A federal strike force has charged 91 people, including a hospital president, doctors and nurses, with Medicare fraud schemes in seven cities involving $429 million in false billings.
At a news conference Thursday, Attorney General Eric Holder said the case reveals an alarming trend in criminal efforts to steal billions of taxpayer dollars for personal gain. Holder called the action one of the largest such law enforcement efforts of its kind.
This isn’t the first time, and it won’t be the last…….unfortunately.
But the President said that Medicare was more efficient than the private sector. I wish I were at the next town meeting.
A huge part of medical costs is the cost of medical research, and until ways can be found to drastically slash those costs while at the same time saving us all a lot of money, the cost of medical coverage will remain high and out of reach for everyone except the rich. In the meantime, those medical professionals who take advantage of all of us by stealing, as these 91 have done, should lose their licenses and be sent to prison for what they’ve done.
I have an article from over 20 years ago that estimated the fraud total then at $100 billion. That would be about $400 B today. and with Obamacare and the Bush pharma bill, the total should be going even higher.