More To Get Mad About: Medicaid, Medicare, Food Stamp, Welfare Fraud (Congress, healthcare)

[LauraC]

"The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services took a beating from members of a Senate subcommittee Tuesday for incomplete implementation of fraud prevention programs and for missing key deadlines. A cornerstone of the nearly two-hour hearing included the release of a particularly negative report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office, which said CMS had allowed only 42 of 639 analysts to undergo training to use a database that was tailored to identify fraud and questionable claims worth $21 billion over 10 years. Additionally, CMS has not incorporated any data from Medicaid claims, a major potential source of healthcare fraud and abuse, into the system, GAO charges."

Senators Batter CMS Over Anti-Fraud Efforts

So they hold a hearing and so what? The US Senate has as much law enforcement teeth as the United Nations. Big show, lot's of ink and TV cameras, no teeth.

"The Department of Health and Human Services reported about $70 billion in improper payments in the Medicare and Medicaid programs in fiscal year 2010. Operating within the Department of Health and Human Services, CMS conducts reviews to prevent improper payments before claims are paid and to detect claims that were paid in error. These activities are predominantly carried out by contractors who, along with CMS personnel, use various information technology solutions to consolidate and analyze data to help identify the improper payment of claims."

U.S. GAO - Fraud Detection Systems: Additional Actions Needed to Support Program Integrity Efforts at Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services

So not only are the government employees not getting the job done but the government contractors aren't, either.

Also, all week long I have been reading stories of state government employees who have been arrested in various states for welfare and food stamp crimes like this one in my state which not only is rife with food stamp and welfare crime but also has 593 DHS employees on food stamps.

State Employees Caught Stealing Welfare Benefits - NewsChannel5.com | Nashville News, Weather & Sports

If you want to see all of the assorted food stamp scams and welfare scams going on with the public, do a Google search on food stamp fraud and welfare fraud. It's enough to make you jump off a cliff tearing your hair out as you go down. And those are only the stories about people who have been caught like this story about a single county in one state (NY):

"A fraud investigation kicks 115 people off welfare rolls in Broome County. The county has two systems in place to help detect benefits fraud. The latest check will keep nearly $1 million from being payed out to those who are not eligible. 'Our security division, which is one of the most aggressive in the state in welfare fraud has completed some investigations and come up with $988,000 of welfare fraud payments,' says Broome County Executive Patrick Brennan."

Seriously, all of the BS coming from the President and Congress about how stopping Medicare and Medicaid fraud to save the US money is just that -- BS right along with being impotent to stop visa overstays. They have a periodic show for the media and nothing happens.

How about this penalty? If you are ever convicted of ANY government entitlement fraud you can never collect from ANY government entitlement program in your lifetime. So, if you get caught in some food stamp scam, for example, kiss off food stamps, social security, medicare, medicaid, welfare, etc, for the rest of your life. Then they create a database matching program for every applicant to be checked against like the national fingerprint database.

[summers73]

In before "isolated incidents" and "do you want people to die on the streets?"

[AeroGuyDC]

I wouldn't expect that Liberals have jumped off a cliff after reading this. I'm inclined to believe they are at the local bar celebrating, since the government teat is a source of votes. This is good news to them.