Paying the Dead

My experience with Medicare has been great. But, then, the doctors I see are alive and, I believe, pay their taxes. The issue of Medicare providers not paying taxes came up last month. This month it's Medicare paying dead doctors. I should say people using the ids of dead doctors in order to steal our money.

This week the Senate held a hearing on the problem of false claims being paid by Medicare. It seems that between 2000 and 2007 about 18,000 dead doctors filed 478,500 claims for such items as wheelchairs, canes, drugs, etc. Medicare paid the departed at least $92,800,000 of our money.

The real gotcha in this comedy is that this paying false claims is not new. The same thing happened in 1999 when $91,000,000 was paid out.

Now, however, the problem will be solved. And, then there's this bridge I'm selling.