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Medicare paid millions to dead patients, illegal immigrants, probe finds

notquiteright said:
More CON games. I didn't deny there were payments to dead folks and ineligible drug prescriptions. But what CONs do is fail to put a tiny fraction of the Medicare budget into context... something many CONs have to do or they would sound pathetic....

32 +- million out of an almost half TRILLION budget- either the CONs are bad at math or love making mountains out of molehills... :doh

The CON beloved Private Sector should do so well.... :roll:
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And that makes it ok then?
 
The reason why the govt is paying for prescription drugs is because the republicans passed Medicare D.

But I'm sure it's somehow Obama's fault
 
sangha said:
The reason why the govt is paying for prescription drugs is because the republicans passed Medicare D.

But I'm sure it's somehow Obama's fault
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I don't know if you remember this, but the law was failing in the House by a couple of votes, The Republicans kept the vote open from 3-6 in the morning while Tom Delay threatened members of the GOP to change their votes.
 
pbrauer said:
I don't know if you remember this, but the law was failing in the House by a couple of votes, The Republicans kept the vote open from 3-6 in the morning while Tom Delay threatened members of the GOP to change their votes.
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And that's why there is so much corruption in government programs? Do you expect all that to change under Obamacare when they have already spent almost $1 billion on a website that doesn't work and it's not even in effect yet?

I could have put together a web site that doesn't work for $100.00
 
Grant said:
And that's why there is so much corruption in government programs? Do you expect all that to change under Obamacare when they have already spent almost $1 billion on a website that doesn't work and it's not even in effect yet?

I could have put together a web site that doesn't work for $100.00
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There's corruption in Medicare Part D because of Republicans. There's really no other way to look at it.
 
pbrauer said:
Leave it to the right wing to make a mountain out of an ant hill. They don't like Medicare so they are going to shine a light on it.
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Actually, I don't think Medicare paid any dead people. What they paid was fraudulent bills by Doctors who billed for services that obviously weren't provided. This is called fraud and I'm sure there is plenty of it. Hopefully, the frauders will be arrested.

Medicare doesn't send any money to individuals. I wish they would send me some but they just don't.

Hope this clarifies things a bit. Crooked Doctors - who would have thought?
 
specklebang said:
Actually, I don't think Medicare paid any dead people. What they paid was fraudulent bills by Doctors who billed for services that obviously weren't provided. This is called fraud and I'm sure there is plenty of it. Hopefully, the frauders will be arrested.

Medicare doesn't send any money to individuals. I wish they would send me some but they just don't.

Hope this clarifies things a bit. Crooked Doctors - who would have thought?
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Except it's not just crooked doctors..

According to Steven Malanga of the Manhattan Institute, experts estimate that "abuses of Medicaid (alone) eat up at least 10 percent of the program’s total cost nationwide -- a waste of $30 billion a year. Unscrupulous doctors billing for over 24 hours per day of procedures, phony companies invoicing for phantom services, pharmacists filling prescriptions for dead patients, home health-care companies demanding payment for treating clients actually in the hospital -- on and on the rip-offs go."
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$Billions in Medicare/Medicaid lost to fraud, abuse - National Law Enforcement | Examiner.com

Corruption in the US: Medicare fraud | Global Health Policy at NYU-Wagner
 
sangha said:
IOW, it's crooks in the private sector.

The same private sector the right worships and wants to leave our health care in the hands of.
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Both 'sectors' can be riddled with dishonest people, as we have seen in this Obama administration. When there are easy opportunities to make money for little risk people will often take that chance. Does this surprise you?

Do all those food stamp recipients really use them for food to feed their children. Are farmers being paid not to grow food essential to the economy?

As we have seen through various government examples during the past few years there is little accountability in the Obama Administration, so naturally many people will lie and break the law.

However, in the private sector, there is greater oversight and less opportunity because the private employer looks for efficiency and honesty. The government, less so. Just the million dollar 'conferences' they've had should tell you that much.
 
Grant said:
Both 'sectors' can be riddled with dishonest people, as we have seen in this Obama administration. When there are easy opportunities to make money for little risk people will often take that chance. Does this surprise you?

Do all those food stamp recipients really use them for food to feed their children. Are farmers being paid not to grow food essential to the economy?

As we have seen through various government examples during the past few years there is little accountability in the Obama Administration, so naturally many people will lie and break the law.

However, in the private sector, there is greater oversight and less opportunity because the private employer looks for efficiency and honesty. The government, less so. Just the million dollar 'conferences' they've had should tell you that much.
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the bad thing about government and it has been this way for eons or as long as I can remember. If there is a problem, the government just throws money at it. If that doesn't cure the problem, the government throws more money at it.
 
HonestJoe said:
Any large scale system will be imperfect and while that's no reason not to try to improve, some people will always fall through the net. I don't think it's anything special about it being government run though. Private healthcare isn't immune to fraud and errors, the key differences being they'll tend to favour not paying when they should rather than the other way around and there often being less scope for independent monitoring and regulation of their errors.
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I transcribed agent dictation for a disability insurance company. Being that they were run for profit!! they had an entire division set up to root out fraud and discontinue false disability claims. Their agents videotaped beneficiaries of disability payments using their crutches to go to court and to the doctor -- and then videotaped them loading trucks to help family move. Or playing golf. Or skiing. They had hundreds of agents whose only job was to discover fraudulent claims.

When they'd built up their case, they told the claimant they would sue for recovery of all monies paid if they didn't sign off. Guess what? They did.

When there's no bottom to the well? Nobody gives a damn. Fraud is rampant.
 
Perotista said:
the bad thing about government and it has been this way for eons or as long as I can remember. If there is a problem, the government just throws money at it. If that doesn't cure the problem, the government throws more money at it.
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Thereby perpetuating the original problem - merely throwing money at problems.

The real problem with government is that it is the only institution among mankind that propagates itself by "solving" problems it was responsible for creating in the first place, which "solutions" themselves only generate more problems requiring further "solutions."
 
Grant said:
Both 'sectors' can be riddled with dishonest people, as we have seen in this Obama administration. When there are easy opportunities to make money for little risk people will often take that chance. Does this surprise you?

Do all those food stamp recipients really use them for food to feed their children. Are farmers being paid not to grow food essential to the economy?

As we have seen through various government examples during the past few years there is little accountability in the Obama Administration, so naturally many people will lie and break the law.

However, in the private sector, there is greater oversight and less opportunity because the private employer looks for efficiency and honesty. The government, less so. Just the million dollar 'conferences' they've had should tell you that much.
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No, the private sector does not have any oversight that ensures that our tax dollars are being well spent. It only sees to it that they make as much profit as possible without any concern for the well being of citizens.
 
Grim17 said:
And that makes it ok then?
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There are times CON false piety wears a bit thin....

NO system made of men by men will EVER be 100% without sin. That the Medicare system has fraud and loss WAAAAY below the private sector should be cause for celebration... instead a few Partisan CONs try and rig the report to imply Medicare is wasteful... it is NOT!

32 million, give or take out of about half a TRILLION dollars.... no private sector business can hold it's fraud to that small fraction of a percent. Hell I doubt many households can accurately gauge where their income goes to that fraction of a percent.

Is it 'ok'???? HELL YES!!!!! It is beyond Ok, it is amazing, spectacular, above and beyond anything the private sector can get close to!!!! :peace
 
MaggieD said:
I transcribed agent dictation for a disability insurance company. Being that they were run for profit!! they had an entire division set up to root out fraud and discontinue false disability claims. Their agents videotaped beneficiaries of disability payments using their crutches to go to court and to the doctor -- and then videotaped them loading trucks to help family move. Or playing golf. Or skiing. They had hundreds of agents whose only job was to discover fraudulent claims.

When they'd built up their case, they told the claimant they would sue for recovery of all monies paid if they didn't sign off. Guess what? They did.

When there's no bottom to the well? Nobody gives a damn. Fraud is rampant.
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Yea and government should have a similar system.. I know they have it in Europe.

But that still does not change that much of the fraud in the private sector is "legal fraud" by exploiting people purses by overcharging. Hello 2 dollar aspirin and massive bonuses for the management!!
 
EdwinWillers said:
Thereby perpetuating the original problem - merely throwing money at problems.

The real problem with government is that it is the only institution among mankind that propagates itself by "solving" problems it was responsible for creating in the first place, which "solutions" themselves only generate more problems requiring further "solutions."
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Yes, exactly. One of the surest way to keep a department or agency funded to the max is failure of that department or agency to solve the problems and take care of the problems they were originally designed to. To succeed means perhaps that problem or agency is no longer needed. To avoid that, success is what you don't want to happen.

There are things the fed is good at and is their responsibility, but other than that, they should well leave alone.
 
Perotista said:
the bad thing about government and it has been this way for eons or as long as I can remember. If there is a problem, the government just throws money at it. If that doesn't cure the problem, the government throws more money at it.
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Exactly. Which is one of the reasons why less government is better.

There is greater accountability and we know that apart from the wages, related benefits, etc. we also have to add in at least 10% waste. And as the size of the government increases so does the chance of waste and fraud. Realistically, that must also be factored in.
 
Perotista said:
Yes, exactly. One of the surest way to keep a department or agency funded to the max is failure of that department or agency to solve the problems and take care of the problems they were originally designed to. To succeed means perhaps that problem or agency is no longer needed. To avoid that, success is what you don't want to happen.

There are things the fed is good at and is their responsibility, but other than that, they should well leave alone.
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The Feds have gradually usurped the rights of the States, such as in this case of Health Insurance, which would appear to give too much power to Washington.

The best government is local government where people can have greater involvement in their own fate. Barrack Obama and his bureaucrats are just not smart enough to tell other people how to live their lives.
 
23 million dollars worth of payouts to deceased individuals out of a total of 554 billion dollars in the year mentioned, all within a program designed in part to care for the sick and elderly. In other words, less than one half of one percent. Not sure this is quite as significant or damming as some here imply.
 
Grant said:
Exactly. Which is one of the reasons why less government is better.

There is greater accountability and we know that apart from the wages, related benefits, etc. we also have to add in at least 10% waste. And as the size of the government increases so does the chance of waste and fraud. Realistically, that must also be factored in.
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I know.
 
Grant said:
The Feds have gradually usurped the rights of the States, such as in this case of Health Insurance, which would appear to give too much power to Washington.

The best government is local government where people can have greater involvement in their own fate. Barrack Obama and his bureaucrats are just not smart enough to tell other people how to live their lives.
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Income redistribution schemes are much easier at the federal level since the Feds can print and borrow endlessly while state and local govt's must actually tax in order to spend.
 
MaggieD said:
I transcribed agent dictation for a disability insurance company. Being that they were run for profit!! they had an entire division set up to root out fraud and discontinue false disability claims.
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No, they have entire divisions dedicated to minimising payouts, regardless of whether they're legitimate or not. As I said, private companies make mistakes too, their mistakes are just more likely to involve not paying out when they should rather than the other way around. Promoting the idea that the government is automatically a corrupt mess while private companies are paragons of virtue is, quite frankly, idiotic (as it would be if anyone did the opposite, not that they do).

MaggieD said:
When there's no bottom to the well? Nobody gives a damn. Fraud is rampant.
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Of course there is a "bottom to the well" - that's part of the point of the article. State systems aren't as good at addressing fraud, mainly because spending money to prevent something happening is a difficult political sell. If Medicare had the scale and scope of anti-fraud departments you describe, they'd be attacked for "wasting" money, even if they were successful. Different worlds, different problems.
 
Grant said:
Except it's not just crooked doctors..
$Billions in Medicare/Medicaid lost to fraud, abuse - National Law Enforcement | Examiner.com

Corruption in the US: Medicare fraud | Global Health Policy at NYU-Wagner
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You're right. It's crooked licensed businesses, the only people who can write a pain med scrip and often refuse to while they are billing for someone who isn't there. Why do I mention the scrip? Because these are (mostly) people TRUSTED to manage narcotics yet we find they can't be trusted to charge for things they actually do. Seems a bit ****ed up to me.

I just didn't support the implication that crooked dead people were getting this money as a part of the "great parasite nation" of "low information voters" that get blamed for every goddamn thing. I used your post to enter the discussion because you are pretty rational and I'm here to participate, not to sling insults and I could expect a reasonable, useful response from you.
 
Grim17 said:
If the government waste and incompetence is this bad with Medicare, what do you think it's going to be like when Obamacare fully kicks in?
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You and people like you need to develop a less childish sense of mathematical proportion.

In 2010 Medicare expenditures were $524 billion. Taking that number as a baseline:

$23 million (payments to dead people in one year)/$524 billion = 0.004% of all Medicare payments went to dead people.

$10 million (yearly average drug payments to illegal immigrants)/$524 billion = 0.002% of all Medicare payments went to illegal immigrants for drugs.

So, you and that Washington times hotshot have identified Medicare payment error totaling of 0.006% of all Medicare payments. You like private enterprise? Well, multiply by 100 and you get 0.6%, a level of error any private enterprise will kill for. Hell, I doubt there has ever been a private enterprise which came in at much under 6% error.

Get back with us when you have a truly legitimate complaint, OK?
 
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