MEDICARE WASTE AND FRAUD

How would waste and fraud be eliminated from Medicare? To find a possible answer, we must examine the administrative cost of private insurance companies and compare it to Medicare. The private companies have a cost in the neighborhood of 20%. Medicare claims about 6%, a 14% difference. How can that be?

Start with Medicare premiums that are collected by the Social Security Administration and not charged to Medicare. The need for clerks to track billing has been eliminated from Medicare. The real meat of the matter is the private companies have staff to review claims in order to eliminate waste and fraud. It is obvious that Medicare does not. The cost to the federal government, last year, for Medicare and Medicaid was $807 billion dollars. Fifty (50) billion in waste and fraud is 7% of the cost. One might conclude that creating a bureaucracy to eliminate the waste and fraud would cost more than the loss. Evidently prior administrations came to the conclusion that the cost to control waste and fraud was more than the theft. A prime example is the IRS. Laws and agents exist and yet payment of taxes, by everyone, can't be enforced.

Since 1970, Medicaid's per-patient costs have risen 35% more, and Medicare's 34% MORE, than all other health care in America. President Obama and his congressional lackey's say we must expand government -run health care to contain costs. Nearly forty (40) YEARS OF EVIDENCE SHOWS THAT GOVERNMENT-RUN HEALTH CARE HAS SUCCEEDED ONLY IN RAISING COSTS. Why would we believe a public option would be any better?

Forty three percent (43%) of Medicaid costs are paid for by the states. However, the proposed legislation calls for 100% of additional enrolled to be paid for by the states until 2015 when it drops to 91%.Estimates are that 13 million people will be added to the Medicaid rolls. Estimate 3,250,000 households at a projected cost of $8,955 each, that's real money to be absorbed by the states. No one seems to know what waste and fraud exist at the state level. I am coming to believe a waste and fraud lobby group exists in Washington. There is not enough waste and fraud in the private insurance companies, so they call on government to create more.

Joel