Making bad government a little better

For proponents of a more responsible government, this week offered both good and bad news. The good news: on Wednesday, a Detroit Free Press article noted that since 2007 “Medicare fraud task forces operating in Detroit and eight U.S. cities with high rates of health care fraud have charged 1,300 defendants with more than $4 billion in false claims.”
From the article:

Federal officials said today’s arrests should serve as a warning that the strike forces are watching the health care industry very closely.
“We want providers to know that we are scrutinizing billing records to root out fraud,” U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade said in announcing today’s arrests.

Unfortunately, the bad news: in addition to Erika’s post on Monday regarding $14 billion in fraud by unemployment benefit recipients, on Tuesday the Washington Post reported that companies contracted to prevent Medicare fraud have a high rate of conflicts of interest:

Firms that are paid tens of millions of dollars to root out Medicare fraud are bidding on contracts to investigate companies they are doing business with — sometimes their own parent companies, according to a government report released Tuesday.
Two-thirds of the companies that bid on contracts during a nearly year-and-a-half time period beginning in October of 2010 had financial ties to claims processors — and in some cases also processed Medicare claims themselves, according to the study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ inspector-general. The report blames what it calls a flawed bidding system and an inadequate conflict-of-interest policy.
The study looked into bids from about 100 potential contractors and subcontractors and found nearly 2,000 relationships that posed potential conflicts. For example, one company submitted a bid to investigate Medicare fraud even though its parent company provided two types of Medicare coverage in all 50 states.

Read more: http://hotair.com/archives/2012/07/13/trying-to-spend-our-tax-dollars-better/