Date: 2005-04-05
Speaker: GINNY BROWN-WAITE (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Flor

ida. Mr. Speaker. I thank my colleague from Pennsylvania. You know. for most seniors Medicare is their only form of health care. Congress must make absolutely certain that not one penny of it is wasted and not one. penny is given to those who only want to defraud the system. When Members of Congress voted for the Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement and Modernization Act last year. we voted in favor of important measures to combat waste. fraud. and abuse. Under the MMA. which I know that the gentleman from Pennsylvania supported. the HHS Secretary was directed to conduct a demonstration of recovery audit contractors in at least two States for 3 years to identify under- or overpayments. This demonstration project allows HHS to identify more efficient ways of working with States on Medicare waste. The MMA also opened the durable medical equipment industry to competitive bidding. And why did we do that? To ensure that Medicare. that our taxpayers. get the best prices on equipment that patients use. Additionally. the MMA ended overreimbursements for prescriptions and administering costs by replacing the average wholesale price system with a more accurate and verifiable average sales price system. More importantly. for those of us who worked in favor of the Medicare Modernization Act. we voted in favor of making health care fraud a crime. a serious crime. We voted in favor of punishing those who defraud this precious program. Instead of just slapping them on the wrist. there will be serious penalties. These criminals are defrauding our most vulnerable and our elderly seniors. and they should be very strictly punished. These measures were very important steps. but more are still needed. The most conservative estimates suggest that waste. fraud. and abuse in the Medicare system is somewhere around $33 billion a year. That is billion with a "B." Scam artists. however. are using innovative and cunning ways to con Medicare every year. Many use computers to scour the Internet to find holes in Medicare and Medicaid payout systems. The scam artists register also as providers and then file a slew of claims through the payment system to determine which claims would be automatically approved by Medicare and Medicaid computers. Once these claims are determined. the cons just sit back and they wait for the payments.. Others set up fake medical storefronts. In one case. actually in my home State of Florida. a "provider office" was found to be nothing more than a couple of post office boxes. cell phone. and a beeper. The owner vanished when he caught on that Medicare officials were onto him. but not before he collected $2.1 million in payments. They are still looking for him. Today the Heritage Foundation released their study about waste in various Federal agencies. and guess what? They pointed to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid. CMS. because of their paying excessive prices for medical supplies and care. They pointed out that in so many instances they paid thousands. not just hundreds of times but thousands of a percent. more than what the VA pays for the very. very same service. And my colleagues. I am sure. saw this in todays Congress Daily. There is a story in here about how the new chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations is settling in. and that the staff director of that committee is mandating that they go after agencies. And he said. "The first rule is: There arent any good government programs anyplace. They are chockfull of fraud. waste and abuse. frittering away millions in appropriated funds. Believe it. focus on it. find it and report on it." Obviously. Congress is getting very serious about waste. fraud and abuse in our system. and every Member of this body. I am sure. are very. very grateful for it. Protecting Medicare against predators should be a bipartisan issue. The last time I checked. there were no Rs or Ds in the word "solution." Guaranteeing the solvency of Medicare has to be a priority of Congress. and we have to begin by ensuring that every penny going to Medicare is being spent on legitimate Medicare benefits. If both sides of the aisle do not work together to protect Medicare. the legacy of this program diminishes with every penny that is lost. I look forward to working with the gentleman from Pennsylvania and the other Members of Congress who are serious about making sure that the Medicare system is a sound system and one that provides necessary health care for our most vulnerable. our seniors.