Clinton proposes onslaught on Medicare fraud

PASADENA, California (Reuters) -- President Clinton proposed two new tools to fight Medicare fraud Saturday and called on Congress to invest in them.

"Medicare fraud and waste are more than an abuse of the system. They're an abuse of the taxpayer," Clinton said in his weekly radio address, which was taped in Pasadena. "By overbilling, charging for phony procedures and selling substandard supplies, Medicare cheats cost taxpayers hundreds of millions a year."

To combat this, Clinton said, his proposed budget for fiscal 2001 will fund "a team of Medicare fraud fighters, one in the office of every Medicare contractor in America," and pay for new technologies to track false claims.

"I urge Congress to make these investments and to give Medicare the authority to bid competitively for contractors who administer the program, as well as for services provided directly to beneficiaries," Clinton said.

Clinton offered a progress report on the fight against fraud in Medicare, the government's program to provide health care to elderly Americans.

He said that in 1999 the U.S. government recovered nearly half a billion dollars in fines and settlements and returned three-quarters of that to Medicare.

Some $5.3 billion in inappropriate payments were also avoided last year, he said.

Convictions of health-care fraud rose by one-fifth for an increase of more than 410 percent since Clinton took office in 1993, he said.

He gave an example from the past week, when federal prosecutors won a nearly half-billion-dollar settlement from a health care company that had been "bilking Medicare by sending patients for needless tests and procedures" and providing kickbacks like yacht trips and lavish dinners to health-care providers if they ordered the tests.

-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), January 24, 2000

Answers

I am missing something? I fail to see the connection to y2k, oil or a recession here. Sorry Hawk, just asking for clarification.

-- JoseMiami (caris@prodigy.net), January 24, 2000.

Uh-oh, the shoes on the other foot now, eh Jose?

Actually, I'm getting bored with hearing speculation about Russians and Chinese and Hitler and facism. I like to hear some good news once in a while too, don't you? :-)

-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), January 24, 2000.

Oh... if your thought was to post some good news.. go for it! I applaud you.

-- JoseMiami (caris@prodigy.net), January 24, 2000.