Let’s say you win $1,000 cash at a raffle drawing. Some among us might choose to save, invest or donate the money. Others might use the money to pay bills. Still others find that cash tends to burn a hole in their pockets and go shopping.
Whether we’re savers or spenders, there’d be unanimous agreement that it would be foolish to put the cash on the dashboard and drive home with windows rolled down. Common sense tells us how ridiculous it would be not to keep better track of our money.
Unfortunately, common sense is in short supply when it comes to tracking taxpayer dollars that finance Medicare, the popular public health insurance program for 40 million disabled and retirees.
Suffering a chronic inability to police and track down overpayments, curb fraud and promote quality above quantity, the $466 billion Medicare program loses an unacceptable percentage of its budget to waste, fraud and abuse. Last year, Medicare’s internal auditor discovered an outrageous disparity between what was believed to be a 7.5 percent error rate actually exceeded more than 30 percent.
Heads of households and small business owners across America couldn’t afford to stay afloat if 30 percent of their expenses were actually paid out by mistake.
Aging Americans rely on Medicare to help pay for quality health care services and equipment that enhance their quality of life well beyond retirement. Unfortunately, a few rotten bananas in the durable medical equipment industry are giving a black-eye to those who conscientiously provide oxygen equipment, diabetic kits and wheelchairs to the disabled and retirees.
Just consider recent examples of Medicare fraud by unscrupulous suppliers of motorized wheelchairs. An internal audit recently revealed that Medicare and its beneficiaries paid nearly four times the average paid by suppliers for standard power wheelchairs in the first half of 2007. It’s ridiculous that the government pays more for wheelchairs than any consumer who does basic comparison shopping on-line. Apparently sticker shock doesn’t seem to apply to Uncle Sam.
In these tough times when Americans are making every penny count, it’s infuriating to find that Medicare continues to throw money out the window.
As a long-standing member of the Senate Finance Committee, which bears legislative and oversight jurisdiction for Medicare, I have worked tirelessly to clean up Medicare’s money pit. My crusade against government waste started more than two decades ago with outrageous misspending at the Pentagon. Building on a Civil-War era law used by President Abe Lincoln to target war profiteers who bilked the U.S. Treasury, in 1986, I secured updates to the False Claims Act to empower whistleblowers to report wrongdoing.
The Justice Department reported that last fiscal year, the federal Treasury reclaimed $1.34 billion in settlements and judgments under the False Claims Act. Of that $1.34 billion, $1.12 billion was the result of health care cases alone.
Private citizens who report wrongdoing are oftentimes the taxpayers’ best line of defense against fraud and wasteful spending. The whistleblower protection amendments I steered through Congress almost 25 years ago give ordinary citizens an incentive and protections to blow the whistle when they witness wrongdoing. It takes courage to step forward with information that could alienate someone in the workplace and put one’s livelihood in jeopardy.
The U.S. Justice Department refers to my bipartisan law as the federal government’s primary anti-fraud weapon, tallying more than $21 billion in recovered tax dollars since 1986.
With tens of millions of claims being processed by Medicare every year, it’s not surprising wrongdoers set their sights on it to line their own pockets. As a guardian for hard-working taxpayers, however, I make it my job to make it harder for scam artists to rip-off Medicare. That’s why I’m working to strengthen my whistleblower amendments from being watered down through the courts and to encourage the U.S. Justice Department to aggressively investigate and prosecute legitimate claims of fraud, waste and abuse shared by whistleblowers.
As Washington debates a massive overhaul of the nation’s health care system, let’s not overlook the grim track record taking place right under our noses with the nation’s public health care entitlement for senior citizens. While Medicare is widely popular with its beneficiaries, audit after audit reveals the federal government’s incompetence with tax dollars. Lawmakers may not find it easy to agree on how to fix the shortcomings of the U.S. health care system. But let's hope all 535 members of Congress would agree how absurd it would be to roll down the windows and drive down the Interstate with $1,000 cash on the dashboard.
From my leadership position in the U.S. Senate, I’ll continue to champion whistleblowers who fight fraud and work to put the brakes on misspent Medicare dollars.