July 31, 2000                                                                         CERTIFIED MAIL

The Honorable Senator Tom Hayden
State Capitol, Room 2080
Sacramento, CA 95814

Dear Senator Hayden:

Over the course of several years, your Deputy, Ms. Sybil Trubin, has followed our family's plight. In her letter of April 27th, 1999, in so many words, she closes by saying that it may be too late for the State legislature to do anything for Mrs. Webb.

Actually, as it now stands, it is not to late. In fact, an urgent response by any of Buc's political representatives, sent to the responsible parties, principally the State agencies involved, may have a huge impact towards her recovery, by forcing relief by their failure to implement the law in a timely and meaningful fashion. As Buc's legal conservator, sworn to uphold her mental, emotional, physical and spiritual needs, I can tell you that she has always voted Democratic, as did her beloved Father, Louis Caputo, of Dunmore, Pennsylvania, thus to you Senator Hayden we write. Following is a brief outline of her disastrous skid down through our medical service system. One of the main culprits within this vermin invested arena, as former Insurance Commissioner Chuck Quackenbush might say as being, invisible to public scrutiny, is the Department of Corporations, to whom you have written several letters on Buc's behalf. We still thank you. Ms. Trubin knows about most of this, so you may wish to skip to the next paragraph in red.

• In 1996 my wife was essentially used as a guinea pig by UCLA neurosurgery.
• Early 1997 she was virtually forced out of UCLA by her HMO.
• At her new hospital, she almost died twice from nursing neglect.
• In March of 1997, she was denied further treatment when her HMO physician claimed that her brain was in and would remain in a vegetative state.
• Later in March, she was given the medical prognosis: "chronic vegetative".
• Shortly thereafter, she was given the bureaucratic prognosis: "permanently disabled".
• From then on all social care and concern for her diminished.
• In May she was prematurely discharged to an Outpatient facility, where the care was so bad, she gnashed out her teeth. Shortly thereafter, she was about to be discharged by this Outpatient facility because her HMO was going out of business in the State.
• In the spring of 1999, she lost all coverage as her COBRA expired, and was deliberately reclassified by the State from IHSS to PCSP; essentially downgrading her care status. To do this, the County surreptitiously sent someone to our home to have documents signed; an action, which in the private sector would be considered illegal. Under coercion and prodding by a County case worker at our front door, my son signed these documents not knowing fully their intent. Despite letters from me to Albert Seltzer in Sacramento telling him that the patient does not wish to participate in PCSP eligibility, this reclassification was deliberately forced through against our wishes, despite being presented as a choice we were allowed to make. Also bear in mind that this all occurred at a time we were not prepared. My wife was home. She was sick. Our resources were gone. I had already gone before the State of California Adjudication Administration Department, and won retroactively maximum nursing hours against the County of Los Angeles IHSS, under the Department of Social Services DPSS. What I am saying that Buc's reclassification downgrading her care when it was clear she was not receiving enough care (she still has no physical therapist) and at a time of great duress for myself and for the family as a whole, was against the intent of the California Code of Regulations, unmodified by county administrative handbooks concerning the same, which no doubt fall in some disagreement. This became abundantly clear to me at the first and second hearings.

• In May, she was accepted under MEDICAL by Kelly Medical Group, who assigned only a third year intern as her physician, but under the thumb of higher ranking medical staff at Kelly, and their accountant; her third year physician never recommended major medical expenses, including specialized evaluation by UCLA, who Kelly was now affiliated, and the generation of TAR requests, essential to get anything pushed through MEDICAL. It should be understood that TAR requests consume considerable physician's time without any guarantee of being accepted by MEDICAL.
• In July of the same year, she qualified for MEDICAL and Medicare, but the State computers arbitrarily disqualified her from MEDICAL, which took Sacramento four months to correct the glitch in their MEDS system. In the meantime, she lost all Provider programs. Regina at Zev Yaroslavky's office is well aware of this. [(213) 974-3333]
• In the spring of 2000, I went before an Administrative judge protesting the County's actions, but eventually lost because of her reclassification from IHSS to PCSP.
• On re-appeal, a deputy director allowed only one narrow issue, the right for a patient to retain IHSS eligibility if they wished to receive advance payment directive.

• This week, her case worker promised to fax this request to DPSS regional officials, but we can just about guess what is going to happen. I sure that they will say, that since her present incorrect classification is PCSP, she can't qualify for advance payment under IHSS, where she was originally, before Albert Seltzer forced through reclassification to PCSP! That is, unless you are willing to intervene.

I've done everything I can as Buc's caregiver, husband and conservator.

Just getting this far along under a multiplicity of duress by government agencies and inaction has been torturous. Throughout this ordeal, we have had no money and very little financial aid. Unable to meet the financial needs of a normal American family, two years ago the State Franchise Tax Board withdrew over one-thousand dollars from our account. After calling them, hysterically sobbing, they returned the money back. This was for Buc's 1966 payroll deductions which the government had acknowledgedly collected. They told me that because she had not turned in her tax return, they had no access to this money, so they felt obliged to steal it from our account, costing us well above and beyond that amount in the adding on of legal fees and other bank penalties. It is really disgusting how government and business pretend that they are friend to the family of man.

On this very day this happened, when a bank representative called me late in the afternoon, I happened to have spent the entire day trying to get through to the government in order to request more nursing. Just before the bank called, I waited twenty-five minutes for someone to pick up the phone. When they finally did answer, a very kind lady in one of the State agencies, apologized for not answering more promptly, stating that they are sorely understaffed. She also said that I had been given the wrong number! That's when Wells Fargo called to tell me that the State had absconded with what little money we had, leaving us with less than two hundred dollars! That's when I just put my head down and relentlessly sobbed.

At the same time, concerning parking violations, despite numerous letters to the DMV and LA and Santa Monica city attorneys informing them of our family's situation, they were ready to boot our car at any time in a tri city area. It was shameful, the government using its vast computer technology to hurt its citizens, when their computers should have been used to informed them about our family's desperate status. And we pay taxes for this! To finally get it cleared up, I paid over one-thousand dollars for two hundred dollars worth of fines.

I think that both Henry Waxman and Sheila Kuehl should know about this. All their lawmaking means nothing, if the laws are not pragmatically enforced by the government against itself.

Both the County and the State are sidestepping their obligation to one of their citizens. Equally bad, she is not much more than an abstract number to them, in the total disregard of her abject position. She cannot talk! She cannot move! She is alive! She can think! But, because under the less than watchful, nor caring eye of the Department of Corporations, who oversees HMOs, she was purposefully allowed to be caste down as irredeemable. And thus, she has and still remains...virtually abandoned. And I, as her caregiver, without rights, am virtually captive to what is no less than slavery and bondage, without respite, until I die, or until she recovers.

Where else is it not slavery to perform all the functions of citizens working without pay, without escape from these duties, night and day, under threat of great losses and perpetual fear, and endless exhaustion, performing what is otherwise the vested and delineated duties of their government's social service system? Does my love for this woman and my vow to God, accredit my servitude as voluntary and thus acceptable to our system of government? Really, where in the rule books does it say that the death of a spousal caregiver, as a result of both physical and mental exhaustion and breakdown, is legally permissible for any reason?

Quite to the contrary, in California's Code of Regulations, the exact opposite is posited, insisting that the Counties enforcing such laws should stimulate successful care giving by providing respite assistance to spousal caregivers, so that they don't burnout, or in my case, die. Something, which after four years, is yet to be offered or acknowledged. However, under State jurisdiction, this is not the case, as I remain in bonded servitude taking care of not so only my wife, but your citizen and your constituent.

Will I have to go before another judge for this? Really! What right does the law have to make our ordeal excruciatingly endless? Is it the untenable right shared by accountants and administrators to effectively and pragmatically alter our moral codes? There is something extremely wrong here to play these games, while all the time someone lies on their back waiting day after day, month after month, year after year. Will you really please help? Please call these people. Tell them to hurry. We need help!

God bless you,

Joel and Buc Webb
910-B 20th Street,
Santa Monica, CA 90403

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