Remind me again why we want more Medicaid
Published June 20, 2014
by Mitch Kokai, John Locke Foundation, June 20, 2014.
Elizabeth Harrington of the Washington Free Beacon details some disturbing Medicaid news.
The federal government paid out $14.4 billion in fraudulent reimbursements through Medicaid last year, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R., Utah) highlighted a recent GAO report on the lack of oversight within Medicaid’s managed care organizations (MCOs) delivery system, which accounts for roughly $4 billion in waste each year.
“Today’s report is particularly troubling given Obamacare expands this broken program without substantial reforms to protect patients and taxpayers,” Hatch said in a statement Wednesday. “CMS is responsible for safeguarding the billions of dollars it receives from hard-working American taxpayers, and I strongly urge [CMS] Administrator [Marilyn] Tavenner to implement the changes recommended by GAO to improve CMS oversight of MCO payments.”
“This report underscores the need for Medicaid reform in order to ensure that scarce tax dollars are used properly,” he said. …
… The GAO warned that the problem would worsen under Obamacare, which has expanded Medicaid programs in many states.
“Improving federal and state efforts to strengthen Medicaid managed care program integrity takes on greater urgency as states that choose to expand their Medicaid programs under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act are likely to do so with managed care arrangements, and will receive a 100 percent federal match for newly eligible individuals from 2014 through 2016,” the report said.
“Unless CMS takes a larger role in holding states accountable, and provides guidance and support to states to ensure adequate program integrity efforts in Medicaid managed care, the gap between state and federal efforts to monitor managed care program integrity will leave a growing portion of federal Medicaid dollars vulnerable to improper payments,” it said.
It’s a good thing North Carolina officials want to reform the state’s Medicaid program, rather than throw more money at it.
June 20, 2014 at 10:46 am
Norm Kelly says:
Couple thoughts.
First, it does not matter if there is fraud & waste in the Medicaid reimbursement program around the country. It's federal dollars. Everyone knows federal dollars are either fake money that don't count or it grows on trees and they will simply pick more.
Second, since the feds have promised to reimburse states 100% of the cost to add socialized medicine beneficiaries to the medicaid scheme (commonly called Obamascare) it doesn't matter if the states waste money on the program. The feds will pay for it and it therefore won't cost the taxpayers of the state ANY money at all.
Third, none of this matters. The ONLY thing that matters is that people who don't want to or can't afford their own health insurance will be able to get their insurance through the central planners. The ONLY thing that matters in a socialist state is how well the government agencies are funded. Just ask someone like our very own K what the priorities are. None of her answer will include eliminating fraud, being honest with citizens, being honest with taxpayer dollars, being fiscally responsible. All of her answers, and any other socialist who supports Obamacancer, will have something to do with 'rights', 'fairness', 'equality' or some stupidness about being 'for the children'.
The FACT that socialized medicine has failed EVERYWHERE in the world that it has ever been tried is irrelevant. Socialists on our country believe that the wrong people were in charge of those programs. Our socialists are smarter than those in other countries. Our socialists WILL BE able to properly manage socialized medicine; it will be a success in the US because the RIGHT people will be managing it. The scheme will ALWAYS be within budget, and will NEVER be allowed to cause the country to go bankrupt. It doesn't matter that the central planners will very quickly find themselves incapable of meeting the promise to reimburse the states at either 100% or 90%. They will still consider the scheme a success.
Socialism fails every time, everywhere that it is tried. Socialism has it's own failure built into it. It does not matter how intelligent the central planners are; it does not matter that our socialists went to better schools than other country's socialists did. What matters is that socialism can not succeed.
Why you ask? Because the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money to spend. Eventually the payers get tired of paying for the takers. Eventually the number of takers overwhelms the number of payers. The system crashes. Do our socialists know this? Yes, cuz it's a fact. As much as our socialists attempt to avoid/ignore facts, they still exist and are true. Since our socialists don't like the free enterprise system, believe the free enterprise system is unfair, they desire for it to fail. The only way to get it to fail is for the central planners to interfere with it sufficiently so the majority of citizens request the central planners to do a full take-over. The request will come from the citizens. Not the payers, mind you. But from the majority who at the time will be the takers.
Who is John Galt?
