Date: 2003-11-04
Speaker: GINNY BROWN-WAITE (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Flor

ida. Mr. Speaker. as a member of the Washington Waste Watchers and of this body. I feel it is my duty to bring to the publics attcntion instances of fraud. waste. and abuse. Such actions of fraud. waste. and abuse not only steal from the taxpayers. but also from the beneficiaries very much in need of the benefits. A perfect example of fraud. waste. and abuse is actually occurring right now in my district. In July. after 10 years of service. the Department of Labor decided not to award the contract for senior employment to the group called Experience Works. It is a notforprofit organization that has been working extremely well with seniors. The Department instead decided to award the contract to the American Association of Retired Persons or AARP. One might think this might be okay. The transition that I have seen for my seniors going from Experience Works to AARP has been deplorable. At least ten of my constituents call my offices every day with complaints of verbal abuse. Imagine that. AARP abusing seniors. Some have left meetings with AARP in tears. I can only imagine how any Member in here would feel if they received calls from senior constituents claiming that AARP is abusing them. What happened is AARP has instituted new policies that seniors in my area are simply not used to. They have decided that they are going to shuffle these senior employees. who. by the way. are earning $5.15 an hour: from job to jobevery 6 months. without exception. and many times without any warning. Today they are working for agency X. Monday they may be working for agency Y. It seems to me as if we did not learn from the shuffle game that we played with foster children. Nobody is nourished and nobody grows when we have a shuffling process where there is no continuity. And. by the way. it is not just the seniors that I am hearing from. Many host agencies in the district are having problems as well. One of the agencies recently said that they have "had it with AARP." A gerontologist contacted me who has been working with seniors. and he said that he actually witnessed this verbal abuse of seniors by an AARP staff member. AARP is "looking into it." I am sorry. but that is not enough. There is not any reason why anyone should tolerate any employee who verbally abuses seniors. I have also been working with the Department of Labor. AARP is not doing this out of the kindness of their heart. They receive $75 million for operation of the SCSEP employment program in 27 States and in Puerto Rico. By the way. that is up from the $52 million they received last year. In the 10 years that I served as a Florida Senator and worked with Experience Works seniors. I never had one single complaint from my constituents. nor did I ever hear of any complaints from the time that I was elected. If AARP cannot spend taxpayer dollars that they receive helping seniors and working with the host agencies. I can think of a number of groups that certainly can accomplish this goal. In addition to this case I cited in my district. I was also dismayed to learn that there was another Medicaid scandal happening in South Florida. Between 1999 and 2000. Medicaid actually paid roughly $2 million to dead beneffciaries. Most of these funds were distributed despite the fact that the departments database had the dates of the deaths already logged in. Simple fact. we have some fraudulent providers out there who are trying to bilk the system. Another example of the waste. obviously. is the $600.000 that we are spending this year to have a blimp fly at sporting events to promote Medicare. I do not know of one senior out there who is not very familiar with Medicare. When we look at all these expenditures. I know of lots of veterans back home who could suggest a lot better way to spend that taxpayer money. Waste. fraud. and abuse throughout the Federal agencies Is. obviously. decades old. and Republicans led by the gentleman from Iowa . chairman of the Committee on the Budget. and President Bush are working to aliminate the culture of waste that exists at the Federal Government. As a Republican. I will work to reduce wasteful spending in the government and to protect everyones tax dollars.