The following is an excerpt from an article by Sally Pipes, Founder & Chair of the Benjamin Rush Institute, published in the Washington Examiner. Click here to read the full article in your browser.
Federal prosecutors recently announced that they’d charged 455 defendants in connection with more than $6.5 billion in alleged fraud involving Medicare, Medicaid, and other public healthcare programs.
The news serves as a vivid reminder of just how much taxpayer money can disappear when oversight falls short.
According to the Justice Department, the defendants include 90 doctors and other licensed medical professionals. Prosecutors also announced the largest Medicaid fraud operation in the department’s history, charging 295 defendants with submitting false claims totaling $518 million.
Some of the alleged misconduct was breathtaking. One case involves a transnational criminal organization accused of submitting more than $3.7 billion in fraudulent Medicare claims for durable medical equipment that beneficiaries neither requested nor needed. Another alleges that several executives and healthcare providers billed Medicare more than $4 billion for expensive wound care products while paying illegal kickbacks to fuel the operation.
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