Jewish Principals of Brooklyn Health Care Company Under Fire
A stinging indictment of a Brooklyn-based home-health-care company in this week’s Village Voice shines a spotlight on its Jewish principal — and the two “wily operatives out of Williamsburg’s Orthodox Jewish community” who have apparently abetted his “routine looting of public resources.”
The “misnamed” Excellent Home Care Services “has been happily pillaging state coffers for years without interference,” writes Voice investigative reporter Tom Robbins in the article, titled, “The Sick Looting of Home Health Care.” While the backstory gets complicated, Robbins lays out a byzantine account of how the company allegedly lied about its stated mission to serve special-needs patients — but continued to bill government programs like Medicaid and Medicare.
What role did the Orthodox fixers — Joseph Menczer and Joseph Goldberger — play in the Excellent adventure? They raised $500,000 for former New York governor George Pataki’s campaign, “the kind of support that cements deep friendships,” Robbins writes. “They quickly presented the new governor with a list of favors sought. One had to do with the business of supplying home care attendants for the elderly and infirm.”
At their urging, Pataki reversed a moratorium on home health care licenses issued by his predecessor, Mario Cuomo — as long as the new licenses served special-needs patients. Joseph Goldberger’s elderly father-in-law was a co-owner of Excellent, according to Robbins.
But Excellent’s mission to serve disabled New Yorkers was a “laugher,” Robbins writes. “In 2008, this needy group accounted for less than 5 percent of its patients; in 2009, just 3 percent.” Still, “earnings soared. Excellent reported $93.2 million in revenue, most of it via Medicaid, from 2007 to 2008. Gross profits were $23 million, with its two partners taking home $4 million apiece.” “This is how Excellent Home Care came to be,” Robbins writes. “And if its operators told a single word of truth about their actual intentions, it does not appear in any record.”
Excellent’s license is now up for review. Susan Regan, an attorney on the state’s review board who raised alarms about the company as far back as 1998, agreed with Robbins’ assessment of the company. “I think that was their intention from the beginning,” she said. “I want to revoke this license.
“I can’t think of a more extreme example,” Regan said. “It was essentially a fraud.”
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
