Obama’s anti-fraud gimmick
During his closed-door, invitation-only Obamacare Road Show appearance before a cherry-picked audience at St. Charles High School in St. Louis today, the president will announce a new anti-fraud initiative:
President Barack Obama is directing federal agencies to expand their use of private audits to detect fraudulent payments to health-care and other federal contractors.
The initiative, which Mr. Obama is set to announce Wednesday on a trip to St. Louis, could allow him to argue that he is serious about cutting health-care costs, a concern of lawmakers who are weighing whether to support the Democrats’ health-care legislation.
Mr. Obama will sign a presidential memorandum directing federal agencies to make more aggressive use of “payment recapture audits,” in which private companies under contract scrub government books to find wrongful payments and are paid a portion of what they find.
Under current law, only certain federal agencies are eligible to use this system. The president is also endorsing legislation to expand their use to other agencies and programs, including Medicaid.
The federal government estimates that it made $98 billion in improper payments last year. The audits are on pace to find $1 billion over the next three years, and the White House said more aggressive use of them could double that to $2 billion.
Of that $1 billion, as much as $750 million is from improper Medicare payments.
More details from the WSJ.
No doubt the kiddie stage props will cheer lustily when Obama unveils it.
But if he were so interested in rooting out fraud and saving taxpayers money, why the hell did he wait more than a year to issue his presidential directive?
And given how Team Obama has waged war on independent watchdogs, how long before these anti-fraud efforts get sabotaged or muzzled by this administration?
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Another gimmick to enrich “Friends of Obama” via the government payroll. Look for Van Jones and Desiree Rogers to sit on the board of the largest such firm in this “market” within 2 years…
This way, the government gets to control the graft and fraud. Using history as an example, it won’t be long before Obama and his bunch corrupt this too; payoffs and bribes deluxe.
Barack Obama is the LAST person with any kind of authority to be lecturing anyone about fraud.
RWR
http://www.rightwingrocker.com
THE BIGGEST FRAUD EVER PERPETRATED WAS THE SWEARING IN OF A MAN INELIGIBLE TO BE PRESIDENT!!!
(Yes, I know I shouted, no one seems to listen)
Well you can say one thing in Obama’s defense. He’s personally familiar with “Fraud”:
bait and switch/check
bankruptcy fraud/check
benefit fraud/check
charlatanism/check
confidence tricks such as the 419 fraud, Spanish Prisoner, and the shell game/check
creation of false companies or “long firms”/check
embezzlement, taking money which one has been entrusted with on behalf of another party/check
forgery/check
UNBELIEVABLE!!! The government has been fighting Waste, Fraud, and Abuse for over 30 years, atleast. How many times can we visit that well, and why haven’t we made this fight more efficient. 98 billion in immproper payments last year is both frightening and discouraging.
Wareagle-you nailed it.
Keep in mind we’re talking borrowed money here. There is no cash in the cookie jar.
As soon as the audits get too close to the pet project/vote buying scheme of an influential Dem representative or senator.
Looks like an Acorn full-employment measure to me…send in those fraudsters to find the fraud, assuming they don’t blackmail the fraudsters and shake ‘em down for Rainbow contributions.
All the waste and fraud in Chicago is controlled and in the pockets of the Daley political machine … BO is wanting to have the same thing at the national level … just more Chicago Way Politics for the rest of us to endure …
Nothing will change concerning fraud and waste and reclaiming the misspent funds …
The government doesn’t do more about it now because they claim it costs too much to go after anything reported as fraud that is less than $1M … all those legal costs you know …
Here is an example that proves what I am saying is true …
One of my employees related this story regarding his late father …
It seems that Medicare was paying for a rented hospital bed that was in the home … about $100 a month …
As things got worse for this guy’s father he was moved off of Medicare and into a Hospice program …
The Hospice folks had their own program to provide the hospital bed in the home so the original bed was returned to the rental company …
The rental company continued to bill Medicare for the bed … this was known because Medicare sent a monthly notification to this guy showing that the invoice for the bed had been paid …
He tried first to talk to the rental company and got told “these things take some time to catch up in the system” …
After 8 months he finally went to Medicare directly to report the problem and the over-payments for the bed …
Not only did he get no help from Medicare they turned around and accused him of fraud and investigated him and his family …
Eventually they laid off of him … but they never did go after the original hospital bed rental company …
This finally got resolved and the payments to the rental company stopped when his father passed away … over 2 years and nearly $3000 later in fraudulent payments …
That is our government at work … but multiply that case by the thousands of times that happens across the country and you can see why they waste so much of our money but won’t go after those perpetrating these scams becuase on a per case basis it is “not cost effective” …
Why not prove this tactic works first before dumping Obamacare on us. Fraud has been around a long time. Why hasn’t the government done something already?
OOPS! … becuase=because …
Precisely why we need less government, not more.
I worked as a Medicare Fraud Investigator. Here’s what people don’t know.
1. The government contracts those evil insurance companies to do Medicare.
2. The evil insurance companies had to bid to be eligible to get the work and as you probably guessed, lowest bidders win. If one company will process the millions and millions of claims for 5 cents and another for 4 cents a claim you know who wins.
3. Once an evil insurance company gets the work they must agree to follow and endless river of government regulations on timeliness and quality with countless audits and most importantly it all must be done at or under the agreed budget. Failure to meet these constantly changing requirements means you can lose your contract.
4. As for fraud investigaiton these companies are given, by the government, X amount of money to have a fraud and abuse department. Do you think it’s given a lot of money? Nope. But these companies still manage to save or get back $10 – $15 dollars for every dollar budgeted to this department by the government. But the government doesn’t take it seriously enough to really build and invest in these departments.
5. The fraud and abuse departments gather the facts, identify the fraud or abuse and once they have the information they don’t just get to go take it back. If it is significant they MUST work with the state DOJ to see if they want to pursue it. You think they want every case? Nope. They only want the big bucks and the news worthy cases that make them look good. And do you think those big buck cases all get completed? Not every time. If the DOJ doesn’t have the resources or time they dump it. If they think it’s too tough to prove it gets dropped. They leave it to the small little fraud and abuse department of the evil insurance company to get back whatever money they can. No criminal charges. No felony convictions. Just get back as much money as you can.
To the point. The government has looked the other way at healthcare fraud and abuse for a long long time and now that it is politically convenient for their agenda they want to talk tough. Bull crap!
Can he extend it to malpractice lawyer fees?
ThatSamIAm … Thanks …
See my comment (#11) …
I think you just validated the story I passed on from one of my employees and his experience with trying to report what was considered “too small” an incident of fraud and abuse for the government to do anything about …
Not unbelievable, it’s the government. If it’s being done right, it’s not being done by the government!
And during their efforts, if fraud and waste continue to rise, they can create another measurement:
The amount of money saved had there been fraud.
State attorney-general’s offices want only cases that make them look good? I’m shocked, shocked!
Speaking of fraud, Mr. President, how about an audit on this Geithner guy, his friends and the Federal reserve………..?
Okay, where’d the rest of 96 billion go? These poinyoins could screw up a free lunch!
Wow, recover a whole 1/3 of 1 percent per year! Yay. Maybe they’re hiring the wrong auditors. What’s the cost of the program vs. what is recovered?
So who will be the “Detect fraudulent payments to health-care and other federal contractors” czar? We know it will be someone carefully trained to look the other way should something surface that would embarrass a FOO (Friend Of Obama). Surely there must be many who are qualified.
I know there have been a lot of jokes on this but we are the one’s in the shower who have dropped the soap. The FOOs are the one’s ready and eager to have their way. This is looking really, really bad.
The Obama-Borg is out of control. Resistance is futile. He is trying to assimilate everything.
1. Banks
2. Unions
3. Car companies
4. Healthcare
5. Your children
and finally. . .
6. YOU.
Like many have already said here, this is all a scam to make Obeyme look like he gives a damn about fraud, waste and abuse. We need to place the blame exactly where it belongs: on every single congressional rep and the bureaucrats who love them. They all have to go in the next election or we will never be able to start the clean up.
Did I read this correctly? We’re to be impressed that they know about $98 billion lost in a year and can find $2 billion in three years? 2/3 of a percent of the money?
Hey, if you or I misspent a hundred bucks a year, it wouldn’t take us three years to find two of those bucks.
This stuff makes my head spin.