012; already, the University of Miami has opened a Health Science Technology Park while Florida International University has launched a program in its graduate school of business oriented toward biotechnology businesses.

For many young businesses in the area’s IT industry, government incentives are paving the way. The federal government is pushing doctors and hospitals to use electronic health records to cut wasteful spending and improve patient care while protecting patient privacy — sending digital information via encrypted systems, for example, rather than regular email.

Under a 2009 federal law known as the HITECH Act, maximum incentive payments for buying such systems range up to $44,000 for doctors with Medicare patients and up to $63,750 for doctors with Medicaid patients. Hospitals are eligible for larger incentive payments for becoming more paperless. The subsidy program isn’t permanent; eligible professionals must begin receiving payments by 2016. But by then, the federal government will be penalizing doctors and hospitals that take Medicare or Medicaid money without making meaningful use of electronic health records.

“What the government did is, they incentivized, and now they’re going to penalize,” said Andrew Carricarte, president and CEO of IOS Health Systems in Miami, one of the largest South Florida-based vendors of online software service for physician practices. He said insurance companies also may start penalizing physicians for failing to adopt electronic health records because “the commercial payers always follow Medicare and Medicaid.”

It’s all part of the growth story at IOS Health Systems, which has more than 2,000 physicians across the nation using its online EHR system. Carricarte said many of the company’s customers buy their second EHR system from IOS after their first one flopped. “Almost 40 percent of our sales come from customers who had systems and are now switching over to something else,” he said.

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Miami Dolphins hopeful on stadium referendum date

The Miami Dolphins are hopeful the Miami-Dade County Commission will approve a May 14 date for a referendum on the $400 rehabilitation of their stadium, time enough to get South Florida in play for Super Bowl 50, a Dolphins spokesman said Saturday.

Spokesman Ric Katz said the language of the proposed referendum has yet to be decided, and ultimately the commission decides the date.

But, he said, “we’d be very happy with” May 14 because “that gives us a week to communicate to the NFL before they make the important decision of Super Bowl 50.”

NFL owners are slated to meet on May 22 to pick the site of the 2016 Super Bowl — seen as a tourist revenue prize for whichever host city gets the 50th anniversary contest.

Mayor Carlos Gimenez met Friday with Dolphins owner Stephen Ross and CEO Mike Dee to discuss the proposed stadium rehabilitation.

From the mayor’s side, there has been no agreement on a date and Gimenez does not plan to bring the proposed May 14 referendum to the commission at this time, said spokeswoman Suzy Trutie.

Friday’s was a “first meeting” at which “many things were discussed,” including the Dolphin’s preference for May 14.

But, “We continue negotiating with the Dolphins with regards to finances.”

One proposed financing plan would increase the bed tax in mainland Miami-Dade by 1 percent and increase the sales tax rebate the team already gets at the stadium in Miami Gardens. Ross had initially offered to pay at least $201 million in his financing plan. But Katz, a Miami publicist representing the team in the stadium campaign, said the two sides were still in negotiation on what the mayor would ask the commission to put to taxpayers in a referendum.

Trutie said the proposed referendum would gauge public opinion on increasing hotel taxes from 6 to 7 percent to fund the stadium renovations.

Of the commission, Katz said, “We do not take them for granted. They have the prerogative.”

Attorney Kendall Coffey did not return calls asking whether the Dolphins had hired him to write the ballot language.

Dolphins lobbyist Marcelo Llorente had said in recent weeks that the team was considering May 7 and 14 as possible referendum dates.

Any activity by the Florida Legislature would likely have to be undertaken before then. The regular session is slated to end May 3.

Miami Herald staff writers Patricia Mazzei and Doug Hanks contributed to this report.

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Independent Spirit Award Winners 2013

The 2013 Film Independent Spirits Awards were handed out in Santa Monica, CA today and lots of Oscar frontrunners cemented their status by dominating in their categories once more.

Check out all the winners below:

Best Feature

Beasts of the Southern Wild

Bernie

Keep the Lights On

Moonrise Kingdom

Silver Linings Playbook

BEST FEMALE LEAD

Linda Cardellini, Return

Emayatzy Corinealdi, Middle of Nowhere

Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook

Quvenzhane Wallis, Beasts of the Southern Wild

Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Smashed

BEST MALE LEAD

Jack Black, Bernie

Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook

John Hawkes, The Sessions

Thure Lindhardt, Keep the Lights On

Matthew McConaughey, Killer Joe

Wendell Pierce, Four

BEST SUPPORTING FEMALE

Rosemarie DeWitt, Your Sister's Sister

Ann Dowd, Compliance

Helen Hunt, The Sessions

Brit Marling, Sound of My Voice

Lorraine Toussaint, Middle of Nowhere

BEST SUPPORTING MALE

Matthew McConaughey, Magic Mike

David Oyelowo, Middle of Nowhere

Michael Pena, End of Watch

Sam Rockwell, Seven Psychopaths

Bruce Willis, Moonrise Kingdom

BEST DIRECTOR

Wes Anderson, Moonrise Kingdom

Julia Loktev, The Loneliest Planet

David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook

Ira Sachs, Keep the Lights On

Benh Zeitlin, Beasts of the Southern Wild

BEST SCREENPLAY

Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola, Moonrise Kingdom

Zoe Kazan, Ruby Sparks

Martin McDonagh, Seven Psychopaths

David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook

Ira Sachs, Keep the Lights On

For the full list of winners, click here.

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And the Oscar goes to...?

Can you ace this Academy lesson?

Winners 1927-1977

Winners 1978-2012

In honor of the 85th AcademyAwards, airing tonight at 7on ABC, British graphic artist Olly Mosswas commissioned to design this puzzle poster of every Best Picture winner.

Each film is represented by an Oscar statuette tailored toaplot point or actor’s performance. We’ll give you this one to start: last year’s winner was “TheArtist,” the silent film represented here in black-and-white.

“The hardest one was ‘Gentleman’s Agreement.’Wenever heardof themovie,” explains Jensen Karp, co-curator of the California-based Gallery 1988, which oversawthe project.

“Agreement” stars Gregory Peck as a reporter who pretends to be Jewish in order to cover a story on anti-Semitism. We’ll leave you to figureout how the film is represented—and the year it won.

What will fill in the 2012 Oscar statue? The nine best picture nominees are “Lincoln,” “Lifeof Pi,” “ZeroDarkThirty,” “Amour,” “Argo,” “Les Miserables,” “Silver LiningsPlaybook,” “Beasts of the Southern Wild” and “DjangoUnchained.”We’re scared what an Osama bin Laden Oscar might look like.

If you’re stumped by the statuettes, the answers are:

1927-28: “Wings”; 1928-29: “The Broadway Melody”; 1929-30: “All Quiet on the Western Front”; 1930-31: “Cimarron”; 1931-32: “Grand Hotel”; 1932-33: “Cavalcade”; 1934: “It Happened One Night”; 1935: “Mutiny on the Bounty”; 1936: “The Great Ziegfeld”; 1937: “The Life of Emile Zola”; 1938: “You Can’t Take It With You”; 1939: “Gone With The Wind”; 1940: “Rebecca”; 1941: “How Green Was My Valley”; 1942: “Mrs. Miniver”; 1943: “Casablanca”; 1944: “Going My Way”; 1945: “The Lost Weekend”; 1946: “The Best Years of Our Lives”; 1947: “Gentleman’s Agreement”; 1948: “Hamlet”; 1949: “All the King’s Men”; 1950: “All About Eve”; 1951: “An American in Paris”; 1952: “The Greatest Show on Earth”; 1953: “From Here to Eternity”; 1954: “On The Waterfront”; 1955: “Marty”; 1956: “Around the World in 80 Days”; 1957: “The Bridge On The River Kwai”; 1958: “Gigi”; 1959: “Ben-Hur”; 1960: “The Apartment”; 1961: “West Side Story”; 1962: “Lawrence of Arabia”; 1963: “Tom Jones”; 1964: “My Fair Lady”; 1965: “The Sound of Music”; 1966: “A Man for All Seasons”; 1967: “ In the Heat of the Night”; 1968: “Oliver!”; 1969: “Midnight Cowboy”; 1970: “Patton”; 1971: “The French Connection”; 1972: “The Godfather”; 1973: “The Sting”; 1974: “The Godfather Part II”; 1975: “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”; 1976: “Rocky”; 1977: “Annie Hall”; 1978: “The Deer Hunter”; 1979: “Kramer vs. Kramer”; 1980: “Ordinary People”; 1981: “Chariots of Fire”; 1982: “Gandhi”; 1983: “Terms of Endearment”; 1984: “Amadeus”; 1985: “Out of Africa”; 1986: “Platoon”; 1987: “The Last Emperor”; 1988: “Rain Man”; 1989: “Driving Miss Daisy”; 1990: “Dances with Wolves”; 1991: “The Silence of the Lambs”; 1992: “Unforgiven”; 1993: “Schindler’s List”; 1994: Forrest Gump”; 1995: “Braveheart”; 1996: “The English Patient”; 1997: “Titanic”; 1998: “Shakespeare in Love”; 1999: “American Beauty”; 2000: “Gladiator”; 2001: “A Beautiful Mind”; 2002: “Chicago”; 2003: “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King”; 2004: “Million Dollar Baby”; 2005: “Crash”; 2006: “The Departed”; 2007: “No Country for Old Men”; 2008: “Slumdog Millionaire”; 2009: “The Hurt Locker”; 2010: “The King’s Speech”; 2011: “The Artist.”

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The faces of Florida’s Medicaid system

MEDICAID

MiamiHerald.com/healthcare

The tea party governor now says he wants to expand Medicaid. The Republican Legislature isn’t so sure.

Hanging in the balance?

Access to healthcare for 1 million or more poor Floridians.

Billions of dollars in federal money.

The state budget, which already pumps $21 billion a year into care.

Florida’s Medicaid system today serves more than 3 million people, about one in every six Floridians. The decision whether to expand the system by a full third will be made by men and women in suits in Tallahassee’s mural-filled chambers this spring.

But the impact is elsewhere, in children’s hospitals in Tampa and Miami, in doctors’ offices in New Port Richey and in the home of a woman who recently lost her full-time teaching job.

The Suddenly uninsured

This was not how she envisioned her 60s.

Jean Vincent dreamed of turning her five-bedroom home into a bed and breakfast. She painted murals on walls, created mosaics on floors and let her imagination guide the interior decorating. There is a “garden” room, a “bamboo” room and a “canopy” room.

In 2010, Vincent lost her full-time job teaching in Citra north of Ocala. Her mother became sick with cancer and needed around-the-clock care before dying in August. Then, doctors began prescribing Vincent costly medications to treat osteoporosis and early-onset diabetes.

“I started getting a little behind with my mortgage,” said Vincent, 61. “All of a sudden, I found out I had to have an emergency retina eye surgery.”

Today, Vincent is searching for roommates to move into her home and help pay the bills. She begs Gainesville’s Sante Fe Community College and City College to schedule her for as many classes as she can handle as an adjunct geography professor; this semester’s four is the most she’s ever had.

But her biggest worry? Not having comprehensive healthcare.

Vincent — who is too young for Medicare — is enrolled in CHOICES, a health services program the Alachua County government created for the uninsured. It covers preventative care like her flu shots and helps with her drug therapy. But if Vincent ever got so sick she needed to go to the hospital, she’d be on her own.

Under current Florida law, adults with no dependents are not eligible to participate in Medicaid no matter how little they make. Vincent’s four children are all grown, which means even as her income has dwindled she can’t become eligible for the health insurance program run jointly by the federal and state governments.

If Florida decides to expand the Medicaid system, people in Vincent’s position for the first time could be covered.

The expansion would allow any single adult making about $16,000 a year eligible for Medicaid.

On the matter, Vincent has become an activist. She joined with patient rights group Florida CHAIN and traveled to Tallahassee to lobby lawmakers.

“When I gave my testimony, that’s all I wanted them to do was see there were people out there that weren’t just trying to take advantage of the system,” she said.

This summer, she expects to only be assigned one class at Sante Fe. That will provide about $2,000 for her to live on for three months. Meanwhile, her retirement dreams are put on hold.

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Miami police union challenges officer’s firing for fatal shooting

The Fraternal Order of Police filed a lawsuit against the city of Miami on Friday, asserting that an officer who fatally shot an unarmed motorist in 2011 was improperly fired from the police department.

Officer Reynaldo Goyos shot and killed Travis McNeil as he sat in a car at a Little Haiti intersection. It was one of a string of seven deadly shootings of black men in the inner city by Miami police officers in 2010 and 2011.

Goyos was cleared of criminal wrongdoing by prosecutors in 2012. But he was terminated last month after the department’s Firearms Review Board concluded that the shooting was unjustified.

The police union lawsuit claims that the board violated state open-government laws by failing to open its meetings to the public.

Goyos “was improperly terminated by the city of Miami Police Department by a review board that violates the law,” union President Javier Ortiz wrote in a statement.

The lawsuit contends that Goyos should be reinstated.

City Attorney Julie O. Bru declined to discuss the specifics of the case. “We reviewed the allegations, and the city maintains that the board has operated consistent with the requirements of law,” she said.

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Diogo Morgado as Jesus in 'The Bible'

Producer Mark Burnett and his wife Roma Downey are bringing The Bible to television with an epic, 10-hour, five-part miniseries, and ET's Nancy O'Dell is with the man who portrays Jesus, Diogo Morgado, and the actor who embodies St. Peter, Darwin Shaw.

Pics: Adorable Tots: Celebs and Their Cute Kids!

"Jesus is definitely the most complete and complex figure of mankind; he's just someone who belongs to millions and billions of families all around the world," says Portuguese star Morgado, a religious man himself. "Just [given] the chance [to play him], I'm like, 'Okay, I'm going to try to just give an example of my Jesus.'"

Premiering Sunday, March 3 at 8 p.m. on History, The Bible brings to life some of the more well-known tales from the ancient tome from Genesis through Revelation, including David and Goliath, Noah's Ark, the Exodus, Daniel in the Lion's Den and the crucifixion/resurrection of Jesus. Shot in Morocco, the series is narrated by Emmy winner Keith David with a musical score by Oscar winner Hans Zimmer, also stars Downey as Mother Mary and includes Paul Brightwell, Greg Hicks, Sebastian Knapp, Amber Rose Revah, Greg Hicks and Simon Kunz.

Related: First Look at Russell Crowe as 'Noah' 

Watch the video for the actors' take on tackling such iconic figures – and see the amusing moment after Nancy sneezes in front of Morgado!

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Why Benedict ‘really’ quit

With five days to go before Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation, the Vatican is being rocked by an explosive report that he decided to quit after learning of a network of influential gay prelates who were being blackmailed by gay outsiders.

The revelation stems from Benedict’s ordering a committee of three cardinals to investigate the unauthorized release to journalists of Vatican papers — the “Vati-leaks” scandal — and to make the findings for his eyes only.

Ironically, the two-volume, red-leather-bound cardinals’ report running nearly 300 pages was itself leaked.

Reuters

SACRILEGIOUS:Pope Benedict XVI commissioned a probe that unearthed evidence of gay clergy members within the Vatican being blackmailed by gay laity.

Italy’s leading newspaper, La Repubblica, reported this week that the report was turned over to Benedict on Dec. 17 and he decided that day to resign.

The cardinals questioned dozens of Vatican officials and concluded the Holy See was corrupted by rival factions.

“Everything revolves around the non-observance of the Sixth and Seventh Commandments,” the report said, according to La Repubblica.

That’s a reference to “Thou shall not steal” — for the alleged pilfering of the Vatican bank — and “Thou shall not commit adultery,” which alludes to homosexuality.

La Repubblica added that members of one faction were “united by sexual orientation.”

“Some prelates are ‘externally influenced’ — we would say blackmailed — by laity who are linked by bonds of a ‘worldly nature,’ ” the paper said.

A similar report appeared in Italy’s news weekly Panorama, which named a Roman sauna where gay encounters allegedly took place.

Other Italian news media reported that Benedict was shocked by the findings.

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi had indicated the pope may meet with the cardinals who compiled the document before he steps down next Thursday.

The newspaper La Stampa said Benedict was considering handing the report to the College of Cardinals when they begin their conclave to choose his successor.

Lombardi yesterday rebuffed efforts to get official reaction to the media reports.

One of the three cardinals who investigated Vati-leaks, Julian Herranz, hinted at the findings.

“There will be black sheep, like in all families,” he told El Pais.

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South Florida hospitals could lose $368 million from sequestration

A detailed survey shows that South Florida hospitals could lose $368 million over 10 years in federal budget cuts starting next Friday, if the sequestration program kicks in as scheduled.

The Florida Hospital Association, using data from the American Hospital Association, estimates that over the next decade, sequestration would cause Miami-Dade hospitals to lose $223.9 million and Broward facilities $144.4 million under the Congress-mandated budget cuts that hit virtually all federal programs unless Republicans and Democrats can work out a compromise.

The New York Times and other national news organizations are reporting that sequestration, unlike the New Year’s fiscal cliff, seems virtually certain to take place.

The law requires across-the-board spending cuts in domestic and defense programs, with certain exceptions. Because healthcare represents more than one in five dollars of the federal budget, it will be a huge target for cuts.

For hospitals and doctors, the major impact will be felt in Medicare cuts, which according to the budget law are limited to 2 percent of Medicare payments. Medicaid, food stamps and Social Security are exempted from cuts, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.

The FHA study calculates that over 10 years, Jackson Memorial Hospital stands to lose $30.6 million, Mount Sinai Medical Center on Miami Beach $27.3 million, Holy Cross in Fort Lauderdale $23.8 million and Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood $21.4 million.

“The problem with sequestration is that it just makes broad cuts across the board,” said Linda Quick, president of the South Florida Hospital and Healthcare Association. “The Affordable Care Act is looking at all sorts of intelligent ways to reduce costs,” including coordinated care that will stop duplicated tests and reduce hospital readmissions. “But sequestration takes an ax, and that doesn’t make any sense.”

FierceHealthcare, which produces trade publications, says sequestration cuts over the next decade will include $591 million from prescription drug benefits for seniors, $318 million from the Food and Drug Administration, $2.5 billion from the National Institutes of Health, $490 million from the Centers for Disease Control and $365 million from Indian Health Services.

The National Association of Community Health Centers estimates that 900,000 of its patients nationwide could lose care because of the cuts. The group said the cuts were “penny wise and pound foolish” because they would mean less preventive care while more and sicker patients would end up in emergency rooms.

Like the fiscal cliff, Republicans and Democrats agreed on a sequestration strategy, with the idea that the drastic measure would force the two sides to reach agreement on more deliberative budget adjustments. That hasn’t happened.

The White House reports that the law will mean that nondefense programs will be cut by 5 percent, defense programs by 8 percent. But since the first year’s cuts must be done over seven months, that means in 2013, nondefense programs need to be cut by 9 percent, defense programs by 13 percent.

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